Most Expensive Red Herring

[rad]

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.

 

I agree entirely on the basis most departments see it as an easy way to educate kids.

 

I'd like to give a class of Year 7's an encyclopdia in a year or so time and ask them to look up and research XYZ and I bet you will get a fair few unable to do so.

[bodminman]

One of our Deputy Heads!

 

He works a few days a week and now only has responsibility for the timetable. Oh and he also sorts out a few quizzes throughout the year and whilst he's doing the questions etc for these he puts a 'Do not disturb' notice over the window of his office!

 

And he hounds you like a feckin' dog without a bone if you haven't sorted out query for him within 10 minutes! (Too much time on his hands!)

 

So that's a continuous £40k ish per year Red Herring!

[HarryMonkey]

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

 

EMBC insisted on getting a bespoke gatekeeper installed which never worked. So we were stuck with kit that never got used.

[accura2000]

our Senoir Leadership Team....

[Zourous]

I think the saying is "white elephant" rather than "red herring", got me thinking though and had to check the definition. Red herrings are what staff post onto our helpdesk and then we realise they are just making it up and just dreamt it all. In fact, I think each member of staff should have a red herring rating on the helpdesk so we know whether to trust what they are saying or not.

[3s-gtech]

Interesting topic - we have many of the items mentioned, but:

 

IWBs - very few here, those that are here do get used a bit. We realised that they weren't really taking off, and no-one was asking for them. Despite hounding from resellers, and pushing to have them, we never saw the need. We just put projectors in every room - they get massive use.

Laptop trolleys - we only have one for the Welsh dept, it gets good use, the laptops have done three years with only one breakage (touch wood!) and the wireless APs are working okay.

Voting system - not taken off well, but staff have agreed to adopt them - I'm not hugely impressed, but the kids enjoy using them.

Macs - very popular, get heavy use.

VLE - Moodle - very heavy use in IT. No costs other than time.

Video conferencing - constant use, several sessions a week. A second unit does not get used though, quite disappointing.

 

So biggest white elephant - printers! Too many, too much time needed on maintenance, cost too much to run. Papercut has helped on that one though.

[Hightower]

Just a quick side note for those miffed by voting systems. A good alternative I saw at BETT on the M$ stand - I think it's great for small numbers working round a table together.

 

Learn More | Microsoft Mouse Mischief

 

Free, and only requires a mouse for each student using it - effectively a voting system for pennies.

[36Degrees]

EMBC insisted on getting a bespoke gatekeeper installed which never worked. So we were stuck with kit that never got used.

 

Very surprised about that. We are looking to go to IP based equipment as the ISDN based VCON installation is rarely used due to being unreliable and expensive so as part of the research I went to another school within EMBC who gave me an unscheduled link up with the supplier to show how good it is.

[K.C.Leblanc]

Very surprised about that. We are looking to go to IP based equipment as the ISDN based VCON installation is rarely used due to being unreliable and expensive so as part of the research I went to another school within EMBC who gave me an unscheduled link up with the supplier to show how good it is.

 

Is EMBC linked into the Janet Video conferencing service?

 

I think most schools can sign up for free, it's much more flexible then our RBC's (SWGfL) VC portal.

 

JVCS Home

 

We have the same situation, and expensive VC system that's only been used a couple of times.

 

EDIT: If anyone want to do a test conference via Janet drop me a PM.

Edited January 21, 2011 by K.C.Leblanc