Mobile Broadband For Pupils

[36Degrees]

I've been asked to investigate providing internet access to disadvantaged pupils. The obvious solution is to use mobile broadband so I wondered if there was anyone out there already doing this? If so what issues have you encountered, how has it worked in practice, etc.?

[creese]

Missed the boat for the DCFS scheme. Laptop and Mobile broadband. There is a chance it will be resurrected by the DoE.

 

My girlfriend was on of the advisers until just before Xmas.

[bossman]

@36Degrees:

 

Our county provided this for underprivileged students via a third party.

 

What can I say..............................logistical nightmare with all the policies that have to be put in place to ensure the safeguarding of the students.

 

Unless you can obtain a mobile device which the provider can guarantee safe use of the internet then it is a non starter.

 

We had the laptops fastened down through the wireless router which the student was supplied with and this accessed the internet via a proxy server at the county end which they could monitor.............all i can say is that the laptops where used not only by the students but the parents also and not for education purposes as the proxy logs showed.

 

Anyway that was our stab at this maybe you might be able to get someone like carphone warehouse to put together a package with device and dongle which has internet safety features which can be monitored by a third party for the safeguarding of the students as the school can and will be held responsible by the parents of these students should anything happen. (where there's a blame there's a claim)

 

Good luck.

[36Degrees]

The idea is to provide netbooks and internet access so that they can access the school's VLE as they then won't need any software on the netbooks themselves. I'd thought about installing some sort of "Parental Control" software on there but hadn't thought about the dongle being used in another machine! Pretty logical when you think about it...

[darrenstraight]

*Jumps the band wagon - if needed happy to split my post into a new topic*

 

As a pupil referral unit. We are working on a project with the LA to provide VLE access to those pupils who have 1:1 tutution from home.

 

We need 3x quotes for Mobile Broadband Dongles:

- One of payment price for 12, 18, 24 months etc

- Must if possible have filtering

 

We already have one quote from T-Mobile who provide a service contracted by our LA and we have used before. But we need to get more quotes for this project. Anyone got any ideas who to ask?

[36Degrees]

We already have one quote from T-Mobile who provide a service contracted by our LA and we have used before.

 

What sort of service do they actually provide? Would it be possible to PM me with whatever details you can? (Obviously I wouldn't expect you to provide the actual cost outlined in the quote!)

[darrenstraight]

What sort of service do they actually provide? Would it be possible to PM me with whatever details you can? (Obviously I wouldn't expect you to provide the actual cost outlined in the quote!)

 

Sent! Now anyone else got any help for me haha!