I have money burning a hole in my pocket well the school I work for does

[alextreadwell]

has any one got any ideas what I can spen £500 £600 on for the childrens centre I support some thing nice and gadgety but also must be robust has any one got any ideas thanks

[jamesreedersmith]

Ipad or RM Slate or a Dell Inspriron Duo

[LosOjos]

No offence intended to you personally, but I hate this culture of "have money, must spend".

 

Why not wait until there is something you need? With money so tight in the country at the minute, buying something for the sake of it seems very irresponsible!

[jcollings]

has any one got any ideas what I can spen £500 £600 on for the childrens centre I support some thing nice and gadgety but also must be robust has any one got any ideas thanks

 

What does your IT strategy document say about where funding is needed and what kit is to be bought?

[alextreadwell]

No offence intended to you personally, but I hate this culture of "have money, must spend".

 

Why not wait until there is something you need? With money so tight in the country at the minute, buying something for the sake of it seems very irresponsible!

 

The money will be lost if we don't spend it and it has to be spent on the childrens center, I could use it for a thousand other nice thing else where in the school, the childrens centre already has loads of new computers and laptops whiteboards and projectors I know it would be Great to spend it when I need it but unfortuatly I can't so hench the question

[LosOjos]

The money will be lost if we don't spend it and it has to be spent on the childrens center, I could use it for a thousand other nice thing else where in the school, the childrens centre already has loads of new computers and laptops whiteboards and projectors I know it would be Great to spend it when I need it but unfortuatly I can't so hench the question

 

Good old local government budgeting, "spend it or we'll take it off you", it was amazing when I worked for a certain council's accountancy team how 50% of all budget was spent in the last quarter - what a ridiculous system this country has! [/rant]

 

I'll stop moaning now and try to be helpful instead lol. What kind of things do they do in the children's centre? The answer could be key to choosing the right tech...

[MK-2]

The money will be lost if we don't spend it and it has to be spent on the childrens center....the childrens centre already has loads of new computers and laptops whiteboards and projectors

 

To echo what LosOjos said, again, why spend it? You've just said the centre has loads of new kit, so if they honestly dont need anything, why not let it go back into the government pot? Sure, you wont get to spend it on a iPad but so what?

 

If I gave you 10 apples and you ate 6 of them and said you were full, would you then greedily eat the other 4 despite not wanting them if I said I were going to give them to someone else in the country who might need it more, just because you wouldn't have them anymore?

[psydii]

MK-2, what a great idea. We need a laptop here. Alex, you could buy one and send it over? That'd be grand!

[alextreadwell]

I would quite happly not spend the money but the childrens centre have asked me to come up with idea's on how it could be spent and I don't like to dissapoint! I had allready sugested Ipad, RM slate, They wil spend the money regardless so I thought it might be nice just to spend it on something with a bit of inovation because the way funding is they won't be getting anything new for the next few years

[pauljonze]

Lego Mindstorms?

[tumbleweed]

LEGO !

Beebots - for younger ones.

[steve]

Big colourful keyboards, digital photo-frames, child friendly cameras

[Exos]

Lots and lots of Haribo, orange juice and anything with e-numbers for the kids....alternatively you can arrange for Maggie Thatcher to visit one Friday having given the kids milk on the Monday to Thursday, just to keep her dream alive

 

Seriously though, £600 doesn't get you lot on ICT other than a new PC, tablet or small accessory.

 

Maybe you need to think of an extension to something already in existence? or enhancing some other learning platform or mechanism. Maybe a few small video or still cameras or scanners?

 

Do they have a media solution which you can upload data to a VLE for parents and others to see, or for internal use as teaching aids...(like pictures where they can use them as jigsaws and such)

 

Lots of info and ideas @

 

http://ictearlyyears.e2bn.org/

 

http://www.teachers.tv/videos/ict-in-nursery

 

http://www.itass.newham.gov.uk/curriculum/fssow/resources.aspx

 

http://primary.naace.co.uk/curriculum/earlyyears/foundation_ict.htm

Edited February 10, 2011 by Exos