Chromebook Management

[JazzyHamster28]

Hi All,

I really appreciate all of the support and responses to my previous questions. In fact, district leadership liked it so much that they've asked me to come back and pose a 6 question survey for everyone, if you don't mind responding. Our district went 1:1 during COVID and now we have many devices floating around and we're trying to figure out what model we move forward with now that we're back in person.

 

If you don't mind, could you take a moment to answer this quick 6 question survey?

Thank you!

 

1. How are you maintaining damaged Chromebooks - replace, repair in-house, or send out for repair (with/without accidental damage plan).

2. What inventory level do you try to maintain in terms of student enrollment vs total Chromebook inventory? 

3. Are you officially still 1:1 for students?

4. If 1:1, at what grade level do you begin that and maintain it?

5. If 1:1, do you refresh/replace the Chromebooks at a certain grade level, or only as needed?

6. Do you support 2:1 for any use cases or grade levels (students keeping a Chromebook at home and having one at school as well), if so what are they? 

[TheHyperTechie]

12 hours ago, JazzyHamster28 said:

Hi All,

I really appreciate all of the support and responses to my previous questions. In fact, district leadership liked it so much that they've asked me to come back and pose a 6 question survey for everyone, if you don't mind responding. Our district went 1:1 during COVID and now we have many devices floating around and we're trying to figure out what model we move forward with now that we're back in person.

 

If you don't mind, could you take a moment to answer this quick 6 question survey?

Thank you!

 

1. How are you maintaining damaged Chromebooks - replace, repair in-house, or send out for repair (with/without accidental damage plan).

2. What inventory level do you try to maintain in terms of student enrollment vs total Chromebook inventory? 

3. Are you officially still 1:1 for students?

4. If 1:1, at what grade level do you begin that and maintain it?

5. If 1:1, do you refresh/replace the Chromebooks at a certain grade level, or only as needed?

6. Do you support 2:1 for any use cases or grade levels (students keeping a Chromebook at home and having one at school as well), if so what are they? 

1. I repair them in house. We have a loan agreement that includes a price list for different levels of damage, for example, £30 for a cracked or damaged screen.

2. We don’t have an exact number, but I usually like to keep a couple of spares for each year group, in our case around 15 in total.

3. We operate on a 1:1 basis for Years 5 and 6.

4. We only operate on a 1:1 basis for Years 5 and 6, as a device is more of a necessity for them due to their current workload, such as SATs and homework.

5. We refresh devices either before automatic updates are no longer available or when, following an audit, their physical condition is deemed unsuitable.

6. We don’t use this kind of setup. Pupils in Years 5 and 6 are allowed to take their devices home (provided they have signed the loan agreement). Filtering is applied both on and off site, and we also use a timer that locks devices overnight to encourage a break from screens.

 

[DavR]

1. Get an extended warranty wherever possible, but otherwise, repair in house. Chromebooks are very repairable, if you can get the parts, although with CPU, RAM, storage and external ports all on the motherboard, if any of those go, the unit is pretty much dead.

2. No specific stock level, but we have 120 Chromebooks in the school, and I try to always have some replacements in stock for when something is unrepairable.

3. We are not 1:1. We're primary and have a trolley per year group in KS2, which puts us at something like 1:4.

4. Not 1:1

5. Not 1:1

6. We did run a scheme where selected disadvantaged students were offered a Chromebook for home use, but that was based on a specific batch of devices the DfE provided during COVID. It's an offer we're rolling back on these days, I think we've only got maybe three or four still out there.

 

Primary I don't think warrants 1:1 devices just yet (IMO) but I think when you hit secondary, it's the ideal if the budget can stomach it, and if every department is amenable / can be made amenable to providing work in Google Classroom / Workspace.

[Chris_Cook]

We do 1:1 for years 7 to 11. Its technically a voluntary parent funded scheme. Parents on free school meal benefits are paid for by the school. Some parents refuse due to cost or not wanting a device at home. The best option we've found is just to keep a device in school with the head of year or tutor and not give them the chance to make a fuss.

 

We've tried various accidental damage schemes. Its been quicker to do the repairs in house as some get lost in transit or sent to the wrong repairers and some are rejected because of lack of  care. Even a complete rebuild can be done in less than an hour. Screens are normally about 10 mins once you get used to it. The Asus ADP scheme looks great on paper, but our reseller (not Asus) has yet to provide this since we ordered them before the summer holiday, and may get named here soon if they don't. Asus have been really good for us the last few years and get my full recommendation. As they own the device, they are free to find a 3rd party repairer or their own device insurance. By far the hardest part of the repair process is finding out how it happened, and or getting them to pay for it. Its worth having the discussion with your repair provider about what is and isn't covered. Most of them will stop doing free repairs at some stage if you do too many, so you don't want to waste them.

 

Its worth checking parts availability before any scheme as you will likely end up with devices that you need to sort out (or find a 3rd party repairer for).

 

Touchscreens are more expensive to fix and seem less robust to me. But some of our students could break it even if it was made out of concrete. Touch screens are more desirable and easier to sell to parents though.

 

We have 2 trolleys of 30 for exams and students who can't be bothered to bring them in. There are another 20 or so for students who are waiting on a repair.

[Jamman960]

1. We have 3 year warrantee's on most of our chromebooks although a significant amount of issues are damage rather than warrantee claimable - we replace screens ourselves and source from Ali Express(£66 ea vs £170! from lenovo)

2. We generally have 10-20 spares, we keep 10 loan units incase they're left at home or need charging

3. We've recently gone 1:1

4. We issue chromebooks to Y3-11, Y3-6 devices stay in school.

5. We replace devices every 4 years

6. We've don this for 2 reasons, 1 - Year 6 pupil needing one at home for SEN purposes, another where a pupil had an injury and needed to keep her bag weight down on the way to/from school.