Very interested in this thread and will keep an eye on any developments, as this was the first thing I wanted to post about here.
Please don't shoot me down (after reading this thread haha!!) but I'm a primary teacher and since of 3 days ago, ICT co-ordinator. At this point, I want to say how awful some of the experiences are on here. Some members of staff are obivously trying to claim they know what they are talking about without consulting the experts, you guys, the IT support! As a teacher, I often find lack of communication the number one frustration. Anyway...
I don't claim to know it all about IT, but I know damn more than most staff in school combined bless them! We have IT support from our feeder secondary. My school's biggest problem is that we have a few ancient desktops in each classroom. We need to get a bank of laptops in a trolley so that we can actually start teaching the curriculum! But we have no money. I'm not aware at this stage if there is anything in the budget for ICT...I hope there's something! So I need to find the cheapest way possible of getting some semi-decent laptops (I'm not expecting brand new). Some comments on this thread were some things I was already thinking about.
Bidding on hardware....is this still available in all LEAs? I'm in Lancashire and knew this was happening many years ago.
"Hand me downs" from secondary schools - could be worth a go at contacting local secondaries to see if they have anything they want rid of?
Leasing - what are peoples opinions on this? Good option if there really isn't any money in the pot?
Sorry for hijacking the thread.....am happy to make my own if needs be, but thought I'd add to this one as my one would be very similar.