£145K Budget - What would you spend it on?

[Chuckster]

My school could potentially be expecting £145,000 from BSF for IT and they asked me what gizmos could the school implement with that kind of money.

 

I was thinking of doing something for our conference room and our ICT Suites, and then look at other measures.

 

Does anyone have any suggestions other than to get new workstations?

[plexer]

You still have a job under BSF?

 

Ben

[Hightower]

My school could potentially be expecting £145,000 from BSF for IT and they asked me what gizmos could the school implement with that kind of money.

 

I was thinking of doing something for our conference room and our ICT Suites, and then look at other measures.

 

Does anyone have any suggestions other than to get new workstations?

 

I would personally take a look at [our] infrastructure with that kind of money. Once that is fully sorted I'd be looking at virtualising our servers, and then spend the remainder on workstations.

[kmount]

What is the state of your current infrastructure and devices?

[broc]

My school could potentially be expecting £145,000 from BSF for IT and they asked me what gizmos could the school implement with that kind of money.

 

 

I would check what is supplied as part of the base BSF solution first before splashing the cash around.... they sometimes leave bits out of BSF schools.... things like access control, CCTV.... data migration....

[featured_spectre]

redesign your infrastructure, consider getting fibre in to every building, then 4x gigabit ethernet ports in every classroom, a ruckus wireless system, high powered server so you can do a virtual server farm, and some lovely procurve switches with PoE and GBIC fibre panels.

 

Anything left can go on buying PCs for the ICT suite.

[Chuckster]

You still have a job under BSF?

 

Ben

 

Not even sure. To be honest, I'm worried about it and it has since prompted me to join a union.

 

 

I would personally take a look at [our] infrastructure with that kind of money. Once that is fully sorted I'd be looking at virtualising our servers, and then spend the remainder on workstations.

 

I was told it has to be something that benefits everybody. In other words they have to 'see' it and 'use' it. Besides, our servers are under 2 years old apart from one that is almost a year old.

[plexer]

A resiliant well maintained and structured network infrastructure will benifit everyone and allow for future innovation.

 

Ben

[broc]

A resiliant well maintained and structured network infrastructure will benifit everyone and allow for future innovation.

 

Ben

 

BSF should be delivering that anyway ..... the school should not have to spend 'extra' ......

[Hightower]

I was told it has to be something that benefits everybody. In other words they have to 'see' it and 'use' it. Besides, our servers are under 2 years old apart from one that is almost a year old.

 

They will 'use it' and it will benefit everyone. Quicker, more reliable connections (even failsafe if you do the infrastructure properly). Then Virtualised servers with vMotion and the likes can mean your servers are never off, and you can actually guarantee uptime.

 

Workstations are useless without the backbone to support them.

[Batman]

I think to start you should get a midget butler...

[tsky]

Is that your entire budget for the next year?

 

Do you have to renovate existing with that cash too or is this in addition as a "show of technology" ?

 

If that's your entire budget and you need new networking / servers / workstations you're screwed!

 

I've been offered 50K again which has to cover:

Renovation of 5 computer labs

Reconstruction of a dying 7-year-old 1Gbps core network to latest gen

Implementation of a wireless network

Payment of all licensing

Payment of county broadband (£15K alone!)

Payment for replacing dead projectors around the school (5 at last count)

All consumables (toner, cd's, usb sticks, cables etc.)

 

Much laughing at them after they refused the notion of £250K required.. and yeah... the CV is with many agencies right now...

[Face-Man]

Normally under BSF passive networking and infrastructure is covered under the building elements. Your MSP will be putting the active equipment and servers. This takes up a large chunk of the £1450 per pupil provided to schools. Your MSP will then provide schools with a catalogue which you can choose equipment from. Personally if I was in your shoes I would be asking your heads of department what will make a impact on their departments teaching ie: green screen, visulisers, digital cameras, apple macs etc

[sippo]

Give me some.

 

We have a budget of £10k! Out of that I need to buy approx 45 PC's, 10 sets of speakers, a new server, some sort of storage device, 4 printers....

 

Gulp.

[torledo]

They will 'use it' and it will benefit everyone. Quicker, more reliable connections (even failsafe if you do the infrastructure properly). Then Virtualised servers with vMotion and the likes can mean your servers are never off, and you can actually guarantee uptime.

 

Workstations are useless without the backbone to support them.

 

As others have said, server or infrastructure related could already be taken care of by the MSP.

 

So the OP's budget is for the type of stuff that Face-Man was highlighting, iMacs, green screen, visualisers etc.

 

Could even cover stuff like handheld devices .....but the MSP would provide netbooks, PC's etc ?? Or does that come out of this 145k ?

 

What about with software, do the MSP's provide the normal productivity apps but if you wanted something like Final cut express on a suite of Macs that would come out of the 145k 'stuff you can see and use' non standard kit ?

 

However it works, interesting for the OP and the teaching staff to figure out how to spend it. I guess it's a case of being suitably informed to make such purchasing decisions. Not easy to not blow it on stuff that ends up gathering dust in the wrong hands..

Edited February 5, 2010 by torledo

[maniac]

If you're having trouble spending it, you could sling some of it my way - I'm sure I could invest it wisely for you

[CyberNerd]

£145K Budget - What would you spend it on?

 

Toss up between a yacht and retirement to south america

[CHR1S]

Assuming this is for fun stuff and not core ICT as others have said I would consider spliting it into (almost) 3 years of £50k investments.

 

Having £145k of toys in one go will be overwhelming and most will go un-used (I assume), careful planning and evolution of existing toys would be my choice

 

But hey, a blow out splurge would be fun

[Ric_]

You need to ask departments what they want to teach with ICT. Note that this is not the same as asking them what ICT equipment they want.

 

Once you have a list of their requirements, you can research the available technologies for things like SEN, languages, control, CAD, CAM, media production, photography, etc.

 

Of course, you also need the specification for what will be provided by your managed service. They may even have Ts & Cs prohibiting the use of some technologies... you don't know until you ask!

[gaz350]

The biggest thing to also consider is how long the item s are going to last, have a plan for replacing the items you buy. No point buying stuff that lasts 2-3 years if your budget isn't going to cope with replacing them.

 

Btw we just had a 3d printer for dt delivered and that thing is awesome [nomedia=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h4qiU9zq2oM&feature=related]YouTube- Z 450 Printer[/nomedia]

[glennda]

I would recmommend a very large nice leather chair a very nice large desk, a dual quad xeon server for you to use as a personnel pc with multiple graphics cards for maybe 4/6 32" monitors and place in a a quite part of the corridor so it can be seen and then sit back in your nice chair and relaxe :D:D:D:D:D:D:D