What to do with older workstations..

[Little-Miss]

I need help making a decision...or at least some ideas...

So i've set up my lovely network of doom! Lots of nice up to date images for there classroom computers except some of the classrooms are still holding on to these mahussive, ugly, Tiny (hahaha) machines. CRT and everything!

Ok, they're P4 and can cope with some gentle network use....but i really dont wanna make them an image too cus there isnt really that many of them...

I suppose i could use them as local machines.....but they seem to like to use Wordshark a lot on them...

basically i dont really want them in the school, plus we've just got a trolley of netbooks, but if the teachers are finding them useful i can really get rid of them....

what to do, what to do.....

[maniac]

We've just purged a lot of our old machines, so there's going to be areas of our school which formerly had desktops which will no longer have them, and the staff don't know that yet. They were grossly under used and just sat there gathering dust most of the time.

If they insist on wanting to keep hold of the older machines, providing it's not adding too much to your workload, then I'd let them be on the understanding that if/when they go wrong you won't be wasting your time fixing them and they will be going in the bin. Most staff members will understand this approach and take to it fairly well.

Mike.

[FN-GM]

We offer them to other schools in the area and if there are no takers they go in the skip

[Little-Miss]

Oh yes, skip is definately an option...

just wondering if there was a compromise....they've got winsuite on them which is thankfully long gone...so that would probably have to go...

[dhicks]

just wondering if there was a compromise...

Get hold of some second-hand flat screens (£30 each?), make sure they have 512MB of RAM, they'll probably run either Windows XP or Ubuntu just fine. If not, use them as thin client / web browser only workstations.

--
David Hicks

[MatthewL]

Keep hold of them incase you ever have a machine go down and then you can quickly swap it out to leave something there whilist you fix the faulty machine. Just an idea.

[SYSMAN_MK]

A little off topic but I doubt you'd be able to give them to another school beacause as the name stands for - Tough It's Now Yours

[powdarrmonkey]

Skip? you know about the WEEE directives, don't you? just checking

Ours go to a charity in Salford who pick them up and distribute them appropriately, sometimes to rural schools here and sometimes other countries (Africa this year, I believe).

[grumpy_git]

We decided a while ago to offer some old machines to staff without one in their office - on the understanding that they knew they were old and not very much use. A few teachers took the offer up, and they were duly installed. One teacher happy, and just uses it to do word processing or email.

Of course, teacher then leaves and replacement rings up wondering why he can't do all sorts of fancy stuff with it .

(One of those sort who joins the school and, hell, even before the end of his first day has given us a huge list of what he wants done yesterday).

[DrPerceptron]

We sent a huge volume to a recycling centre somewhere in the south west (didn't concern myself with the details... because we filled half-filled a "walk-in" (20ft?) skip!)

Find a use for them all in the school, ask people if they want them, people will appreciate the choice they have, make it DEAD clear from day 1 about what they can and cannot do.

Any leftovers... offer them to staff, students, friends of staff etc as PC's they can take and keep - get a record of what they took/bought so that it's all signed off properly etc...

You might find that your school know about some students who would greatly benefit from a free PC and they will quite possibly, duly take them off your hands.

Lots of choices... :-)

[Little-Miss]

your avatar make me sad...

[mossj]

you could,

Use them as display machines to power a projector or public display..

[PEO]

How many do you have... make a Domino Rally... would be a great video for YouTube

[DrPerceptron]

My avatar is the source of distress and plenty of controversy in the past... but I have no better alternative :P

You could, for a giggle, create a highly-accurate weather monitoring system and display the results on the school website... (I'm half tempted by this idea)

[witch]

Keep a couple for swapping out and then contact one of the many companies who will take them, and the lovely CRTs away for nothing - if they are pretty old then I wouldn't try and do a lot with them - I often feel that it is a waste but as long as they are going to a good home...
Are you in contact with the senior school at the top of your pyramid by the way?
Always worth getting in with them - mine has just given me a load of flatscreens as they are upgrading from 15in (we've only just got 15in throughout most of the school!!)
I have also had better kit than we have got from a contact on Edugeek! This means that I can hold reasonable spec spares and get rid of my old stuff with no qualms.
BTW - it was me that was upset by DrPerceptron's avatar - it used to be worse when it was animated (no, no PLEASE don't demonstrate ). He was kind enough to modify it and now I just pretend that the rabbit is crying with happiness.
Yes, I am very sad.....