Saturday, May 17th, 2008...3:00 pm
PC Desktop V’s Laptop
Photo credit: Edublogger
One of the projects that Elizabeth and I are currently working on is the refresh of the PC desktops in Primary schools. As part of the process we are visiting the Headteachers and ICT Coordinators in each Primary School to discuss what their preferred choice would be between a ‘like for like’ machine or a move to PC Laptop. It has varied between schools. The general feeling would appear to be that Desk top machines are far more robust however laptops are portable and obviously take up less space. We have also been asking Primary staff to consider what software they use and what has now become redundant. We are hoping to complete this refresh for the start of next session.
The G4 iBooks are scheduled to be refreshed during the 2009/10 session.
10 Comments
May 17th, 2008 at 3:23 pm
Sometimes asking the consumer what they want does not meet the needs of the future. I remember listening once to a car designer who pointed out that if car manufacturers only built what the consumers wanted we would all still be driving around in Ford Cortinas.
May 17th, 2008 at 4:03 pm
Well, as always, we will try our hardest to meet the needs of our consumers and the ever evolving future.
Ford Cortinas
They were the car of the time. My Father started his rally career in one and indeed, Roger Clark won the Scottish Rally in 1967 in one.
Though I will stick with the Beetle for now- it should have got car of the century, not the Mini
May 17th, 2008 at 5:42 pm
hmm… so Tablets aren’t mainstream yet then?
May 17th, 2008 at 7:27 pm
So glad to see you rushing to their defence following that rather ‘cortinarist’ comment above Tess !
I remember my Dad’s Cortina Ghia- brown, with a vinyl roof, tan upholstery and fake wood trim. It carried us from the midlands to southern Spain every summer. That car was the absolute dogs ! -1970’s style. It broke my little heart when he changed to a Capri (which I later learned to love when I reached 17 and he gave to to me)
May 17th, 2008 at 7:27 pm
So glad to see you rushing to their defence following that rather ‘cortinarist’ comment above Tess !
I remember my Dad’s Cortina Ghia 2.0L - brown, with a vinyl roof, tan upholstery and fake wood trim. It carried us from the midlands to southern Spain every summer. That car was the absolute dogs ! -1970’s style. It broke my little heart when he changed to a Capri (which I later learned to love when I reached 17 and he gave to to me)
May 18th, 2008 at 7:25 am
My belief is that ICT should always be flexible enough to move to the point of learning, instead of being located in ICT suites or out in corridors of schools.
I think in the past ICT has been deployed in a fashion that suited the ICT Technicians and Engineers in terms of ease of maintenance and deployment, instead of what was best for learning and teaching.
I believe that it should be a mixture of wireless laptops and desktop PCs and to use each where appropriate- if you have an Interactive Whiteboard in your teaching room then a desktop would be permanently connected to it. Ive found that mobile wireless trolleys have greater usage per week than the ICT suite they replaced, and in addition less “dead time” in lessons getting kids to and from a suite that is sometimes nowhere near their class.
May 18th, 2008 at 8:39 am
I’m with Stuart on the mix and match approach. In terms of operating systems the historical issues of maintaining lots of different type of machine is fading away, according to my Corporate IT colleagues. It’s not as easy for them, sure, but it’s not so difficult as to be prohibitive. So, as the cheesy picture might be suggesting, a mix of Mac and PC, laptop, tablet and desktop, all available for the circumstances that staff and learners feel appropriate.
I’m also with Don in addage that the customer doesn’t always know what they want. It’s taken years of getting it wrong to know that what I needed was a desktop Mac for video editing (pictured) and a laptop for working away and presenting. Why would I want others to go through the same pain?
May 19th, 2008 at 2:11 pm
I think it is important to have a dialogue with consumers. We are having our ‘conversation(s)’ in order to inform what our future strategy may be regarding a variety of current and emerging technologies.
May 19th, 2008 at 8:57 pm
Let us not forget the infrastructure required to support all this.
If you are going wireless then you need to consider the number of machines and the network capability of the wireless access points.
Based on the fact that you have limited bandwidth then you really need to have the highest throughput and thus 802.11n has to be the way to go - question how many ‘laptops’ support 802.11n and what does it cost?
Tess - how is the roll out going? Don’t get much down in u know where.
May 20th, 2008 at 3:02 pm
Thanks for all your comments. There is a lot to consider before we go ahead and purchase. On the Glow front David, I will be shouting out very soon…
Watch this space…
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