Laptops + Primay School Ages

[omeydog]

What makes of laptop have you found the best and robust,

Toshibas and Dell have been the most robust.

 

You must be joking.......

 

Besides working as ICT Technician in a Primary School, I also install Espresso, KnowledgeBox and a few other products in schools across the country. The number of times I open a lap trolley and find a pile of Toshiba laptops with keys missing, cracked screens, and other damage! In the school I work at we have always had Toshiba laptops (even the head's has a key missing!) but have just invested in a batch of Lenovo laptops - they have not been subjected to children yet but certainly seem more robust. Also my personal laptop is Lenovo and I am very pleased wit the build quality.

 

On the subject of wireless - how can any school survive without it??? We have 10 access points spread across 13 classrooms, a meeting room and ICT Suite and never have any significant connectivity problems. The biggest issue we have is the wireless switch being turned off on a laptop.

[john]

Good planning in buildings that are new / recently refurbished means that cat5 is plentyful, floorboxes, wall sockets, ceiling sockets etc all over the place.

[omeydog]

Good planning in buildings that are new / recently refurbished means that cat5 is plentyful, floorboxes, wall sockets, ceiling sockets etc all over the place.

 

That's great for new buildings......

But I have spent over a week putting in new cable runs for new desktop machines - and our building is not exactly old as it was built 12 years ago.

 

For fixed machines it has to be wired networking every time - but laptops and PDAs are, by nature, portable - so wireless makes lots of sense to me.

h

[nutskin]

Yep the RM ones do have a good battery life if you manage the charging when they need it. I have them in several schools and have a simple paper chart inside the trolly door that people fill in thier rough usage and then somebody recharges at 3 1/2 hrs. 2 sets ate over 2 yrs old and batterys are still good. I force the internal cards to 801.1a rather them g (rest of teachers laptops on that) and ensure the trolly is plugged in to the network near the laptops use. I use 2 Dlink waps on each trolly and only have the odd laptop drop off when everydody logs into domain at once. I found that the avarage bandwidth on 801a much better the n g or super g when it comes to many laptops in one place.

Yes they cost but if i can find out a replacement asus unit that is similar speced i shall use.

Wish i could use cheeper but havnt found a better solution with low overhead yet:)

[Andie]

We (junior school) are just investigating wireless/laptops/trolleys, as Head very keen. This has been a very helpful thread, and given me lots to think about. Suspect the budget agreed by Governors based on cobbled together info (because we need to come up with a figure now) will be way too small to do a proper job (what's new!!).

[superfletch]

@steveg

 

"only problem we have is kids switching the wireless off via the button on the front."

 

Can you disable the wireless button in the BIOS?

[farmerste]

In the end its not happened, I think the SMT finally got round to watching the Panorama and called all wifi off for now until they can make a overall school policy on it, with consultation with IT on it. Which is a godsend, it means we can keep going as normal and do things at our own pace.

 

 

this may have some useful info to give to anyone thinking of using wireless in school

 

 

http://www.edugeek.net/forums/networks/19089-wifi-power-levels-compared-mobile-phones.html

[rbrstr]

Its an ASUS Z91FR but I fear RM have the UK exclusive for it

 

 

I have a short circuited one of these courtesy of an 11 year and a misplaced drink! Any help on where to source a replacement motherboard would be gratefully recieved, RM have been no help at all unfortunately.

Edited February 22, 2009 by rbrstr

[synaesthesia]

That RM jobby that was supposedly driven over by cars, tanks and what not is rather very good.

 

The main issues I come up with in primary schools, is the teachers.

 

"I can't get network on laptops 3, 5 and 19"

*flicks the wifi switch on*

"I did that several times!"

 

I would also suggest purchasing spare keyboards at the time of buying the new laptops though purely for the sake of the keys. Ebay is a great resource for that though

 

It's amazing just how slow even the better core2 hardware gets when it's chocka with programs, especially on CC3/4 networks