Staff think all laptops are Chromebooks

[TwistedHelixis]

Most of the schools I look after are Google based. So over the years whenever I have handed out Android tablets everyone calls them iPads.

 

Recently they have also been referring to all the Microsoft laptops as Chromebooks, which I find amazing. They still have a lot of windows devices, the ICT suit is full of them, so it amazes me they are defaulting to this in their heads.

[6Foot2]

Are your schools staffed entirely by PE teachers?

 

[TwistedHelixis]

Are your schools staffed entirely by PE teachers?

 

These are primarily schools, so yes they are all pe teachers, lol.

[FN-GM]

It’s funny how a whole school can get stuck onto the wrong terminology.

 

I looked after one school who I looked after and they called all desktop computers “stand alone ”. Another called external hard drives “memory boxes” 🤷♂️

[LeMarchand]

I have found that every tablet is an "iPad" in a teacher's head and, yes, they are unable to cope with differentiating between the various Operating Systems. If only MS had got their act together enough to have ensured their continued dominance in EDU.

[msi_school]

We have the reverse here all Chromebooks are Laptops. Which I suppose they are, but it makes understanding what they need difficult.

[dhicks]

Recently they have also been referring to all the Microsoft laptops as Chromebooks

 

All of our pupil devices and a few of the staff ones are indeed Chromebooks, all of which have full 360-degree flip hinges so they can be folded back into tablet mode. At some point, someone is bound to try and bend one of the old Windows laptops the same way...

[David44]

We have the reverse here all Chromebooks are Laptops. Which I suppose they are, but it makes understanding what they need difficult.

 

 

We don't have Windows laptops here but some staff do call the Chromebooks, 'laptops' and I try to stop myself from correcting them because actually they are probably correct. It's me that has been taken in by the marketing and using the brand name for a device when the generic term will do. After all, how many staff say 'Probooks' (for HP laotops) or 'Inspirons' for (Dell laptops) or 'Thinkpads' (for Lenovo laotops)? It's only really Chromebooks and it seems Surfaces that get called by their brand name rather than the generic term.

 

Now, do you have Smartboards or do you have an interactive whiteboard made by a manufacturer other than SMART?

[dhicks]

Now, do you have Smartboards

 

In a couple of cases, we still have "projectors" - staff got used to calling a PC-with-projector-and-board "a projector", that's still what they sometimes call our nice new touch screens.

[jthompson]

Our staff seem pretty okay with the whole Chromebook vs [Windows] laptop differentiation. I like to think that it's as a result of me being a massive terminology pedant, but it probably isn't. I find that referring to things like settings or software packages by their literally correct name, if somewhat cumbersome, does cut down on ambiguity. I remember when I joined the school, they had recently launched with SIMS Learning Gateway, but had decided to refer to it as 'parent portal' in all of their comms. It took years to undo that, and we were still seeing 'parent portal' cropping up in queries after we'd moved on to a different product.

[CalmBlueOcean]

I think the distinction between Chromebook and laptop is important, especially when you extensively use both types of devices in your environment. Yes, they're both technically laptops, but someone will often refer to wanting to borrow a laptop when all they really want is a Chromebook (and it's often easier to rustle one up!). And of course, I'm sure we've all got users who refer to their monitor as their computer...

[mikes]

I think the distinction between Chromebook and laptop is important, especially when you extensively use both types of devices in your environment. Yes, they're both technically laptops, but someone will often refer to wanting to borrow a laptop when all they really want is a Chromebook (and it's often easier to rustle one up!). And of course, I'm sure we've all got users who refer to their monitor as their computer...

 

Our problem is staff not understanding that Windows software may not run on Chromebooks... I guess we are so far into the future now that the days of each model of computer running their own bespoke software, is something that only old men like myself remember.

They did one exam on the Chromebooks in the Hall, because it was a webbased client, and I simply set the page to open up as a second tab once they'd logged on. Took me 5 minutes to do in the Google console while the children were busy setting into their seats.

 

Problem is 6 months later I get a call to do another exam in the same way. Only this exam required the WJEC secure client to be installed on Windows machines, and there is no other way. I'm reading the instructions and the kids are sitting down and I start to sweat as I realise this is not going to work... The teachers seem to think I am lying to them or something as "well this worked last time" "it worked this way in my friends school".

 

Now they have a webclient thankfully. But I really think there should be an actual computer basics course available for both students and staff. I'm not talking about making spreadsheets in Excel; I'm talking about basic computer concepts such as different Operating Systems, File Types, File Systems and how files are stored, things like that. E.G. about how computers are not magic, they use physical laws, and if the button you have always pressed that says "Show attendance results" has now disappeared since the update, and a new one has appeared that says "Display attendance results" - it might just do what it says and there is probably no need to sit around in a panic for 25 minutes while people need those attendance results just because you can't get hold of IT.

 

Look at how much harm this has caused because people didn't understand where their data was being stored (e.g. this celebrity photo fiasco where they didn't realise those pictures weren't actually physically stored on their iphone, but were located in a data centre where any minimum wage could type in their name and see them..)