Are laptops the bane of your life too?

[Bev]

We replaced ours with ChromeBooks as we use Google Docs extensively in school anyway. The idea was that they would be quicker to get up and running but the kids still have to login, and the staff still complain they are too slow. (They are much faster than laptops, provided the kids can remember their passwords).

 

In an ideal world, I would have the chromebooks in Guest Mode, so they can be used without logging in, much like an iPad. But you can't use Guest Mode with a proxy, so we are stuck with them having to login.

[psydii]

We replaced ours with ChromeBooks as we use Google Docs extensively in school anyway. The idea was that they would be quicker to get up and running but the kids still have to login, and the staff still complain they are too slow. (They are much faster than laptops, provided the kids can remember their passwords).

 

In an ideal world, I would have the chromebooks in Guest Mode, so they can be used without logging in, much like an iPad. But you can't use Guest Mode with a proxy, so we are stuck with them having to login.

 

Are the students loging in/out each lesson, or do you have a 1:1 programme?

[Bev]

They log in and out, we just have 1 class set.

 

I've just seen they have released a new public session mode which may help. I will need to experiment with that.

[psydii]

If you are logging in/out every lesson, on balance I don't really see Chromebooks have much of an advantage over Windows (when taken in the context of desired legacy behaviours and legacy apps) with Mandatory profiles.

 

If you are legacy free, then perhaps they still are better, but their strength is 1:1

[Gibson335]

In use laptops are fine, but it's all the other stuff. Every month I set up our stations to automatically come on over the weekend following WSUS pushouts and then to shut down again, but of course laptops in trolleys...forget it. Likewise, if we want to reimage a station, we can do all that on a schedule overnight, but not those pesky laptops...screen damage, laptops not charged due to not being connected back in the trolley correctly, patch cables damaged, etc...give me a good old fashioned station any day.

[pcstru]

We have several hundred laptops in trollies in addition to 150+ staff laptops. I'm extremely reluctant to increase the number in use in classes and am actively looking to reduce it!

[Bev]

If you are logging in/out every lesson, on balance I don't really see Chromebooks have much of an advantage over Windows (when taken in the context of desired legacy behaviours and legacy apps) with Mandatory profiles.

 

If you are legacy free, then perhaps they still are better, but their strength is 1:1

 

I think the Chromebooks are great. We do have a few issues with forgotten passwords, but that was much worse with the laptops. However, apart from that I don't ever have to think about them. They don't need updates, no software to install, we don't use any Apps on them as the apps are all basically links to websites, so we just use them as a browser. They can be used for My Maths and Education City which the iPads won't do, we can log into Google Docs and write on them which isn't easy on an iPad. The battery life is very good, they get charged for 4 hours overnight and they last all day on that. Provided someone has remembered to plug them in!

[mikes]

it's wireless that sucks. I used an N laptop right next to an N router and it was still terrible - slow, converting videos over a file share was impossible as one little dropout would stop the conversion and you would have to start again, it just isn't suitable for serious work. Our pupils do a lot of MoviePlus etc on laptops and we have them ethernetted in (we had to disable the NIC as even with a network cable plugged in, Windows will still use the wireless adapter over the NIC - it seems it uses whichever one comes up latest - yet another thing Microsoft didn't fully think through...

I am still holding out hope for AC or WiMax or whatever the latest one will be. I have heard great things about 4G but of course there are mobile phone charges and I don't trust mobile phone provders at all

[Joanne]

it's wireless that sucks. I used an N laptop right next to an N router and it was still terrible - slow, converting videos over a file share was impossible as one little dropout would stop the conversion and you would have to start again, it just isn't suitable for serious work. Our pupils do a lot of MoviePlus etc on laptops and we have them ethernetted in (we had to disable the NIC as even with a network cable plugged in, Windows will still use the wireless adapter over the NIC - it seems it uses whichever one comes up latest - yet another thing Microsoft didn't fully think through...

I am still holding out hope for AC or WiMax or whatever the latest one will be. I have heard great things about 4G but of course there are mobile phone charges and I don't trust mobile phone provders at all

 

What wireless are you using? There should be no such issues with a proper managed wifi system.

[mikes]

We are using an Aruba distributed wireless N setup - it is controlled by our LEA so I can't do anything with it - I can't even locate a client like I could on our old Cisco setup. I think we have too few AP's perhaps? We have a wide open site and we have problems with mapped drives dropping out when staff walk from one room to another - only a reboot will bring the share back. Very annoying for staff who like to have all of their ppt's, websites etc open ready for their lessons.