Lobby Computer

[Torrevez]

I have been asked to find a computer setup for our lobby.

Basically they want an all in one piece of furniture with a computer in it so the parents can use services such as parent pay and look up information on the school website in the lobby area. Has to be pretty much bullet-proof and stylish.

I went to an education ICT event at the Hilton in Manchester last year and saw a bit of kit there that would be perfect but can for the life of me remember the name of the company that made it. I remember it was about 7ft tall, had a metal keyboard and trackball set in a glass shelf at standing level, through the glass shelf you could see the actually motherboard ect. which was lit up blue.

If anyone can point me in the direction of getting a similar bit of kit that would be most helpful

Thanks
Daniel

[glennda]

We setup one here with something like this, then put a cuboard over the floorplate which housed the computer.

Personally i wouldn't spend much money on it as we had about 3 people use it while it was here.

[Torrevez]

Was looking for something that came in a more substantial piece of furniture really.

As to its usage its not really my problem its not coming out of my budget

[simpsonj]

The only thing I've found online recently was something like this: AllSee Technologies / Digital Signage Products

Not sure if that's what you're looking for, touchscreen rather than a trackball and it looks very expensive!

[john]

Sounds like you have seen the iDesk iCyber PC which they launched the other year at BETT.
i-cyber - idesk, the Worlds First Integrated PC Desk.

[Torrevez]

Thanks John that looks like the thing am talking about.

[glennda]

As mentioned above - in my experience of it parents rarely used the system we put in place so i wouldn't go too to much effort with it, we spend hours working out an easy way to restrict everything bar a browser for it to be removed 6 months down the line.

[Torrevez]

Cheers glennda I will try and get that message across when I go back to our office manager with it.

[FN-GM]

As mentioned above - in my experience of it parents rarely used the system we put in place so i wouldn't go too to much effort with it, we spend hours working out an easy way to restrict everything bar a browser for it to be removed 6 months down the line.

You should have just changed the shell to IE then IE and only IE will show. Easy and quick

[GrumbleDook]

If you have a search for 'interactive kiosks' and 'schools' you get a good range. There will also be a number of examples at BETT if you want to go down and do some real testing.

Personally, I have always liked the kit from Lapsafe Interactive Kiosks | CrystalKiosk but there are other good products around from folk like Elephant kiosks.