Prevent kids removing/rearranging keyboard keys

[athomashayter]

I know that there probably isnt a valid/affordable solution to this, but how do you deal with kids removing or rearranging the keyboard keys in your school? We buy cheap keyboards for the student pcs but this week have had to replace and re-key 16 keyboards... it's getting tedious.

Thought about the rubber keyboards... but then thought they would just jab at them with pens and compass... 'vandal proof keyboards' seem to come in at a couple £100 so not really in the realm of affordable.

 

So, how do you do it?

 

Take it easy,

Adam

[mavhc]

Bill the department for the broken keyboards/your time, then they'll care about monitoring their pupils

[HarryMonkey]

Bill the department for the broken keyboards/your time, then they'll care about monitoring their pupils

 

Except that the damage never happened in their lesson, must have been someone else.

[Rob_D]

Cheap chicklet style keyboards. The keys come off but rarely go back on. Then charge the parents for replacing the keyboards.

Or don't replace the keyboards and no-one can use the computers because they wrecked the keyboards - we had one IT teacher who went this rout and let it get almost unusably bad, then had the "so you won't be doing that again, will you?" talk before we put the new ones in.

 

Either way, it's partially a classroom management issue so you need SLT and the class teachers on side.

[dmj]

Either way, it's partially a classroom management issue so you need SLT and the class teachers on side.

 

^^^^

 

This really. It's 100% a classroom issue. Raise it with SLT.

 

We did some experiments with gluing them, but found it too easy to wreck the device in the process so gave up.

[Andrew_C]

The kids wear boxing gloves for all computer lessons?

[Aprice]

Currently the pain of my life.

 

We're dealing with the most vandalism I've seen in any of the secondaries I've worked at. 7 broken keyboards from one cover lesson the other day. No cameras in the IT suites currently which I am trying to push the school for.

 

SLT want to bill parents for damage, however finding who did it is proving challenging. A system of teachers completing a sheet at the end of each lesson reporting any damage found has been brought in, we are then supposed to check the sheet along with daily checks of each room. However its resource intensive on us as the IT team, and I question the accuracy of it, especially as most don't complete the sheet anyway.

[DrBeaker]

Bill the department for the broken keyboards/your time, then they'll care about monitoring their pupils

^ THIS 100%

I add up the cost and send the costs onto them/finance department etc. It's up to SLT/Pastoral teams after that with the teachers.

 

^^^^

This really. It's 100% a classroom issue. Raise it with SLT.

 

^ THIS 100%

 

It's 100% a classroom management issue, which is down to behaviour and control of the classroom - which is down to teachers. As part of core teacher standards - to control and manage behaviour

 

If you put 30x new keyboards and mice in an IT room unusued for 6x weeks- they wouldn't magically have missing keys, unplugged cables etc.

 

Currently the pain of my life.We're dealing with the most vandalism I've seen in any of the secondaries I've worked at. 7 broken keyboards from one cover lesson the other day. No cameras in the IT suites currently which I am trying to push the school for. ...

Honestly - my 2 cents. Don't bother as guess who will end up being responsible for checking the cameras. Yep, you guessed it. The IT department. Been there done that in the past, when we did finally have 100% proof of an incident, SLT did nothing about it. So that money was totally wasted.

[Brax]

I don't have a solution either sadly. We've had to buy 40 keyboards today to replace broken ones across the school. Usually it happens in cover lessons as teachers tend to stick to a room and look after it. We can't bill the cover department so that's out the question. Have raised the issue with SLT lots and falls on deaf ears. Nowadays I've got so much on my plate that replacing keyboards is really the last thing I want to be doing next to changing toner.

[kevin_lane]

Just don’t replace then, and then when slt ask why has nothing been done, you just tell them what’s the point is spending good money if people don’t give a sh*t, when you can spend the money on o the other things that will actually have an impact and be better for the school.

 

 

And take a stance, I’ve had many arguments with staff about this and trust me, they need you more than you need them.

 

Take a stance otherwise it just gets worst

 

we also take photos and send it to all staff showing them the damage as well.

[Roberto]

 

It's 100% a classroom management issue, which is down to behaviour and control of the classroom - which is down to teachers. As part of core teacher standards - to control and manage behaviour

 

Yes this was a class control issue when I was in education (not that we had a satisfactory solution for it!). It’s not an IT issue just because it is happening to keyboards. If the students were smashing the lights up they’d tell the teacher to get a grip on the class, not just expect the custodial team to invent vandalism-proof lights. Same thing.

[timbo343]

We've seen an increase in kids either arrange the keys, completely steal them or snap the space bar in half.

 

We have a "scrapheap" of keyboadsds for spare keys.

 

We have shared IT rooms which IT Support will take ownership of the keyboards are damaged or renderee not fit for purpose however in the dedicated IT rooms for Curric IT we bill Curric IT for every keyboard and mouse that is damaged.

 

It is a classroom issue as we found that damage was happening more with supply / long term cover.

 

I do partly blame the interchangeable keyboards / mechanical keyboards that kods could have at home for the increase in damage.

[GizmoIT]

Back in the day when mice had balls, the students used to steal them as they were made of ball bearings. they disappered at such a rate that I removed all mice from the IT Rooms & made the staff sign them out and back in again

[rossibIT]

We do a check afterschool for any damage that has appeared in any computer rooms. If we find that the this is increasing in a certain room we put that room on extended checks (Break, Lunch) and also tell staff to watch out for damage in this room. We would like them to check after every lesson and some do and you know that some don't.

 

SLT support does help in this

[drutt]

It's gotten to the point that we delegate laptop trolleys to departments to manage, if they find damage it's in their interest to report it as soon as possible and manage the student(s) who caused it. We have around 400 laptops available for student use, not including Sixth Form so we can't check them each day as there are only 2 of us and honestly we have better things to spend our time on.

 

We also don't bother with extended warranties anymore, vandalism ends up voiding them anyway.

[WannabrewUK]

It's gotten to the point that we delegate laptop trolleys to departments to manage, if they find damage it's in their interest to report it as soon as possible and manage the student(s) who caused it. We have around 400 laptops available for student use, not including Sixth Form so we can't check them each day as there are only 2 of us and honestly we have better things to spend our time on.

 

We also don't bother with extended warranties anymore, vandalism ends up voiding them anyway.

Hope that works for you, we've had departmental trolleys for years and departments are expected to look after them, but it doesn't work here.

 

Once it starts effecting teaching and learning they get a brand new set.