Laptops for teachers

[Jobos]

In the last month or so I've two laptops from 'laptops for teachers' scheme fail with motherboard faults and as all the laptops from this scheme are now at least 3 years old and on their last legs what are other schools doing when a teacher laptop is scraped.

 

Understandably the teacher doesn't want to loose their laptop but as funds are short the HT say the teacher will have to buy their own laptop. Presumably if the teacher buys their own then they will also have to buy Office and will not be licensed to install any of the school software and I have my reservations about them connecting to the school network.

[Domino]

my lines always been personal laptops won't join the network.

 

If you can't control it, why should you be responsible for the havoc it could create.

[localzuk]

If they own it, then you will have a long list of nightmare problems with regards to licensing. Office is only one of them.

 

We buy them for our staff still. We pay at least £22k for a teacher per year, so £500 for a laptop and £300 for licensing (estimate) is not a massive amount, over 3 years.

 

We don't allow privately owned laptops in school let alone on our network - we don't want the insurance hassle.

[srochford]

Does the teacher also have a desktop computer? If so, could that be used elsewhere and a laptop bought as their single computer?

 

If they don't have a desktop then how are they expected to do their work? As localzuk says, it's not expensive compared to salary costs to buy a PC/laptop for each member of staff and any school which isn't doing that is not a good school (in my not so humble opinion :-))

[Irazmus]

I don't mind if staff want to bring their own laptops in but I refuse to allow them onto the network and I remind them our insurance doesn't cover them. That generally discourages them enough.

[sahmeepee]

Depending on your MS licensing the teachers may have work-at-home rights for Office already (not for windows though afaik). Our policy on unmanaged laptops is the same as Torledo's and it would take quite an investment of time and money to change that.