Staff using desktop or laptops?

[moheed30]

Hey EduGeekers,

 

Our IT team covers 2 schools. one being a through-school. Just curious what's your general PC setup for staff in classrooms. We're currently using laptops but there's always issues ranging from damaged ports to missing cables. Overall we're contemplating a future project to migrate everything to desktops only. Just curious how other schools have their systems set up and if they're using any splitters mirroring smartboards/monitors.

 

Regards,

 

Mo

Edited September 21, 2018 by moheed30

[Davit2005]

Desktops are usually much more serviceable and less likely to be damaged, abused, left on trains, stolen, spilt coffee over, lent to a spouse and infected with viruses, etc. etc.

 

RANT. i.e. So now I have to drop everything I am doing and sort out your laptop that you have let your kids on and now full of viruses so you can use it for your class End of Rant, being there got the t-shirt.

 

So if you are going to have laptops for staff as a solution replacing desktops then best get user policies sorted out beforehand and get staff members sign for the devices that they are then responsible for.

Edited September 21, 2018 by Davit2005

[LeMarchand]

I'd love it if I could get desktops in all classrooms!

 

Would've thought that a dual output graphics card would be a better bet than a splitter: not much more expensive and a lot less clutter.

[Homer]

We only do Desktops and we did that as a conscious decision when we opened - no 'I forgot my laptop' or 'my laptops broken' excuses for not delivering lessons - walk in and teach was the idea and it's been a brilliant idea.

 

My last job, a couple of rooms may have been plug in a laptop to teach and it was always a mission.

 

Avoid it where possible, SLT will soon see the benefits of not having laptops as an excuse for poor teaching...

[sparkeh]

Desktops. Worked in a school with laptops and it was such a PITA they quickly ditched it and went back to desktops.

I think that the teaching station should be available to use by anyone walking in the room.

[AJWhite1970]

Desktops in all classrooms, more robust, more serviceable, more likely to still be there in the morning.

 

Exception are the Art department who as well as desktop PC's have iPads connected to the projector via AirServer, but they are special......

[ITGuyNW]

For people with desktops, have you had any staff moaning that they can't work from home?

[FishCustard]

Desktops in all classrooms, with robust remote access (e.g. RDWeb).

[Andrew_C]

We had desktops in all classrooms. All teachers now have M$ surfaces. In science & DT we are resisting the removal of the PCs.

 

PLEASE don't get me started on DSE, number of USB ports, reliability...

[sparkeh]

For people with desktops, have you had any staff moaning that they can't work from home?

No, as they all have laptops as well, but that's a different discussion.

[AlanD]

We changed from desktop to laptops...partly because of demand for devices which could be used at home etc. and also because of GDPR we were concerned about "leakage" of data if staff used their own devices/laptops at home.

 

This also allowed us to trim back on the number of PCs - as we had the luxury or underused classrooms, as well as "offices" and common room areas which no longer needed fixed PCs.

 

Ideally we would have had laptops all with USB-C charging and video (but budget didn't stretch that far). But it would have been more ideal that staff could just plug in one thing and away to go...with wired network, smartboard, projector and charging all with a single plug.

 

 

Its too early to say how sucessful this approach will be - and to be honest - my preference would have been to stick with fixed PCs becuase that practically guaranteed a working PC at the front of a classroom - but at the expense of loss of flexibility elsewhere. As the laptops are "locked" down - we can use a VPN to ensure staff get the same "experience" everywhere - provided they can connect to wireless or tether from a 4G connection.

[DJ-1701]

Laptops are a nightmare. First of all if they keyboard dies, or when the staff or students break the keys it isn't a quick £5 job to replace it like a PC, depending on brand it's more like about £50 (if you are lucky) for a second hand laptop keyboard that *may* fit... smaller sized hard drivers, fans, processors, screens are all more expensive and a pain to replace when they fail or get wreaked, and on top of that you aren't going to get the power or the oomph you will with a dedicated desktop because they are using smaller, and therefore less powerful equipment. So generally you have to pay out for a very good wack up front... and then when something goes wrong, pay another good wack to replace parts if possible... With a Desktop it is far more robust and generally cheaper to replace parts.

 

In classrooms we have a Desktop, VGA Spliter and monitor to connect to our Projector and Amp for the rooms.

[DalekSec]

Technically ours are using Tablets.... Surfaces. I'll tick laptop as it's closer than a desktop!

[christhetech]

They have laptops, but a desktop in every classroom instead would make my life a whole lot easier.

[CalmBlueOcean]

Laptops for us. It works generally OK, though there is some occasional damage to the headphone port from all the plugging and unplugging of the audio cable. VGA/HDMI port doesn't seem to have that issue.

I must admit I would like the consistency of a desktop approach, where it's reliable one day to the next, as different laptops from different staff can sometimes have connectivity issues with the projector. With budgets though, it would take us several years to get desktops introduced into all classrooms.

[MkII]

We had both laptops for every teacher and desktops in every classroom until this year when our upgrade made that too expensive.

 

Previously most laptops stayed at home. permanently.

 

As we recycled old laptops the transition hasn't been smooth. This particular model has a very weak VGA connector, but thankfully a HDMI port as well. Problems projecting seem to be to do with staff never rebooting the machines. Apart from that it's been ok so far.

[MrCoffee]

Wow, reading this just makes me feel like a scrooge.

 

We tend to only buy new Stone machines for our IT suites (two IT classrooms of 32 machines each). (They last well.)

Up until this year, we've replaced both suites every five years and reused the old desktops for the areas that also use computers, but not as intensively as IT.

In this case our Library, Art, Music and yes staff.

 

Teaching staff get their own laptops. We did have a bad experience with refurbs a few years ago, so I've tried to keep to a "buy new, buy cheap" rule. I've been gradually replacing between 5 and 8 crappy refurbs per year with i3's.

This actually seems to work out okay (spec is fine for what they use them for), but I still flinch every time I see a member of teaching staff carrying a laptop around by the screen. (We use sarcasm or evil glares until they take the hint.)

 

With regards to what another poster said about missing keys and vandalism, we have a couple of banks of laptops that occasionally have this problem.

My solution is to keep a bag full of old laptop keyboards and replace the keys that our little darlings rip off - even if they are the wrong key. (We either scrape the lettering off, or use permanent marker to blank them off).

If they rip the rubber "nipple" off the keyboard membrane, we just cut out one off an old keyboard and glue it in place, reattaching the key over the top - works fine and doesn't cost anything other than 10 mins of your time.

If the department complains, or the problem becomes too frequent, then we start telling them that we will buy new keyboards but it will come out of their budget.

 

Telling them that they have to pay after so many times something goes missing, or gets broken does focus the mind somewhat.

 

As for staff using their laptops at home, we've never really had any problems with this in regards to viruses or dodgy installs.

[gshaw]

A mix - desktops for staff and in rooms where we can physically get enough machines in for size of class. Once that number goes above 20 most rooms won't take that many students so for those we've gone to laptops.

[PotNoodleTech]

Always been teacher desktop in every classroom here.

 

I'd quit if they made me move to laptops.

[DSapseid]

Desktops is the easiest and most manageable for most staff. I had 30 odd classrooms all with varying specs of machines from P4 to i5 depending on when the existing ones died! I made a decision to one year replace the whole lot with the same new PC's as i had people complaining that Room1 has a better computer than Room2......

 

With the new PC's i made sure that each room was setup the same, i5 desktop 17" tft, same set of speakers and SMART board. It meant that staff could move from room to room and know what to expect. I now have it written into the rolling replacement plan to replace on a schedule like the IT suites.

[TwistedHelixis]

The staff at all the schools I look after are given their own laptops which they can also take home. The benefits of this are the staff are always working on an encrypted device, even at home and they are all working on a system they have configured for themselves.

[AlanD]

The staff at all the schools I look after are given their own laptops which they can also take home. The benefits of this are the staff are always working on an encrypted device, even at home and they are all working on a system they have configured for themselves.

Which is the reason we moved to do the same...except - they definitely are not allowed any self configuration...otherwise we wouldn't allow then to connect to our network.

[jthompson]

Laptops for all teaching staff here, no desktops on teacher desks.

Works well, as staff generally stay logged in when moving around between rooms, so they're not having to do fresh logins or worry too much about local vs network storage. The scope for problems is also limited in the sense that the number of user/computer combinations is kept to a minimum where staff are concerned. Those user/computer combinations are also mobile (they come to us rather than the other way around). Teaching staff work pretty much exclusively on their laptop, whether that's delivering lessons, doing work back at the office, in meetings or at home. We don't have any issues with software installations, malware, etc. as a result of computers going home each night: they stay clean in that sense.

 

We get through more 3.5mm audio leads than we otherwise might do, but that's no great biggie.

 

There's no indication that people would want to switch to desktops. People like to have their one machine with them. We usually have up to half a dozen ready spares in the office, which go out on loan whilst repairs, etc. are being undertaken.

[Andrew_C]

We usually have up to half a dozen ready spares in the office

THAT is probably the winning phrase.

[witch]

It isnt the staff that are complaining - it's the HT

My argument is that you surely can expect a teacher to have a device at home that can remote in to our server, making everything all safe and allowing desktops - cheaper, more robust, etc - in the classrooms.

The HT maintains that some teachers do NOT have a device at home and therefore they need a laptop.

Out of around 18 laptops, I can say that only 4 or 5 are taken home at night. Most of them just sit in the classroom, getting dustier by the day, with the power always plugged in so that all the batteries are borked now.