Laptop Trolley Responsibility

[TechiMCR]

Hi!How do laptop trolleys move around your schools? Is it the responsibility of the class teacher to pick up and return? Are IT techs portering the trolley from classroom to classroom? Thanks!

[HarkNowHear]

Post-DfE devices we're lucky to have enough to site them in faculties and not need to move them around. It doesn't stop the devices themselves ending up scattered all over site though... Ideally the faculty themselves need to implement a sign-out process and ensure they're powered off and stored/charged properly. We can only really get an audit done out of term time given the amount of devices in use.

[psydii]

Officially: Portage, and then remaining in classroom to support /witness any tech problems during initial logon. (these days, mostly just turning the wifi back on).

 

In Practice: We trust some regular fliers to pick the laptops from our office as they are passing, and for them to use students to return them. This is a teacher lead arrangement, at their discretion / convenience.

 

Laptop trolley administration, portage, support and maintenance is the most important role of our junior technician since we replaced the legacy IWBs with touch screens. Typically the junior tech does it all., but at least once a day it takes two or three of us to deliver devices.

 

I should note that 6 trolleys are permanently assigned to departments, and these departments are responsible for their own porterage. They work closely with us to report problems and sometimes book us in to attend lessons so we can witness pain points etc. It is the role of the senior techs to make sure these devices are well maintained, and are configured to meet the needs of the departments.

[ITGuyNW]

We only have one at the moment and it stays in my office. Students/teachers pick up and return when required.

[Koldov]

We have an 4 iPad storage units (chained to the wall - so no movement), 1 in each class per year group (and the 30 iPads are shared between the 3 classes in each year group) that have containers which can be taken to classrooms.

 

Up until recently, I would go round after school and make sure they were all present and correct, all charging and then lock them up (this was a hangover from when we only had a couple of units in a central place and I was responsible for handing them out and putting them away again).

 

Anyway after a couple of years this got really tiresome and if ever I left early needless to say it didn't get done... There was also more than one occasion where I had gone to a class and found loads of iPads missing because they hadn't been returned.

 

Then we had a few scares when there was only one missing... obviously as I was going round after school the children and most of the teachers had already left, so this resulted in me doing a frantic search of "every gas station, residence, warehouse, farmhouse, henhouse, outhouse and doghouse in that area"... well not really but all the classrooms.

 

Eventually one was found on a teacher's desk, but in a filing tray under some paperwork (sometimes they use them for photographs and don't return them if they haven't had time to copy them off or return), one was found in the library, one miraculously reappeared (nobody knows where from) and one was returned from a very sheepish child...

 

After those incidents suffice to say I pushed back strongly to the SLT that it should be teachers and TAs that should bear the responsibility of returning them/accounting for them all and locking them away (preferably before the children leave for the day, but definitely before they do).

 

Normally they're pretty good, but I do random spot checks and still find some missing or the unit unlocked (and unfortunately I can't just walk away, so I resolve but still report to SLT) but day to day I leave it up to them. If the iPads aren't plugged in and charged or they've been left in a classroom and they aren't available to use it's only the teachers who will be inconvenienced.

 

The down side is that if one goes missing or has been damaged, I won't know about about it immediately, but it's a compromise I can live with.

Edited April 24, 2023 by Koldov

[LeMarchand]

Mostly the trolleys aren't the problem. Staff not ensuring the devices are returned to the correct trolley, or even returned, is.

[CalmBlueOcean]

There are two of us in IT support, and we share the portering of the trolleys we have between us. There are 9 trolleys in total, most of which are fixed to a department, but 2 or 3, or sometimes even 4 get moved to other areas.

Generally there is no expectation of teachers to move their own, but occasionally I will ask them to if they are only moving them a short distance and we are busy with something else.

In terms of looking after the trolleys and ensuring Chromebooks go back in correctly... well we don't rely on the teachers! They let the students just chuck them back in the trolleys any old how, not even plugged in. We go round and tidy these as much as we can, but it's a constant battle. I won't even tell you how many Chromebooks have gone walkies from different trolleys over the years. It doesn't help that they take it upon themselves to grab handfuls of Chromebooks from trolleys to use whenever they like, somewhere else on the school site.

Edited April 24, 2023 by CalmBlueOcean

[DavR]

Our trolleys mostly stay where they are, and teachers come and collect devices as required. Most of our trolleys have removable baskets, which carry up to five devices, so these are a convenient carry option for staff or designated children.

 

Chargers are contained within the trolleys and cannot be removed, so, devices have to be returned for charging. On the whole, they are.

 

Then we had a few scares when there was only one missing... obviously as I was going round after school the children and most of the teachers had already left, so this resulted in me doing a frantic search of "every gas station, residence, warehouse, farmhouse, henhouse, outhouse and doghouse in that area"... well not really but all the classrooms.

Eventually one was found on a teacher's desk, but in a filing tray under some paperwork (sometimes they use them for photographs and don't return them if they haven't had time to copy them off or return), one was found in the library, one miraculously reappeared (nobody knows where from) and one was returned from a very sheepish child...

After those incidents suffice to say I pushed back strongly to the SLT that it should be teachers and TAs that should bear the responsibility of returning them/accounting for them all and locking them away (preferably before the children leave for the day, but definitely before they do).

I can relate pretty hard to this. On the whole, I leave it up to staff to make sure devices are returned at end of day, but I do check and then lock devices up during the school holidays. Which usually means I spend the first half day of the holidays hunting round the building for strays, muttering increasingly rude words!

[CHiLL]

Our devices in trolleys are in per-department areas, so each department has a set of iPads or laptops in a trolley. The trolley stays in one place and the teacher sends a student to the classroom/office to collect however many they've booked (we use HAP+ for the booking system). To transport multiple devices around the classes, we usually use plasic boxes with handles.

[ITGuyNW]

Just seen those trolleys with removable baskets! I'll have to bookmark those for future!

[DavR]

Just seen those trolleys with removable baskets! I'll have to bookmark those for future!

 

Yup!

 

Not sure which brand you've seen, we've been using Lock N Charge.

 

The basket-ised storage concept though has been a game changer for us. One person can now easily and safely carry at least ten devices, rather than kids walking around with teetering stacks of laptops.

[stevewill6]

11 trolleys here and just me.

 

Departments are given ownership of the trolleys and devices. Any issues are recorded on the ticketing system.

[Chris_Cook]

These days we don't.

 

Secondary's are nearly completely 1-2-1 Chromebooks. The remaining shared CBs are in Lock n Charge baskets (5 per basket) that the students collect and then 'forget' to bring back.

 

Primary schools, the trolleys are in fixed locations round the school, and the staff bring the students to get one each.

 

We used to have the students collect the trolleys at one of the secondaries, but this wasn't without risk.

[PotNoodleTech]

This may not help but we dumped trolleys and went to 1:1 with the Chromebooks given to the pupils to use 24/7.

 

Kills 2 birds with one stone as a) gets rid of the need to constantly look after and move trolleys and b) they can do homework any time any day they want outside of school.

 

Well 3 birds really as recent events have proved c) allows you to deliver distance learning instantly during an emergency with zero planning or setup

[kennysarmy]

Hi!How do laptop trolleys move around your schools? Is it the responsibility of the class teacher to pick up and return? Are IT techs portering the trolley from classroom to classroom? Thanks!

 

All the responsibility of the departments here.

 

Science, Business, DT, SEN.