Mac on a windows network .. and a spanner in the works!

[detjo]

We need to buy new computers for the old ones about to expire (which is pretty much all of them in school).

I suggested getting Mac mini and dual booting with Windows, for a number of reasons - but in short .. they are small, powerful enough for school and can give us the option to offer kids OSX with music/art programs etc. All was well ... until yesterday!

 

Suddenly, a spanner has been thrown in by an outside technician that is known to the school, that things are not running well with their Macs and 'we wish we hadnt bothered. Dont go down this route, as its a PITA!'

One of the issues he raised was kids having problems accessing network/home drives from the Macs, but I think in general he wasn't keen on the whole thing.

 

I'm new to Macs but willing to learn and include them in our network if it works and can offer the kids something extra. But now i'm being asked "Does it work? Is this what we want?"

For you guys that have some experience with Macs at school, is your first response to this spanner in the works

 

1. "The guy doesn't know what he's doing and it's great" or

2. "They do work in a school, but it's clunky" ??

 

For a primary school starting out on this route, what would you recommend?

[synaesthesia]

They do work in a school, but it's clunky fits rather well.

Personally I'd question their suitability in a primary; I'm very keen on the idea of people being given exposure to different systems however at a primary level I think that may detract from ICT experience rather than add. Would the kids actually be doing anything music/art wise that would *really* benefit from them? Secondary level, if the funds are there I believe it's a dead-cert that they should have such exposure to industry standard kit. Garageband isn't bad for primary level but perhaps then it'd be better off on an iPad rather than a Mac.

 

Actually getting the deed done though, get enough information from enough people and you'll survive. There are a few foibles to learn along the way (I can't be of much help as I'm personally learning 3rd hand as I type this) and training involved which will be an added cost.

[evil-tom]

I support 50% Macs, perfectly happily (well apart from the cost and the extra workload they place on me). However for school use, I'd still recommend PCs. Most of the software staff and students need is PC based, and support is easier to obtain.

[Roberto]

We need to buy new computers for the old ones about to expire (which is pretty much all of them in school).

I suggested getting Mac mini and dual booting with Windows, for a number of reasons - but in short .. they are small, powerful enough for school and can give us the option to offer kids OSX with music/art programs etc. All was well ... until yesterday!

 

Suddenly, a spanner has been thrown in by an outside technician that is known to the school, that things are not running well with their Macs and 'we wish we hadnt bothered. Dont go down this route, as its a PITA!'

One of the issues he raised was kids having problems accessing network/home drives from the Macs, but I think in general he wasn't keen on the whole thing.

 

I'm new to Macs but willing to learn and include them in our network if it works and can offer the kids something extra. But now i'm being asked "Does it work? Is this what we want?"

For you guys that have some experience with Macs at school, is your first response to this spanner in the works

 

1. "The guy doesn't know what he's doing and it's great" or

2. "They do work in a school, but it's clunky" ??

 

For a primary school starting out on this route, what would you recommend?

 

I work in the college sector rather than a primary so I'm not really qualified to comment on how suitable macs are for your place in general.

 

As for the technician - were these macs sprung on him at the last moment by some idiot who gets easily mesmerised by shiny things, and were they told to make them work with no training? I any of us would be annoyed and discouraged if that's what happened.

 

Macs can integrate into AD and it will take a bit of extra work and yes, training, for them to be supported effectively. I'm a big fan of mac/apple gear on a personal level myself and even with already being used to it from a home perspective it was quite a bit of work to integrate them into our network... any discussion of how well they will fit in with your organisation needs to take that into account... there's a cost to integrating anything out of the norm into your system that needs to be recognised by all the people involved in the decision... and if the things they're being pushed for can be achieved using your normal PC setup then I'd want to make sure somebody was taking a long hard look at why the normal systems were not being considered.

[betty02]

Were a full mac school get yourself down here and have a look! Works perfectly!

 

115iMacs

74 MacBook Airs

50+ Apple TV's

500+ iPads

500+ MacBook Pro's!

[detjo]

ah .. and where is 'here' ?

[Quackers]

Were a full mac school get yourself down here and have a look! Works perfectly!

 

115iMacs

74 MacBook Airs

50+ Apple TV's

500+ iPads

500+ MacBook Pro's!

 

Thats about £1,000,000 worth of kit without VAT, where they hell did you get that money???

Edited October 24, 2013 by Quackers

[betty02]

Highfield Humanities College - Blackpool, lancashire - If your not too far away!

[betty02]

I value my body highly. So I get top money when it's sold.

 

All serious-ness we had a brand new school built, sort of still managed to get BSF Funding, in the cancellation period. Hard to explain! We was lucky put it that way

[detjo]

Highfield Humanities College - Blackpool, lancashire - If your not too far away!

Thanks for the offer. I'm about 230 miles away. (I better go talk to the boss)

[lmgtfy]

Thats about £1,000,000 worth of kit without VAT, where they hell did you get that money???

 

Wow it never ceases to amaze me the amount of money some schools can spend (arguably over spend at the tax payers expense) on ICT, p.s yes I am jealous nonetheless

[betty02]

Thanks for the offer. I'm about 230 miles away. (I better go talk to the boss)

 

No problem, pop down during half term if you wish, my Boss will be in all throughout!

 

Wow it never ceases to amaze me the amount of money some schools can spend (arguably over spend at the tax payers expense) on ICT, p.s yes I am jealous nonetheless

 

Money well spent in my eyes, yes this causes us to face issues, but we are in the process of ordering an additional 1000 iPads to go 1:1 device, this will remove 60% off our problems I;d say! We have the iPads in class use now but obviously there pretty pointless to hand work in as they will be used by various pupils and last thing we want is someone leaving something logged in etc!

[synaesthesia]

Sometimes I really question our governments motives when throwing money to schools to spend in that way. (No offence to the school(s) of course). In the days of financial difficulty, and when money could be spent far better elsewhere...

(Don't discuss this in this thread though, PM me if you want a pop! )

 

** edit - big thumbs up to @betty02 for doing just that

Edited October 25, 2013 by synaesthesia

[rdk]

One advantage now with macs is that every computer will have the latest operating system and the latest version of the applications, with no ongoing licensing costs after the machines have been bought. We have 500 + MacBook Pros for staff and students and everyone will have the latest OS and apps regardless of whether the machines were bought three years ago or our next 150 that will be bought in January. As for student software, we have found that the kids operate perfectly fine without Office (staff still have Office) using Pages, Keynote etc. There is an "industry standard" argument, but we're not particularly interested in teaching kids software, we're interested in the work they produce. Who cares if its Pages or Word the essay is written on? And if a kid can use Pages I'm pretty sure they could pick up anything they'd need in Word in a very short time if going for a job straight after school. The other direction works well - I'm sure anyone here experienced with Word could use Pages and produce more or less the same documents with basically no training and the use of help when stuck doing something complex. So we only give the kids iWork & iLife, and Adobe stuff if they need it for their subjects using our "site" licence. But Adobe is pricing themselves out of the education market anyway, in my view.

[lmgtfy]

One advantage now with macs is that every computer will have the latest operating system and the latest version of the applications, with no ongoing licensing costs after the machines have been bought. We have 500 + MacBook Pros for staff and students and everyone will have the latest OS and apps regardless of whether the machines were bought three years ago or our next 150 that will be bought in January. As for student software, we have found that the kids operate perfectly fine without Office (staff still have Office) using Pages, Keynote etc. There is an "industry standard" argument, but we're not particularly interested in teaching kids software, we're interested in the work they produce. Who cares if its Pages or Word the essay is written on? And if a kid can use Pages I'm pretty sure they could pick up anything they'd need in Word in a very short time if going for a job straight after school. The other direction works well - I'm sure anyone here experienced with Word could use Pages and produce more or less the same documents with basically no training and the use of help when stuck doing something complex. So we only give the kids iWork & iLife, and Adobe stuff if they need it for their subjects using our "site" licence. But Adobe is pricing themselves out of the education market anyway, in my view.

 

I don't want to start the whole Mac vs PC war but I do think the price angle is still important. With the Mac cost structure your paying for the on-going free software in the price of the hardware. For example the MacBook pro is £800 ex vat where we have bought similar specification laptops for staff this year at £400 ex vat. They come with the latest version of Windows and then we have a Microsoft agreement to install Office or upgrade windows along with other software etc. If your buying 500 laptops multiple by £400 cost saving with a Windows laptop £200000 most schools Microsoft EES is going to be less than £20000 so that's 10 years of Microsoft licencing you have for the costs saved. Unless your hardware is going to last more than 10 years is it really cheaper?

[lmgtfy]

Plus I just remembered the whole if you have Microsoft EES all your students get free Office which should also add some weight in the cost debate

[betty02]

I can see a can of worms being opened here! Anyway were welcome to visitors anytime just let me know!

[eean]

Personally I'd question their suitability in a primary

 

I don't.

 

I think the dual boot PC/Mac is perfect for Primary. There are some simple boot loaders out there that present a nice option screen rather than having to press option to select.

Applications like GarageBand and iMovie are unrivalled: They allow teaching of some high level concepts, using proper 'grown up' software, without complexity associated with many PC alternatives. I'm yet to experience easy, crash free, video editing on windows

 

All too often, ICT is taught as a 'you copy me' model. Having dual boot allows a teacher to teach a concept (e.g. effective presentation layout) and, allow children to practise this, and then learn the 'figuring out' skills applying this to another app or OS. These are the skills that basically differentiate people 'who are good at computers' from those who aren't.

 

We've all met 'mac fanboys' who detest touching a PC and 'windows geeks' who love to point out every fault with Mac - both frustrated because their brains can't cope with more than one set of keyboard shortcuts. I don't want my students to become either of those.

I'm not saying it's cheap or easy or will happen quickly; however, after having dual boot for 4 years it's great to see year 6ers choosing the most appropriate platform and software for the job.

 

As for setup: keep it simple. If the thought of setting up the mac server-ad golden triangle gives you the willies, just mount a network share to the server and avoid network logins all together. Many primary's function on that basis with pcs perfectly fine. Getting a Mac server will be better in the long run, but not essential.

[betty02]

In my eyes if your going to dual boot a mac then you may as well get a better spec PC for cheaper. This is obviously my personal opinion but to get a mac you have to use it for what it's designed for and with the software that it came with.