Replace laptops with stations?

[Gibson335]

Has anyone out there taken the step of replacing laptops for staff with a station in every class and office? If so, I'd be really interested as to how that went down with teaching staff, and whether it has had a positive or negative impact.

 

Likewise, have you always had stations instead of laptops (or gone back once the LfT scheme ground to a halt) and does that work out well for you?

 

Cheers.

[EvLPhenom]

We have always had workstations in classrooms since i have been here (6yrs) and think that this has always been the same.

 

Although when the LfT was around staff had laptops that they could use in and out of school, but for the purpose of registration each room has at least one computer in.

[36Degrees]

Staff were given the option: either a workstation or a laptop, not both. If they chose the latter they had to ensure that they brought it in every day and set it up 9we have a few spares to cover illness, etc.) Th emajority selected to have a worksatin which makes it much easier for everyone IMO.

[mb2k01]

As above, we've been fixed-point station the majority of the time. We simply took the choice away from Staff - they were to be given a fixed-point machine in their classrooms due to it being more reliable, always available, there for other teachers who may use the room, able to run all software, always connected to the projector/board etc.

Staff (on the whole) understood. Those who didn't / wanted a mobile option had to finance a laptop themselves from dept funds, or have a very good reason to request one from central funds.

[rob101]

Hi Tony, we changed to desktops about a year or two ago now, we also stopped teachers from taking home laptops that were for classroom use, as you can likely guess it went down like a ton of lead, but we had the backing of the leadership team which you need if this is a route you want to take.

 

Overall the effects i think have been positive, staff no longer turn up in a room with all the AV equipment unplugged or with no laptop there because the last teacher took the laptop home.

 

My next step down this route will be to try and get persistent desktops for teachers between class rooms so I remove the login times out of the picture, the main problem I'm having with this is that the only way I currently know that can do this is TS sessions via a server, which cant do connections to a IWB.

[Gibson335]

Hi Tony, we changed to desktops about a year or two ago now, we also stopped teachers from taking home laptops that were for classroom use, as you can likely guess it went down like a ton of lead, but we had the backing of the leadership team which you need if this is a route you want to take.

 

Overall the effects i think have been positive, staff no longer turn up in a room with all the AV equipment unplugged or with no laptop there because the last teacher took the laptop home.

 

My next step down this route will be to try and get persistent desktops for teachers between class rooms so I remove the login times out of the picture, the main problem I'm having with this is that the only way I currently know that can do this is TS sessions via a server, which cant do connections to a IWB.

As well as the wailing and gnashing of teeth, was there any genuine discontent, or did it all settle down quickly and people just got on with their jobs?

[6Foot2]

We have deployed a laptop in place of a workstation in one of our Admin Offices and will be doing the same with another laptop shortly.

 

The reason for the swaps is as follows:

 

The members of staff who had the laptops damaged them so that they no longer charge the battery but work fine in all other respects. We remove the batteries [which are still good once charged and keep them for spares] and run the laptops in the admin office on the mains only. The person who works on that laptop is also given an external screen so they get double the desktop area to work with and we get workstations that we can deploy elsewhere in school.

 

The downside is that we also have to replace the laptop for the members of staff who lose one in this process but we would have to do that anyway [We have looked into repair and we do not have the skills in house to do it and we found it too expensive (uneconomic) to send them out and have them repaired]

[rob101]

I think because it came from on high rather than from the IT department all the discontent went to the deputy head to deal with, some of the larger departments were given laptops as a group resource for members of their team to use at home or out of class rooms, this helped a lot, we also were given five laptops that were for whole school loan out, teachers sign them in and out, although these days we really have to chase the staff to bring them back.

[Grey-gear]

We have used desktops in the classrooms for about 5 years now, it worked fine for years only problem we had was the desktops that we had were Dells and they have a lovely red volt switch on the back (the self destructed button). Something to keep in mind is how long to use the computers for, 3 years on we started getting compliants of them being "slow". We would of changed them but the SLT went down the BSF path and said that will have to last because they didn't want to put more money into buying desktops

[andyturpie]

Unfortunately,we still have give out laptops to all our teachers and have a workstation in each class and yes the teachers still demand one. I can kind of the reasoning behind our SMT's reasoning, is that the school would be held accountable for any data breach, and providing them with an laptop with a fully encrypted drive with VPN access from it, is far cheaper than any legal fallout if a breach were to happen. The risk of them working at home on an unsecured PC could be catastrophic!

[DrPerceptron]

If you're going to put desktops in classrooms, you need to find a way of either convincing teachers to not use their own laptops... or make it absolutely clear that it is their responsibility to unplug the pc, plug their laptop in and then plug the pc back in for the next person.

 

We have desktops in 95% of classrooms here, but staff retained their laptops (which are 7 years old... vs the majority of the PCs which are 2) and there are a number of staff who are incapable of plugging their laptops in properly (damaging VGA cables etc) and more annoyingly... don't put the room back for the next person.

 

You might also find that if theres a classroom pc in their main teaching rooms, their laptop might never see your network ever again... the longest a teacher has had their laptop at home here was 11 months.

[andyturpie]

If you're going to put desktops in classrooms, you need to find a way of either convincing teachers to not use their own laptops... or make it absolutely clear that it is their responsibility to unplug the pc, plug their laptop in and then plug the pc back in for the next person.

 

We have desktops in 95% of classrooms here, but staff retained their laptops (which are 7 years old... vs the majority of the PCs which are 2) and there are a number of staff who are incapable of plugging their laptops in properly (damaging VGA cables etc) and more annoyingly... don't put the room back for the next person.

 

You might also find that if theres a classroom pc in their main teaching rooms, their laptop might never see your network ever again... the longest a teacher has had their laptop at home here was 11 months.

 

Do not give teachers permission to plug and uplug equipment. The amount of damage to I/O boxes on walls, VGA cables and even ports on PC can be a right PITA!

[Gibson335]

If you're going to put desktops in classrooms, you need to find a way of either convincing teachers to not use their own laptops... or make it absolutely clear that it is their responsibility to unplug the pc, plug their laptop in and then plug the pc back in for the next person.

 

We have desktops in 95% of classrooms here, but staff retained their laptops (which are 7 years old... vs the majority of the PCs which are 2) and there are a number of staff who are incapable of plugging their laptops in properly (damaging VGA cables etc) and more annoyingly... don't put the room back for the next person.

 

You might also find that if theres a classroom pc in their main teaching rooms, their laptop might never see your network ever again... the longest a teacher has had their laptop at home here was 11 months.

 

Yes, I can see that being quite a problem, actually. Taking responsibility is not high on the agenda for some.

[Gibson335]

Do not give teachers permission to plug and uplug equipment. The amount of damage to I/O boxes on walls, VGA cables and even ports on PC can be a right PITA!

 

Permission??? They wouldn't care less here.

[bossman]

@TonyJF:

 

We have always had desktops in every room linked to an IWB plus other utils, visualisers etc, this has made it so much simpler in real terms to maintain and there are less "accidents" and breakages due to the desktops being more robust.

 

Teachers have also had the use of laptops for their own personal use which are not attached to the network except for internet access through wireless AP's but as these came from the student laptop scheme which came to an end for us about 4 years ago we are experiencing a culture of "My laptop has broken so I want a new one", we have dealt with this by way of approaching the SLT and giving them the cost factors for replacements and a rolling cost for the laptop for teachers costs, with this information they have made the decision to stop supplying teachers with laptops and stating that if the teachers want to use a laptop then they have to purchase their own.

 

It has now been approx 1 year ago that this was taken and would you believe that there are still teachers asking for a replacement laptop hehe!

 

You should see their faces when I have to inform them that they will have to provide their own as the school policy is not to supply any more, the excuses they come out with as to the reasons why the school should provide them with a laptop is incredible.

 

I love it