Dos_Box Posted October 17, 2011 Posted October 17, 2011 It's been a while since we had a discussion about this. In the past these kind of threads were mainly orientated along the lines of 'So what shiny stuff will you be buying with your NGfL money?', but with the harnessing technology grant vastly dimished, schools now shopping around for RBC independant net connections, filtering and online services and the need for better financial planning for educational IT resources perhaps it is about time we talked about what the future might bring once more. So what will it be for you? More mobile learning via wireless? In-house email and web resources? Moving over to virtualised servers? Bring your own technology (BYOT)? What are you expecting to change in the next 24 months or so, and what technologies do you see education adopting and how are you planning to adapt to meet these changes? 1
featured_spectre Posted October 17, 2011 Posted October 17, 2011 Next 24 months I expect belts to be tightened up a massive amount, and budgets to be cut in half, if not more. More reliance on wifi will most likely happen as budgets wont be able to pay for infrastructure to be updated any more.
irsprint84 Posted October 17, 2011 Posted October 17, 2011 Academy status might give a bump but cant see where money is coming from for schools in general
featured_spectre Posted October 17, 2011 Posted October 17, 2011 To be honest, academies in my area have tighter restrictions than LEA schools. Budgets are a fraction more than they had previously (one place it is a whole £100 more for the year) and the restrictions are ridiculous. 3 quotes for everything (including keyboards and mice, patch cables etc). Academies IMO don't have it any better than we do, if anything its worse.
andyturpie Posted October 17, 2011 Posted October 17, 2011 For our school it won't change, as someone quoted that too many schools are building the curriculum around the IT infrastructure which is the tail wagging the dog. The curriculum SHOULD dictate the IT infrastructure. So I predict we will remain status quo (ie physical servers and Workstations) for many years to come.
featured_spectre Posted October 17, 2011 Posted October 17, 2011 @andyturpie the trouble with this is that the curriculum will be updated and the funds to keep up with the updates wont be there. Sooner or later it will be down to the following Drop a tech to fund the changes needed Outsource if its a lone paid tech to fund the changes needed (as happened in my case) Stagnate and be behind on resources required.
bossman Posted October 17, 2011 Posted October 17, 2011 We are looking at conversion to Academy which I have been told will give us more say over our money as we are not partnering with anyone and the LA has no say. You would be surprised at how much money the LA actually top slices from schools and there are other less costly services out there which offer even better service than the LA's. IPad's are being assessed along with Kindle readers and students own devices, social networking sites such as Facebook, twitter and also picture sites for instant uploading from these wireless devices. More digital signage throughout the school plus introducing MFD's for the students and staff. As for the infrastructure it is sound apart from investment in new wireless management system along with new AP's. All this takes money and as someone on here has already mentioned it seems like a lot of schools will be standing still for a couple of years.
Dos_Box Posted October 17, 2011 Author Posted October 17, 2011 All this takes money and as someone on here has already mentioned it seems like a lot of schools will be standing still for a couple of years. So money is being spent, just not on 'advancing' the systems currently in use? Sort of spending to save in the future?
SYNACK Posted October 17, 2011 Posted October 17, 2011 In NZ, down the same paths that have proven to have large failings in other countries mostly.
maniac Posted October 17, 2011 Posted October 17, 2011 Any device, any where, any time access More devices owned by the students, less devices owned by the school More investment in the back end and network infrastructure moving away from the traditional 'client server' model to a more flexible environment encompassing VDI technologies and cloud environments. At least that's what we're striving for here.
bossman Posted October 17, 2011 Posted October 17, 2011 So money is being spent, just not on 'advancing' the systems currently in use? Sort of spending to save in the future? Well not at this moment, it all depends on the Academy status for us and what is deemed a necessity to provide the curriculum. We have Virtualisation (Backend) and remote desktops for staff and students (External use) so infrastructure sound, probably require another SAN to mirror our VM SAN for total failover already have HA but would like the extra feature. Emphasis will be on the curriculum and how the school will implement using digital devices and infrastructure if at all.
Dos_Box Posted October 17, 2011 Author Posted October 17, 2011 Any device, any where, any time access More devices owned by the students, less devices owned by the school More investment in the back end and network infrastructure moving away from the traditional 'client server' model to a more flexible environment encompassing VDI technologies and cloud environments. At least that's what we're striving for here. Do you already allow student laptops/devices? It'd be nice to see a UK school embracing BYOT, even if it is to see how you get on with it.
maniac Posted October 17, 2011 Posted October 17, 2011 Do you already allow student laptops/devices? It'd be nice to see a UK school embracing BYOT, even if it is to see how you get on with it. We don't at the moment, but our new buildings ICT 'vision' greatly involves encouraging students to bring in their own devices and a much more 'open' system than a lot of schools have at the moment, allowing these to be used to access resources hosted on the academy network or cloud. We're looking to be as platform independant as possible as well so in theory anything could be used, windows, apple OS, linux, android etc.
glennda Posted October 17, 2011 Posted October 17, 2011 We've been and done the whole laptops thing, the school decided this solution didn't work for them (mainly teachers not looking after well enough) we have now moved to a solution with 15 ICT suites (school of 1500 kids, 900 desktops). So each department has 1 suite each (pretty much). Now they all have a perm teacher in them so they are looked after a lot better. The teachers then swap with each other when they wan't to use a suite. I think we will be looking to some sort of VDI solution in the Future - probs with a Zero (or thin) client and Multipoint servers.
jahbulon Posted October 17, 2011 Posted October 17, 2011 We're not interested in BOYT because of the prevalent hand holding we do- that would go into overdrive here unfortunately. Mostly looking into virtualising, very slowly! No wireless here, weary of future health implications, especially for the younger pupils and could not afford the infrastructure upgrade that would be required anyway. Does anyone know of an example of a school that has converted to Academy and actually has had noticeably more money freed up? I haven't heard of any unfortunately. We don't even have the funds to regularly replace are failing PCs atm, looking into using Vmware view in a few rooms- long term! Very little mobile devices here, cannot afford and also currently phasing out the staff laptops i.e. replacements aren't being bought. Sorry, quite dismal! We already run our own email [for staff only], website, vpn etc
Roberto Posted October 17, 2011 Posted October 17, 2011 Do you already allow student laptops/devices? It'd be nice to see a UK school embracing BYOT, even if it is to see how you get on with it. We allow both staff and students to bring in their own equipment and connect it to a "guest" wireless vlan, which doesn't have much access to the main network.
Dos_Box Posted October 17, 2011 Author Posted October 17, 2011 No wireless here, weary of future health implications, especially for the younger pupils and could not afford the infrastructure upgrade that would be required anyway. Just out of interest, was this a school management decision? 1
CyberNerd Posted October 17, 2011 Posted October 17, 2011 We did the infrastructure work last year to support BYOT. The scheme was opend up to staff and sixth form this year, we currently have around 150 user owned devices on site. The infrastructure was - 10GB/s backbone, 80+ Meru access points, Commercial broadband (due November), 300x concurrent citrix licenses. The wireless connects to a 'dirty' network which protects the internal network; connecting allows access to Citrix apps, Moodle apps, Google file storage. To support BYOD we have ditched MSOffice for Teaching and Learning - this has saved us around £19,000 per year (to license MSOffice to 1900 users on Citrix/Terminal services we need to buy a license for every device). We are using Google apps instead of office for students, and libreoffice where google isn't upto scratch. We have a strategic software strategy - software can only be purchased by departments if it can either run; license free on home user equimpent, via Moodle or via Citrix. 4
jahbulon Posted October 17, 2011 Posted October 17, 2011 Well, when wireless has come up we state the costs involved to work well (i.e. any classroom in the school to comfortably handle 20-30 laptops at once) and the health warnings that are widely available across the web (most of the worries are the signs of negative effects on younger children in increasing studies, their fragile little skulls!). Our Head Teacher isn't particularly interested in technology so the only serious pushing for wireless is from a few minor teachers. Personally, health and costs aside- we (i.e. myself and my line manager) just aren't that interested in the mobile learning 'benefits' that are claimed. I've seen and read some very good examples of great uses but to me it is like an icing on a cake and I'd rather myriad other services before a wireless network. Peace.
jahbulon Posted October 17, 2011 Posted October 17, 2011 Very smart approach here- I like it! We did the infrastructure work last year to support BYOT. The scheme was opend up to staff and sixth form this year, we currently have around 150 user owned devices on site. The infrastructure was - 10GB/s backbone, 80+ Meru access points, Commercial broadband (due November), 300x concurrent citrix licenses. The wireless connects to a 'dirty' network which protects the internal network; connecting allows access to Citrix apps, Moodle apps, Google file storage. To support BYOD we have ditched MSOffice for Teaching and Learning - this has saved us around £19,000 per year (to license MSOffice to 1900 users on Citrix/Terminal services we need to buy a license for every device). We are using Google apps instead of office for students, and libreoffice where google isn't upto scratch. We have a strategic software strategy - software can only be purchased by departments if it can either run; license free on home user equimpent, via Moodle or via Citrix.
Max_Power Posted October 18, 2011 Posted October 18, 2011 We did the infrastructure work last year to support BYOT. The scheme was opend up to staff and sixth form this year, we currently have around 150 user owned devices on site. The infrastructure was - 10GB/s backbone, 80+ Meru access points, Commercial broadband (due November), 300x concurrent citrix licenses. The wireless connects to a 'dirty' network which protects the internal network; connecting allows access to Citrix apps, Moodle apps, Google file storage. To support BYOD we have ditched MSOffice for Teaching and Learning - this has saved us around £19,000 per year (to license MSOffice to 1900 users on Citrix/Terminal services we need to buy a license for every device). We are using Google apps instead of office for students, and libreoffice where google isn't upto scratch. We have a strategic software strategy - software can only be purchased by departments if it can either run; license free on home user equimpent, via Moodle or via Citrix. Weve done something similar, have a seperate guest wireless network for BYOD - which is available to sixth form and staff so they can use things like Moodle, HAP+ and citirx xenapp. Currently around 100 sixth formers using it and 40 staff. Already have around 1000 workstations, but in future we will be going thin client and utilising citrix a little better. Will continue to provide physical workstations for Art and Music as running Creative Suite 5.5 and Sibelius on thin client didnt really prove successful. Although the latest release of IOS looks like its going to cause massive headaches and managing the devices sounds like a complete pain we will be going down the iPAD route probably for staff to start with, with a small number available for students. Suggestions being made that more tech enabled teachers will use Ipad with apple TV and citrix instead of using a PC or thin client.
TechMonkey Posted October 18, 2011 Posted October 18, 2011 We are at a major convergance point to looking at doing major upgrades ready for the future. Hoping to (if teh money holds out) virtualise backend, go vanilla & update to server 2008 & W7. Then have a good look at infrastructure, cabling, backbone & possibly wireless then tentatively move into thin client. Our aim is to get to the point where we could potentially provide BYOT if that is the way we or the school wish to move. If we don't we will still be in a position to provide good home working support for staff and students & be flexible in what we can achieve on site.
geeky Posted October 24, 2011 Posted October 24, 2011 Mobile devices seem to be the next order of the day. Currently we are looking into providing Internet access to pupil phones and other personal devices. We already provide access to 6th former personal laptops under our 'Guest' account, though this involves them changing their laptop settings. For ad hoc mobile devices then it will need to be transparent. It is not clear however, how this resource will transmit into teaching and learning. Has any schools got experience with any development projects using mobile devices effectively?
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