Most Expensive Red Herring

[Hightower]

What is the most expensive red herring at your school? Here, I would say collectively IWB's would come close but some teachers do use them properly so I would therefore have to say the class set of 32 voting pads that cost close to £9k (not our purchase!) and have only been out the box twice in 18 months.

[dwhyte85]

I think IWBs too - the use they get is minimal. That, or the Mac suite - not mac bashing just the staff aren't comfortable using them (with training) and they sit lonely getting mainly youtube use or the occasional bit of word use.

[HMCTech]

Our lecture theatre

[gmj]

Hmmmm....would have to be the IWB's here. We have one in every classroom and only a very small number of staff actually use the interactive element of them. Good have painted the walls white and saved a bomb.

 

It's kinda sad to see them going unused...know some teachers in other schools who would KILL to have a IWB in their room.

[Hightower]

I think IWBs too - the use they get is minimal. That, or the Mac suite - not mac bashing just the staff aren't comfortable using them (with training) and they sit lonely getting mainly youtube use or the occasional bit of word use.

 

Why did you put a mac suite in?

 

(not bashing or nothing either, just curious why it was suggested/implemented)

[joe90bass]

Video conferencing equipment. It was part of some funding so we didn't pay, it got used for a year or so, then the use declined, the video started to cut out after about 10 minutes and the school wouldn't pay for the support contract so it still hasn't been fixed about 3 years later. Apparently it cost £10k new! Two other local schools had it as well, neither still use it...........

[Andrew_C]

Our lecture theatre

We'd kill for another, larger one! We too have a 32 way voting thing, but that is going to be used in anger soon, so it can't be that... Maybe the £20000 processional cross? Old Boys' money, rather than educational budget.

[HarryMonkey]

Video conferencing equipment. It was part of some funding so we didn't pay, it got used for a year or so, then the use declined, the video started to cut out after about 10 minutes and the school wouldn't pay for the support contract so it still hasn't been fixed about 3 years later. Apparently it cost £10k new! Two other local schools had it as well, neither still use it...........

 

Yep. I would agree with this. LSC funded a whole heap of VC kit, whiteboard, TV etc. Then turned out that as it was IP based it wouldn't work outside of the EMBC so the schools that had it could only talk to each other!

[Hightower]

Video conferencing equipment. It was part of some funding so we didn't pay, it got used for a year or so, then the use declined, the video started to cut out after about 10 minutes and the school wouldn't pay for the support contract so it still hasn't been fixed about 3 years later. Apparently it cost £10k new! Two other local schools had it as well, neither still use it...........

 

Ah, video conferencing, how I'd forgotten about that. We heard £10k new as well, and when you tot up how many schools got it in our county alone it turns into mega mega bucks.

 

Another one we had a while ago was we got a load of Samsung Q1's for use by certain pupils at home. The scheme lasted a year I think, but by the time we managed to get them all configured and parents in to sign AUP's etc the kids only had them for a couple of months. Now the scheme is over we have a load of Q1's sat doing nothing (a lot of them damaged anyway!). The feedback from the kids is they were rubbish anyway.

 

EDIT: I think this is the one - http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/education/8449485.stm - if it is, that's £300million for nothing. What a waste of money.

 

I imagine anybody can go pitch an idea to the head honcho's who put these scheme's into place, doesn't have to be well thought out either. If we totalled up crazy schemes like this then I doubt County Hall (in my area) would be laying off 16% of it's staff over the next four years.

Edited January 20, 2011 by Hightower

[Rydra]

The ICT technician!!!!

 

[dwhyte85]

Why did you put a mac suite in?

 

(not bashing or nothing either, just curious why it was suggested/implemented)

 

School was given money for its Arts College status & this was part of the bid (they tried to inflate the bid to the max) - it was more a fact of saying we have a Mac suite for parents I think.

Edited January 20, 2011 by dwhyte85

[localzuk]

VC kit, definitely. It was used for a single year, once a week to teach French to 3 local feeder schools, bought alongside 'Bridgit' which was never used.

 

Or a set of 5 A4 graphic tablets, or a vinyl cutter (which sat doing nothing for a year until I nicked it and started using it for banners and sponsorship on our minibus).

 

4 17" digital photo displays that exist in our head's office. 3 iMacs that were bought because people demanded them and are now used as web browsing machines.

 

I could go on, but I'm sure all schools have such things.

[GrumbleDook]

Yep. I would agree with this. LSC funded a whole heap of VC kit, whiteboard, TV etc. Then turned out that as it was IP based it wouldn't work outside of the EMBC so the schools that had it could only talk to each other!

 

If it is IP based then you just use the JANET gatekeeper ... Unis have been for years.

[Guest Guest]

Why did you put a mac suite in?

 

(not bashing or nothing either, just curious why it was suggested/implemented)

 

Because "they iz for media and shiz like init"

 

 

I would also have to say IWBs and Macs are right up there, but No1 would have to be the £20k+ we spent on video conferencing equipment which never, not once, got used. Oh and the promethean voting crap.

Edited January 20, 2011 by Guest

[AngryTechnician]

Not quite a red herring because they are actually used, but our entire Lower School department has Promethean boards and are insanely jealous of the Upper School with their touch-sensitive SMART Boards. I've always maintained that SMART are better for younger children (even if just for the fact that they can't pull the sodding pen nibs out and eat them), but various past decision makers in our school decided otherwise.

[dwhyte85]

Because "they iz for media and shiz like init"

 

 

I would also have to say IWBs and Macs are right up there, but No1 would have to be the £20k+ we spent on video conferencing equipment which never, not once, got used. Oh and the promethean voting crap.

 

"They're bare sick for vidz n grafix" in Slough dialect. I didn't have a say in the purchase, I started being told we'd have a few Macs coming in...

[rad]

We have the voting pads, at least 2 laptop trolleys that barely get used oh and a new one to the list, these interactive babies the Heath and Social care/child care courses have, never seen them and never installed the software for them.

[elsiegee40]

A couple of years ago IWBs would have won hands down, but with a turnover of teachers, they're all in use every day now and we could do with another one.

 

Money wasted.. not on the scale of you larger guys; we're a tiny school. Easyteach English, Maths and Science... never been used as far as I'm aware. Also the portable projector and it's accompanying laptop which seems to get used about every 6 weeks at best going by WSUS's complaints about it not checking in.

 

I am concerned that the 3 year Class PET subscription may be wasted money too, but that seems to have taken off this week. We've had it since September.

[torledo]

What is the most expensive red herring at your school?

 

surely you mean white elephant ?

[maniac]

Securus - brought before I started and not used now because it slows the workstations down too much and SMG agreed we could do without it, we're still paying for it on a 3 year agreement thou.

 

The VLE was starting to look like that, but we've got a Teacher championing it now and really pushing it, so it's use is on the up.

 

The mac suite we have is underused, but has seen an increase as well recently. The main problem we have with these is my lack of knowledge of macs, so I find it difficult to support them.

 

Generally thou, if we buy something it is brought with a purpose and I will push its use as much as I can. Sometimes it's just simply informing staff what systems we actually have available on site, as most of them are un-aware of the full facilities we have - this happened recently with the boardworks packages of which we have plenty and they are all loaded in the VLE and available for use, but hardly anyone uses them at the moment - that's my next big push to try and encourage them to be used more.

 

Mike.

[AngryITGuy]

Can't believe no one has mentioned visualizers yet!

[mattx]

Easy one to answer this - everything ICT related. Period. I would prefer to see money wasted on ICT in schools spent on D&T, Art, outside play equipment and better teacher training [ SEN for a start ]. Kids are exposed enough to ICT in everyday life. Get it out of schools - it's un-necessary and just a waste of time.

If I was education minister it would be the first thing I would scrap.

My personal views etc which I very doubt anyone will agree with.

Edited January 20, 2011 by mattx

[Hightower]

surely you mean white elephant ?

 

Define: Red Herring

 

any diversion intended to distract attention from the main issue

 

White elephant might have been the one I was meaning, but red herring is quite fitting in some cases

[bossman]

Define: Red Herring

 

any diversion intended to distract attention from the main issue

 

White elephant might have been the one I was meaning, but red herring is quite fitting in some cases

 

There is definitely something "Fishy" going on here!

 

Cod we just mention the video conferencing again and the plaices where it is used or not hehe!!

[Bezwick]

Think i am gonna have to say Pupils internet access, really beleive they would learn a lot more without it.