Teachers and Laptops

[CAM]

Provide remote access. Then the cost-concious can use a cheap budget computer at home and still do their work.

[jallsop]

Clearly a lot of feelings on this one. I used to be a teacher, before giving it up to fix the things they break. As for 1265 hours mentioned, most teachers have timetabled classes and meetings etc that runs to 1230 hours or more. Leaving less than 1 hour a week spare. To plan an prepare lessons of good quality takes around 20-30 minutes per lesson, plus resource creation if not already available, usually around 50% of the lessons I taught. Netbooks, iPads etc are no good for this, as everything takes so long.

Remote access is good, having used this for a couple of years in a previous school, it worked. But, and its a BIG BUT. It relies on the teacher having a good, solid internet connection with no bandwidth or volume restriction. I did a quick test one time using Citrix Xenapp on iPad, to create and send to print, a two paged worksheet. Total transmission was around 300Mbits, and peak speed was just over 10Mb/s. If you have some of the more budget ISP contracts, you'd kill your 5GB limit per month easily. There was a plan to support all in education with internet, but lacked funding and fell out of thought.

It leaves the only real answer. Provide a portable device, or funds to help teachers buy one. I know that in my first years of teaching, i couldn't afford a computer at all. I had to rely on an ageing Pentium 75, with a massive 8Mb of RAM for the first 4 years.

If you don't give them either remote access to use on their devices, with an aid for the ISP, or an actual fully fledged machine, then its like asking the cooks in the canteen to bring their own ingredients.

As for the question of responsibility, you simply make it part of the AUP, and teacher contract that any damage deemed non accidental, or due to neglect of proper practice, must be paid for in full, by the teacher. Make them sign it, and then it's mostly out of your hands.

Where i work, staff do not get provided with a laptop, but each classroom has a very quick pc, with office and all software they might need, plus 90% of the rooms have IWB, and all have projectors. There are also 3 machines in the staffroom for those who are out of their rooms. Seems to work well, but staff here only teach 30/45 lessons per week. Most UK teachers would teach the equivalent of 41/45 lessons.

[witch]

Seems to work well, but staff here only teach 30/45 lessons per week. Most UK teachers would teach the equivalent of 41/45 lessons.

 

Depends how long the lessons are. There are 25 lessons a week here and teachers get PPA which means that most teach 22 or less. They certainly don't have less than one hour a week to spare for planning etc. One staff meeting and one subject/year meeting a week doesn't fill all their time, given that the school is open until 6pm.

As for not being able to afford a laptop - teachers start on £21000 and I am sure they could afford £300 out of that for a laptop. In fact, I think I can state that they would have been unable to do their teacher training year without one.

[pcstru]

We are looking at a salary sacrifice scheme, like bike to work, to allow staff to purchase a device at a slightly cheaper rate and make a saving on tax. They will not be required to use the device for work but it will be encouraged. Though from our part it will likely require us to get an RDP system working so they can connect from the guest network.

 

We will be looking at this too. What I wonder, having spent the last few years persuading teachers that we need to encrypt their laptops and remove their Admin rights to protect our Data Subjects, is how such a scheme can comply with those obligations.

[jallsop]

Depends how long the lessons are. There are 25 lessons a week here and teachers get PPA which means that most teach 22 or less. They certainly don't have less than one hour a week to spare for planning etc. One staff meeting and one subject/year meeting a week doesn't fill all their time, given that the school is open until 6pm.

As for not being able to afford a laptop - teachers start on £21000 and I am sure they could afford £300 out of that for a laptop. In fact, I think I can state that they would have been unable to do their teacher training year without one.

 

Your staff have it lucky then. More and more schools seem to make their staff teach up to the 90% of the full timetable they are legally allowed to do. Some academies even break this, as they do not have to stick to the rules.

£21,000, then yes this the starting salary, but since you then fall into the paying back university fees bracket, and the Pension at the higher rate, then the £300 (Really very cheap laptop, with no office etc) is money you simply don't have. Especially when you're starting out in a new town or whatever. As for passing PGCE without one, remember, PGCE students don't teach as much as full time staff, so have more time in school to prep etc so they tend to hog the staffroom pcs. Some Unis even offer loan machines to help with the PGCE.

As for schools being open to 6pm, You're lucky. I was forever being booted out at 4.30. The old "SMT have gone, so you shouldn't be here." It was forever a nightmare doing SIMS upgrades etc.

I think its really important to invest in the staff, so that they feel empowered to deliver. The ability to bulk buy 100 laptops etc and licence through school has got to be more reasonable than just telling staff to buy one. At least if you provide, then you control, and you can be sure that everything in that machine is 100% above board.

[SimpleSi]

mark it in the diaries

Having said that, I think either way the pitfall is around supplying laptops and then not replacing them in a timely manner. We have fallen into that trap here. Laptops were provided once, but some are so old that, to quote one member of staff, "I've lost the crank handle!"

 

I think some Leadership Teams (and, dare I say it, perhaps some earlier incarnations of school IT departments as well!) have failed to perceive the true nature of this "single" capital purchase! It will come back again... and again... and again... for EVERY member of staff to whom you assign one... until the end of time. Or until "we decide" it's okay to say everyone's got one anyway so why bother?

 

on same hymn sheet

 

Simon

[sjatkn]

We will be looking at this too. What I wonder, having spent the last few years persuading teachers that we need to encrypt their laptops and remove their Admin rights to protect our Data Subjects, is how such a scheme can comply with those obligations.

 

Quite probably get everything web based like Google Docs or Office 365 or build an RDP system for everyone to remote into. At least the data would never really leave the building, restrictions on printing may need to be enforced and policy on not viewing sensitive data on screen in a cafe! That though is little different to having encrypted laptops out and about.

[Roberto]

We will be looking at this too. What I wonder, having spent the last few years persuading teachers that we need to encrypt their laptops and remove their Admin rights to protect our Data Subjects, is how such a scheme can comply with those obligations.

 

Remote access to a terminal server or VDI cluster. Our data never leaves our site(*).

 

(* assuming people are also sticking by the rest of our policies on data... ahem!)

[pcstru]

Remote access to a terminal server or VDI cluster. Our data never leaves our site(*).

 

As far as I can see, that is the (technical) solution and would allow us to demonstrate that we have taken (appropriate) steps to prevent accidental data loss. The problem is it's more expensive that just buying the laptops and giving them to staff.

[Roberto]

As far as I can see, that is the (technical) solution and would allow us to demonstrate that we have taken (appropriate) steps to prevent accidental data loss. The problem is it's more expensive that just buying the laptops and giving them to staff.

 

Yes it is. But if educators want to play on the grown up's golf course then they need to accept that they might have to pay grown up greens fees.

[SYNACK]

Quite probably get everything web based like Google Docs or Office 365 or build an RDP system for everyone to remote into. At least the data would never really leave the building, restrictions on printing may need to be enforced and policy on not viewing sensitive data on screen in a cafe! That though is little different to having encrypted laptops out and about.

 

And if there is screen and input capture malware on the base machine no amount of html5 or remote desktop is going to save you, the devices need to be managed too.

[synaesthesia]

My take on this subject has shifted now, given the circumstances and the year.

I do not believe for one moment that it is in the best interest of the school or the people funding that school for them to also pay for laptops for staff in this day and age. I firmly believe that many staff see it as a "benefit" or perk of the job. People that treat it like that are in the wrong industry without any shadow of doubt.

However there absolutely has to be some give and take. It's not up to us to judge people's circumstances, although it's often extremely hard to believe that someone is having to "do without" when they drive a brand new Range Rover or Audi R8. We still don't provide laptops to staff - the majority, if they have a laptop, have one of the original Laptop for Teacher Fujitsu machines with a smattering of P4 level Toshibas. Exceptions are made where the load is a little higher but that's rare. When machines fail, that's it, there's no replacement. If they're desperate, we'll certainly help find an old laptop lying around they can have. And anything provided by the school should be treated as such IMO; full encryption, fully managed (must be brought in termly/annually for instance). Would certainly help cut down the incidents where we find laptops have spent their entire usable life with the staff member's offspring at Uni, laden with BearShare, Limewire, 300 pirated films and treble that amount of viruses.

 

But also in this day and age that brings a new possibility - remote management. Easily done with systems like SCCM and Meraki for example, as long as they get a remote connection there's no reason you can't keep a close eye on things; anti virus updates, general usage patterns if that's required, roughly where the laptop is (it's *your* hardware) without being too "Big Brother". Ways and means.

Edited May 26, 2013 by synaesthesia

[Ephelyon]

Yes it is. But if educators want to play on the grown up's golf course then they need to accept that they might have to pay grown up greens fees.

 

^ This. But the subtle distinctions between these golf courses are often only known to the pros. How could we communicate the difference in playing field to people who have a single goal in mind (to which the playing field seems largely irrelevant)?

[Roberto]

^ This. But the subtle distinctions between these golf courses are often only known to the pros. How could we communicate the difference in playing field to people who have a single goal in mind (to which the playing field seems largely irrelevant)?

 

This is the issue. Education isn't the only line of business in which people hire experts and then not listen to them, to be fair, but it is one of the places where the attitude is most subbornly entrenched.

[Ephelyon]

I think all concerned need to bear in mind the changing landscape of this sector over the past couple of decades. It's gone from a scenario in which pretty much all "staff" (barring e.g. caretaker, secretary, cook etc.) were in fact teachers, to a scenario where in some schools the number of associate staff is actually greater than the number of service delivery staff. In short, the sector has "gone multidisciplinary" much in the manner of the healthcare sector before it.

 

The good thing about that is that there are examples of lessons to be learnt that are already extant; the task is then to gently nudge decision-makers towards these. Some progress in certain areas has already begun to be made, with PricewaterhouseCooper's 2007 report recommending changes to school leadership structures and the ASCL's report of 2011 endorsing that position... though of course in most places we are yet to see it!

[TheScarfedOne]

I have a scheme where all our teaching staff have a laptop. We did look at all classrooms having a dedicated PC...but at a time where the school was being rebuilt and we didn't know how many rooms there would be, and remote access was next to non existant - we went with laptops. The laptops have a 4 year warranty and are part of a pool, which rotates round all the staff as we need to recal for maintenance or repairs. Most repairs are for HDDs, we've had the odd expensive screen but they are rare. No matter which way you go...you have a commitment in costs.... Classroom PC and good home access for planning; or laptops.

[witch]

If the school was genuinely committed to staff laptops then they need to have a pool but we have nothing like that here. I have taken it upon myself to put smart software on one of our bank of children's laptops so that at least I can give that out when I have repairs to do, otherwise the staff end up with nothing which is unfair.

This past week I have had a screen connector go, a keyboard fail and what I think is a touchpad fault so a good replacement is necessary.

[Roberto]

If the school was genuinely committed to staff laptops then they need to have a pool but we have nothing like that here.

 

Couldn't agree more. I'm not sold on the idea of a "laptop strategy" myself but the point is that a school needs to pick whatever IT strategy it feels suits it best and then make a commitment to implementing it properly.

 

There's an element of doing "just enough" and then praying it will be OK on the day that exists in education even more than it does in a lot of other businesses (education often reminds me of a small-to-medium enterprise business being run by someone with a "cottage industry" mentality) and educational establishments need to understand that this kind of nickel and diming will come back to haunt them in the end.

 

The ultimate cost of not being able to deliver a lesson is far higher than the cost of buying a spare laptop or two.