Laptops For Teachers

[Pear]

I've been asked by a few teachers to get them a laptop as they do not have one. I was wondering if the laptops for teachers scheme is still in progress ?

 

I was also thinking about them being upgraded, is there a scheme for upgrades ? Because the original ones our teachers got are now painfully slow with hard drives almost zapped and batteries dead.

 

Also I've had the school chaplain and PE technician requesting one but I assume there is no scheme for them.

[steve]

Funding for laptops for teachers 2005-06 was devolved to schools as part of Standards Fund Grant 31a. (More on CIT funding here http://www.teachernet.gov.uk/wholeschool/ictis/funding/)

 

In other words your school is expected to buy them, the LEA won't supply them unless you buy them through a scheme they have set up.

 

The target for 2006 was 2/3 of staff with a laptop http://lft.ngfl.gov.uk/index.php?i=202

 

This was the last of the funding for laptops. All replacements / upgrades will have to come from the future dedicated schools grants.

[StewartKnight]

Laptops for teachers is still in place, even for PE teachers, as for the chaplain, well, God knows!!

 

Our LEA has a next day 3 year warantee on them, but guess what.... batteries not included!

 

There is no real scheme for upgrades, but tell the teachers to "back up" their files onto the network. Then zap the laptops with the recovery discs.

 

That should get rid of the porn/spyware/viruses!

[Ric_]

@Pear: I believe that all money is to be devolved to schools next year without the stipulations of these schemes.

 

You could just buy your laptops off 1st Technologies at Ribchester like I do - approx. £300 for a decent spec (only catch is that they aren't brand new). Tel Stuart on 01254 878800 - if Stu can't do it no-one can!

[mac_shinobi]

This is probably a dumb thought here so bare with me on this one lol. But if they do laptops for teachers how come they dont do laptops for support staff ?

 

I mean at least the support staff ( Not sure if support staff is the right terminology or wording or w/e but you get what I mean lol ) would know how to use them.

[wesleyw]

@ Ric_ what sort of warranty do you get though?

 

Wes

[tosca925]

Some of our Support Staff get them provided by the school.

 

Network Manager

Systems Manager

Bursar

Business Manager

Data Manager

Exams officer

ICT Technician

Learning Resources Manager

Learning Support Unit Manager & Assistant manager

All LSA's 21 of them

3 Learning mentors.

 

The support staff are looked after quite well here.

[Ric_]

@wesleyw: It depends on the stock he gets in... generally it is the remainder of the manufactures warranty or 6 months (depending on age) so you need to know what you are buying.

 

I know that it's a slight aside but if we take the HP LaserJet 4050tn printers that I buy a lot of. I pay under £150 for these and I know that these things will last forever. An equivalent new printer would be well over £300!

[john]

Gosh you lot are lucky!!!! Mine is one that was abused, the left click does not work well, and its floppy drive is a dud, and it had a dead battery, but it now has a new battery, but appart from that, its ours to use.

 

We just started getting laptops for teachers, so support staff are a long way off really

[Ric_]

@john: The one I was using up until Christmas was a tablet PC (without optical drive). It was a horrible Toshiba one and I found out how I had ended up with it after I finally tracked down a new pen - half the screen didn't accept pen pen input.

 

The art teacher that has it now seems to like it though - I suppose that most laptops are great compared to a Toshiba Satellite Brick (with a dead hard disk).

 

I'm now trying to source a new one - iBook looks the way forward

[john]

I want to try a tablet PC out actually, my current laptop at home is a HP Pavillion ZD7000 (the 17" screen model) nice for desk work, not good for portability, I use a Compaq Evo N115 at work, nice machine with an Athlon 4 CPU in it and 256Ram. If i was told to get a new laptop for all of us, I would get either a tablet (on a sale / return basis) or a HP Compaq NX6110 or NC6120, I have had a couple for staff and one for my sister of the 6120, and they are a cracking product, excellent value for money if you get the Top Config ones when they are the right ones on the right offer.

 

I am quite partial to a Tosh Laptop, had some good ones in the past, at my last place I got a LFT Laptop for 6 months as we got an extra one in Year 1, and could not decide who to allocate it to, so I said give it to me until you decide, and when they decided, the woman who got it, dropped it within 24hrs of getting it

[Ric_]

The expensive Tosh laptops are OK but I would have a NX-series HP over everything. The HP build quality is ecxellent!

[john]

Yeah, the sub £800 tosh kit is not good, but above that its great. The NX6110 and NC6120 are identical appart from the NC range has more sockets (IE 4 USB, parallel, infrared etc....) VS 2 USB and somthing else on the NX range. I must admit, I hate HP with a passion at times (in terms of build quality and support) but these laptops are certainly a cracking product, and I am recommending them to anybody who asks.

[Geoff]

I suppose that most laptops are great compared to a Toshiba Satellite Brick

 

Typing on one now. It ran Linux out of the box (well the LiveCD).

[Guest richard]

We have a mixture Viglen Dossier NS and LT laptops along with a few RM (which are the worst laptops that I have ever encountered.)

[pinemarten]

Can recommend the HP NX6110 - we have had 32 on 2 trolleys since Sept and they are no bother at all. Our other 2 trolley loads are Dell Latitude 100L celeron (with 12 cell NiMH battery !) and are good machines , but I think build quality is not as good as the HP's. (loose catches , keys & feet coming off etc).

We bought all teaching staff Dell D505's about 18 mths ago and they are cracking machines (maybe 'cos the kids don't get to mess with them lol! ))

[Sylv3r]

We love Toshiba here and roughly have 50 plus for our teaching staff. In the first year of the LfT scheme we had viglens and these are the worst machines we have ever enountered. Battery live on them was real poor.

[deanc]

We Have mostly toshibas, all teaching staff have them thanks to a pathfinder project a few years ago. some of the older ones are starting to fall over now, one word of advice dont buy RM, we have 4 that are about two years old and they all have problems with charging/motherboard faults and all of the screws have dropped out of two of them (dont ask me how!).