Staff Laptops at home and onsite

[DrCheese]

Diplomatic Educator Immunity.

 

[ATTACH=CONFIG]71063[/ATTACH]

 

Just been revoked.

[DalekSec]

In 10+ Years of using a laptop which I take home every night for work, I've left it at home a grand total of....... 0 times.

 

Unsure how people are able to forget probably their must vital teaching aid!

[jthompson]

In nearly 20 years of supporting 100s of teaching staff, I've had teachers unable to do their job on account of not having a laptop available a grand total of....... 0 times.

 

Unsure how people are able to not provide spares for probably the most vital teaching aid.

 

/s

[LeMarchand]

Unsure how people are able to not provide spares for probably the most vital teaching aid.

 

Because SMT don't budget for "spares", so any spares are from the last time the wallet was opened, and stuff gets broken/fails over time. Plus the constant demands to pluck a laptop from the tree for .

[DalekSec]

In nearly 20 years of supporting 100s of teaching staff, I've had teachers unable to do their job on account of not having a laptop available a grand total of....... 0 times.

 

Unsure how people are able to not provide spares for probably the most vital teaching aid.

 

/s

 

Want to point out we did provide hot spares, we used to have atleast once a week a teacher who had forgot their device...

[Scifigirl]

Just as an FYI-- a lot of office based staff might refuse laptops on the reasoning that the want work/life balance. had a few of those. there should be no penalty for this....... point might be made.

[TwistedHelixis]

All 4 primary school I help with, all staff have their own laptops that they take home. All files are stored in Google Workspace Shared drives.

 

Been setup like this for at least 8 years now, without any issues.

 

Very easy to manage.

[3s-gtech]

Just as an FYI-- a lot of office based staff might refuse laptops on the reasoning that the want work/life balance. had a few of those. there should be no penalty for this....... point might be made.

Refusing to take the laptop home = valid. Refusing to have a laptop at all = please don't allow the door to hit you on the way out.

[LeMarchand]

Refusing to take the laptop home = valid. Refusing to have a laptop at all = please don't allow the door to hit you on the way out.

 

Working out that the bank of laptops in one room have chargers that fit your laptop so you can "borrow" one to leave at home = theft.

[Scifigirl]

Refusing to take the laptop home = valid. Refusing to have a laptop at all = please don't allow the door to hit you on the way out.

Trying not to poke a hole - then why have a laptop?!? A consistently docked laptop is a waste of money and resources, a PC costs less and is a better investment.

[MrEprise]

All 4 primary school I help with, all staff have their own laptops that they take home. All files are stored in Google Workspace Shared drives.

 

Been setup like this for at least 8 years now, without any issues.

 

Very easy to manage.

 

One of the Primaries I used to support (and very briefly covered support for recently) all do exactly the same and it seems to work fine for them.

 

The only thing I wish I'd introduced was USB Port Replicators as they seem to go through a lot of the various audio/video cables which get damaged from the constant removal/reinsertion of along with some of the ports on the laptops, whereas USB cables/ports seem to hold up better.

[PotNoodleTech]

It's a backwards step - but you'll only realise that a year or two in.

 

Several schools around here have done that, spouted about how awesome it is, regretted it, ended up going back to PCs so effectively spent triple to quadruple (factoring in to damage and loss) what they would have if they'd just refreshed their existing PCs.

 

You'll have to prize the teacher PCs out of my cold dead hands as they are fit and forget every 5-7 years with low cost and high reliability.

[HarryMonkey]

Don't forget the extra laptops that you'll need when Teacher goes off on Maternity Leave and "needs" to take her laptop with her. Obviously her two part time replacements are gong to need one (each).

[dmj]

Here you go

 

onyxbox.co.uk/software/downloads/ps.htm

 

Once installed, we have it set to auto and it detects whether you have a proxy available or not and switches between the two.

 

FWIW, being able to auto configure proxies and have different settings per network has been built into major browsers for the last 35 years. You don't need any extra software to do this if you have a DHCP server and a browser

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Web_Proxy_Auto-Discovery_Protocol

[mikes]

Don't forget the extra laptops that you'll need when Teacher goes off on Maternity Leave and "needs" to take her laptop with her. Obviously her two part time replacements are gong to need one (each).

 

yeah it very quickly becomes a nightmare. Also the head of a department visiting your office out of nowhere with a new staff member who you've never seen or even been told about before, needing a laptop asap as their lesson starts in 5 minutes...

[psydii]

yeah it very quickly becomes a nightmare. Also the head of a department visiting your office out of nowhere with a new staff member who you've never seen or even been told about before, needing a laptop asap as their lesson starts in 5 minutes...

 

Very predictable, and budgeted for. Make sure the plans for this include the Finance Manager - "Hey, you know how people can't hire new staff without telling you. Did you know new staff, temporary staff, new roles all require more IT that we started with at the beginning of the year to provide a service? So for each new hire (that isn't a direct replacement) we need to buy a new laptop and pay for the relevant licences. I wonder if a better way would be to plan to allocate the following to my budget ((staff_role_number*((device cost)/5)))+annual_licence_cost)*1.15 and I'll make all these problems go away! We'll need to regularly review the staff_role_number with you and I meeting with HR Monthly, because you and I know that the number always bigger (and more ephemeral) than everybody (SLT) says it is!"

[nicholab]

If office staff our allowed to work at home it does make life better. Also, for individual laptops, there is no logging off when changing classrooms. You will need a laptop for the supply teachers that visit. A view with new styles of software deployment will need to be taken using Chocloaty and Intuene seems the best way of going.

[drutt]

yeah it very quickly becomes a nightmare. Also the head of a department visiting your office out of nowhere with a new staff member who you've never seen or even been told about before, needing a laptop asap as their lesson starts in 5 minutes...

 

If HR hasn't sent us an email to provision the person they don't get anything. No ID badge, no laptop or login and no access to the MIS.

[psydii]

If HR hasn't sent us an email to provision the person they don't get anything. No ID badge, no laptop or login and no access to the MIS.

HR registering a person with a start date in the MIS is the trigger for provisioning accounts which is the trigger for us to check all the other bits are in order (is it a new person or a replacement, who is their LM, what dept, what other roles etc etc which in turn dictate what assets we allocate) We track and report on "new" staff and long term sick / mat/paternity leave where they don't appear to replace someone with an existing allocation, to make sure we are being allocated sufficient funds to maintain a reliable service.

[3s-gtech]

Trying not to poke a hole - then why have a laptop?!? A consistently docked laptop is a waste of money and resources, a PC costs less and is a better investment.

Indeed, having a laptop in this context makes no real sense, but refusing it is another matter. Just because they have one, doesn't mean it has to go home with them. If the school only issues laptops and not desktops, that's the choice.

 

Conversely, our laptops come in cheaper than a PC + monitor, slightly. Same brand.

[mullet_man]

Not to be a hard-ass here. ... but if this decision has been made - why should IT have the responsibility of spares just in case the teacher forgets their laptop at home etc?

 

Spares for failures of a dock, laptop etc are a totally different issue.

 

 

Teachers are professionals, paid a fair amount/decent salary to do that job.

 

What do they do if a student forgets their PE kit, pencil case etc? They get a line / written up / demerits - whatever your school calls it.

 

Why should teachers expect to be treated differently? Otherwise it's setting a bad example for the students.

 

In all the years I've yet to forget my fob, keys, laptop etc, as if I did - I'd be made to go home and get it ... in order to do my job. It's my responsibility to bring them to the workplace, to do my job.

 

Sometimes you just need to draw the line and stop enabling people ... Just my 2 cents

I totally get your points but I've in all my years working in schools where teachers have laptops you'll be surprised just how often they do forget them and you've just got to have spares.

 

You can't say no go home and get it, some live miles away, they can't just go and get it and need classes covering. It's annoying they forget them but they are over worked and all the support they can get. I'll cut them some slack when the odd one forgets their laptop.

[mullet_man]

I had a teacher leave their laptop at home.

 

Outside, on a wheelie bin, in the rain.

 

For two days.

 

Professionals…yes?

Haha yeah had a few similar things, one left near there wheel when getting kids in the car and running over the laptop, one leaving it on a wall thankfully taken in by a neighbour.

[mullet_man]

Spare laptops FTW. To cover technical issues, yes, but also for stuff getting left at home. Teachers are busy people, so offering judgement-free spares when they need them is an easy win imho.

I work in a large school with over 100 teachers and you need spares, lots of spares for all various of reasons so totally agree. Back on point with the spares with OneDrive set up right a teacher borrows a spare logs in and gets their files pretty quickly.

[mullet_man]

Don't forget the extra laptops that you'll need when Teacher goes off on Maternity Leave and "needs" to take her laptop with her. Obviously her two part time replacements are gong to need one (each).

A good point on maternity to consider, we sometimes recall the before teacher goes on maternity.

 

You'll also need to cover long term sickness, which if others are like my school here is a considerable problem, so you do need banks of spares.

[gaz350b]

Just be careful you can’t legally ask for the laptop back with the reason she’s going on maternity.