Staff Laptops

[MartinT]

You can get them on eBay, but be sure to buy all you need as different vendors make ones that are not compatible.

[Garacesh]

Does anyone do them still? Apple dropped them a number of years ago and went Thunderbolt 3 / USB C whatever you want to call it.

 

You can get them on eBay, but be sure to buy all you need as different vendors make ones that are not compatible.

 

You can buy generic MicroUSB, USB-C and Lightning ones from various companies (though it's a pot-luck as to the strength of the magnets.. I use braided cables that always end up being too heavy so they never work too well for me) but it doesn't seem that they've taken off for 'bigger' stuff like laptops.

[mullet_man]

We went through this in the summer, and it's gone pretty well. We needed to update all the old PCs in classrooms so SLT thought now was the best time to look at this project. Ended up buying the HP x360 G1 - £480 each then we got £100 back with the cashback scheme HP are running.

These had USB-C so with the HP G4 dock it's just one cable for charging, projector, LAN. So dead easy for the teachers to swap rooms.

We left the old PCs monitor/Keyboard/mouse so they get full desktop with dual screen setup (first couple weeks was repeating "Windows Key+P" to duplicate/extend issues)

 

We've got Directaccess, so seamless use of the laptops from home etc

 

We needed to buy a few more as we underestimated the additional teaching needs. English/Maths Mentors covering lessons, teachers going off on maternity after being given the laptop and the bank of supply laptops we had (older ones that didn't support USB-C) have proved a headache for us support wise. Setting them up by manually removing cables from the dock and then going to the lesson after because the cover teacher forgot to put them back.

SIMS updates, I need to schedule at the right time when they're all here on site or they'll not get the update in time.

Some of the older monitors disliked the resolutions but thankfully the projectors have been fairly forgiving. Sure it'll be even better once rooms get a 1080p monitor and touchscreen panel (a long time off though!)

 

Personally I would have preferred staying with desktops. Much easier for me to maintain, and cheaper in the long term. We'll see if we can get the laptops to last the warranty, I suspect the USBC port will be the first things to go.

However, teachers love them, SLT love them. Means teachers can be more flexible & productive, e.g. can prepare a lesson in the dept office, close lid and open in the lesson and off they go. No delays in logging in, launching the number of ppts, website resources etc.

Meetings/CPD they can all be online in the meetings so less paper needed etc

 

We shall see how it pans out! Nobody's dropped one yet and only 1 teacher has forgotten to bring it with them (they get one of the awkward old laptops as punishment!)

I have over 100 teaching staff and lots of room changes and finding so far the port on the laptop is holding up, but the HP USB-C universal dock we've had to replace about 6 in rooms around the building.

 

USB-C is good for 10,000 uses, and the port is designed so the cable takes the strain apperently rather than the port.

 

So far we are getting them replaced under warranty but at some point we will have to shell out for new ones.

 

Had 3 smashed screens so far and no drops (that I know of but seen a few looking a bit worse for ware already)

 

I have a theory id like to try, adding a buffer USB-C lead to see that helps as the docks have their cables part of the dock and are not replaceable, so was thinking a tenner usb cable might take the strain rather than the dock cable.

 

Anyone done this?

[Sheridan]

We've had fixed desktops for many years, with occasional staff having a laptop (SLT etc) and I wouldn't want to reverse this unless we did an full site wide replacement. That would mean ripping out PCs in over 100 classrooms and giving everyone a laptop/surface or similar with the appropriate dock/connectivity, and I just can't see that being popular

 

In contrast last year we helped upgrade a primary, which had the laptops option. What a nightmare that was, as the laptops had been bought piecemeal over the years so had W7,8 and 10 and never updated - everyone seemed to have local administrator rights. In many of the classrooms blutac etc was used to keep the vga/hdmi connections in place due to years of disconnection/reconnections. We put refurb desktops in each classroom, and the response has been positive across the board. Once staff get out of the routine of storing things on the desktop of their laptop and use their cloud (One drive) things improved even more.

[Duke5A]

We've got about 250 staff with laptops that we just refreshed two years ago. Dell Latitude 3490 with the USB-C dock. So far I haven't had a single occurrence of theft, broken screens or busted dock connectors. Funny enough these models still use a barrel plug for the travel charger and I've had a couple staff members manage to fold over the center pin in the barrel (no clue how they managed that). The previous generation laptops were Latitude 5400 that we used for nine years. I could still count on one hand how many thefts we had. Accidental damage does happen, but wasn't that frequent.

 

While we managed to use the last run for nine years, as mentioned already, they don't age like desktops. Busted display frames were common from screws backing out over time. During conferences at the high school it was funny watching 70 teachers fight over about six electrical outlets in the gym. Batteries last about four to five years and then started requiring replacement. Once the laptop reaches a certain age OEM batteries are no longer produced and you have to get the knockoff brand they barely lasted for 45 minutes.

 

If you can commit to a five year replacement cycle, then laptops are great. Anything over that and supporting them gets harder and harder on an order of magnitude for each passing year.

 

As to the durability of USB-C connectors, I haven't had any staff laptop docks break yet, but have had plenty of the ports on Chromebooks break. I love the fact that the industry picked a standard finally, but USB-C is not durable in the slightest.

 

Another note, I've got quite a number of staff that just forgo the dock and external display altogether.

[mavhc]

We've had fixed desktops for many years, with occasional staff having a laptop (SLT etc) and I wouldn't want to reverse this unless we did an full site wide replacement. That would mean ripping out PCs in over 100 classrooms and giving everyone a laptop/surface or similar with the appropriate dock/connectivity, and I just can't see that being popular

 

In contrast last year we helped upgrade a primary, which had the laptops option. What a nightmare that was, as the laptops had been bought piecemeal over the years so had W7,8 and 10 and never updated - everyone seemed to have local administrator rights. In many of the classrooms blutac etc was used to keep the vga/hdmi connections in place due to years of disconnection/reconnections. We put refurb desktops in each classroom, and the response has been positive across the board. Once staff get out of the routine of storing things on the desktop of their laptop and use their cloud (One drive) things improved even more.

 

We've had laptops for many years, with occasional staff having a desktop (SLT etc) and I wouldn't want to reverse this unless we did an full site wide replacement. That would mean removing the laptops from over 100 teachers and giving everyone a desktop, and I just can't see that being popular

 

In contrast last year we helped upgrade a primary, which had the desktops option. What a nightmare that was, as the desktops had been bought piecemeal over the years so had W7,8 and 10 and never updated - everyone seemed to have local administrator rights. In many of the classrooms blutac etc was used to keep the vga/hdmi connections in place due to years of disconnection/reconnections. We gave refurb laptops to each teacher, and the response has been positive across the board. Once staff get out of the routine of storing things on the desktop of their desktop and use their laptop with the home drive synced to the server things improved even more.