What hardware do teachers have access to at your school? (Secondary)

[SavedZelda]

Hi all,

 

I'm just conducting a tiny bit of research regarding classroom resources for teachers. At my secondary school each member of staff is given a laptop and every classroom has a projector, Interactive White Board with the necessary connections, speakers and a visualizer if they're lucky!

 

What IT hardware is given to teacher's at your school? I'm trying to come up with a sustainable model as we're seeing so many breakages with laptops and I'm wondering we need to go back to good ol' desktops in classrooms.

 

My HT has asked what other schools do, so I thought I'd ask the right community!

 

Thanks in advance guys.

[Andycat]

Spoiled here.

 

Laptop, no older than 4 years, and an ipad each, with desktop, Apple TV and projector in every room. PC runs through a USB dock that they could also use with their laptop if they chose.

 

70% have IWB or Touchscreen, rest have projector. All have an amp and speakers connected to everything, including the Apple TV.

[tj2419]

We are desktops in every room connected to a projector and the vast majority of rooms have smart boards (apart from DT rooms and the odd room where we haven't been able to afford to replace broken ones), all have speakers/amps.

 

Some departments like PE and Drama staff have iPads for taking registers.

 

ELT have laptops.

 

That's pretty much it.

[SavedZelda]

Spoiled here.

 

Laptop, no older than 4 years, and an ipad each, with desktop, Apple TV and projector in every room. PC runs through a USB dock that they could also use with their laptop if they chose.

 

70% have IWB or Touchscreen, rest have projector. All have an amp and speakers connected to everything, including the Apple TV.

 

Can we swap?

[mrbios]

Every classroom here has a desktop, there's about 1200 students 100-150 staff, 700 desktops throughout the school.

 

No one gets a laptop unless by special request. Every classroom 10+ years ago had an IWB, most of those broke and are just used as a white space to project and write on these days, about 1 in 10 actually used theirs interactively even when it did work. Basically a classrooms IT setup here is speakers + desktop + projector as standard and that's it.

 

With how good some remote access systems are now, GDPR rules, and falling school budgets, i can't see the point in giving anyone a laptop....everyone has a device at home these days, remote access is html5 based, they can use it on anything from phone to desktop, and i can turn off the ability to download files which means data stays on site and not on personal devices.

[SavedZelda]

Every classroom here has a desktop, there's about 1200 students 100-150 staff, 700 desktops throughout the school.

 

No one gets a laptop unless by special request. Every classroom 10+ years ago had an IWB, most of those broke and are just used as a white space to project and write on these days, about 1 in 10 actually used theirs interactively even when it did work. Basically a classrooms IT setup here is speakers + desktop + projector as standard and that's it.

 

With how good some remote access systems are now, GDPR rules, and falling school budgets, i can't see the point in giving anyone a laptop....everyone has a device at home these days, remote access is html5 based, they can use it on anything from phone to desktop, and i can turn off the ability to download files which means data stays on site and not on personal devices.

 

This sounds like a good set-up, especially the way your remote access is configured.

[hardtailstar]

Teaching staff have laptops with projectors and speakers in rooms.

Support staff either have laptop or access to a desktop

Some SLT have ipads from a failed scheme.

 

A few rooms have apple tvs for the SLT to use.

[mrbios]

This sounds like a good set-up, especially the way your remote access is configured.

 

It's cheap i'll say that much for it

[Andycat]

Can we swap?

 

If you fancy supporting 100 teachers with all of these, fill your boots!!

[Linfit]

All our classrooms have a desktop PC, visualiser, IWB with built in speaker/amp, and projector. They also have an Apple TV connected to the projector, as all our staff have iPads. This is from a new build 7 years ago. We introduced desktop PC's in every classroom many years before that though when we introduced electronic registration and looked seriously at laptops with docking stations etc which I know some schools use. Over the years, desktop machines have been far better I think, in terms of longevity and upgrade-ability. If I was doing the new build now would have touchscreens instead of IWB's but wouldn't really change much else.

[Reboot_IT]

We have a small bookable number of laptops for staff to take home or use within school as and when. Other than that it's every classroom has a desktop PC, Interactive A/V and a visualiser. We have BYOD set up for staff who'd like to bring their own laptop/tablet and they can connect internally using remote access. I've done the "every teacher must be issued with a laptop" before and it's hard to manage them and maintain them to a good enough standard.

[FN-GM]

All schools have Desktops in all classrooms connected to interactive LCD screens. All identical in every room (both PC and screen).

 

We used to have Laptops but did away with them. Various issues with connections to boards, accidental damage, loss etc. This solution is much more reliable.

[Katy]

Every room has a PC, IWB, projector and speakers. In the primary they also have an ipad per teacher and we've got AirServer (almost) installed (when I get time to set it up properly). Everybody prints to a copier hooked up to Papercut MF.

 

The cables for the projector etc come out of the wall and over to the PC as what someone described as "an umbilical cord" - there's no faceplate or anywhere that cables can be unplugged on the wall (apart from power and network).

 

Edit: We used to have laptops plugged into projectors (only had a couple of IWBs back then) but the VGA faceplates were forever getting damaged. Loads easier now.

[hardtailstar]

Every classroom here has a desktop, there's about 1200 students 100-150 staff, 700 desktops throughout the school.

 

No one gets a laptop unless by special request. Every classroom 10+ years ago had an IWB, most of those broke and are just used as a white space to project and write on these days, about 1 in 10 actually used theirs interactively even when it did work. Basically a classrooms IT setup here is speakers + desktop + projector as standard and that's it.

 

With how good some remote access systems are now, GDPR rules, and falling school budgets, i can't see the point in giving anyone a laptop....everyone has a device at home these days, remote access is html5 based, they can use it on anything from phone to desktop, and i can turn off the ability to download files which means data stays on site and not on personal devices.

 

The dream...

 

The last school I worked in went from desktops to laptops. So many more issues with laptops.

 

The annoying one was when a teacher was off, I had to set up the laptop for supply teacher, At least that was a primary so not many classrooms. I'd never do that now where I work in a secondary school!

[mrbios]

The dream...

 

The last school I worked in went from desktops to laptops. So many more issues with laptops.

 

The annoying one was when a teacher was off, I had to set up the laptop for supply teacher, At least that was a primary so not many classrooms. I'd never do that now where I work in a secondary school!

 

I tried the idea of laptops here with our science department about 3-4 years ago. They all had their own laptops from the "laptop for every teacher" days, and they were the only department in the school that insisted on using them for teaching, so we decided to take away the desktops, free up the desk space, and put docks in.

 

Absolute knightmare! When a teacher was off for any reason, it always meant keeping a spare with the science technicians for the cover staff, then if more than one cover teacher was needed it meant they didn't have a laptop...we couldn't keep 3-4 spares else it'd be a big waste of money. Last year we put desktops back in all their rooms, and this year we had (thankfully) 5 out of 10 science teachers all left (just a coincidence, not for any specific reason, 3 were retiring) so that horrific era is pretty much forgotten, and may we never speak of it again

 

I'm really liking chromebooks at the moment though, if i was to get a device for staff now i'd give them a chromebook, point them at remote access and office 365 and be done with it

[mdrabble]

Every teaching rooms have the same desktop, 30 rooms have interactive screens, the remainder have 10+ year old IWB and projectors and speakers.

 

If staff have a school laptop then they are lucky as this is before my time - when I arrived laptop are not longer given to staff, so if they have one and it dies they don't get replaced!