Educational Hardware

[discoveranother2]

Hi Guys & Gals,

I just wondered if anyone out there provides I.T. Support for educational institutions. We do as well mainly primary schools. These schools in terms of educational hardware mainly use laptops and ipads. But would like to know what else others are using that provide educational development for these schools to keep them moving forward and up to date in terms of both hardware and software.

Also, would be interested to hear if anyone feels they they can work in conjunction with schools (not support services) but in terms of providing lessons or teaching of I.T. resources. PM me if need be.

Thanks all

[4222686 (rouschkateer)]

I worked in education and IT for 2 years. The district used Toshiba laptops and Samsung tablets. We also implemented O365 for all students, faculty, and staff. This eliminated the need for document storage on the laptop, but since the IT Department did not use AD for students, it was a generic profile log on for all students, and then using a browser to sign into O365. This got messy in terms of a student logging out of their O365 account.

The tablets weren’t locked down in terms of “signing on”. However, it was not an admin account and they did not have access to download/install new programs without a username/password. These worked best in the media center (library), gym (health), and resource rooms, instead of laptops.

My job was tech integration. I worked with faculty, staff, and students in using educational software or the equipment to assist with lessons (not replace lessons). We used Mathspace, IXL, Reading Horizons, National Geographic Reach for Reading, LearnZillion and other supplemental online sites for additional learning, quizzes, and tests.

I still have loads of resources if you want to know more.

[peterw2300]

And Chromebooks are becoming increasing popular. There are various sites talking about their merits such as Mrs P Teach: Chromebooks in Education

[philliphowley2153 (Phowley)]

I’d say this is a loaded question - as there is so much I could respond to you with. So here we go…

I’m all things tech for a K-12 school, we are 1:1 with Lenovo carts for K-6, and Surface Pro for 7-12 using O365 products. If you have access to O365, We absolutely love Teams and OneNote. I highly recommend looking at OfficeLens, Microsoft Translator, and Microsoft Immersive Reader as well. Outside of these, we use various tech such as Arduinos,MakeyMakey, LittleBits, 3Doodlers, Minecraft Education, IXL, Quizlet, Kahoot, Wakelet, MuseScore, and Skype classroom events. Another one that is very popular is FlipGrid. We also use Microsoft Imagine Academy (formerly Microsoft IT Academy beginning with our 7th grade students. I also use it for teaching Infrastructure & Comp Sci resulting in students getting Microsoft Certs. These are just some of the various tools we use.
The best way to get ideas and tips to keep moving forward is to visit other schools and stay informed in the latest trends. Microsoft has an education resource available to everyone. The website (education.microsoft.com), there are all kinds of free courses, resources, and lessons plans that one can incorporate into the classroom. You also have the option to setup Skype events for virtual field trips, guest speakers, or connect with other classes. If you’re on Twitter, follow #MicrosoftEDU.
I’d recommend checking out educational conferences. ISTE, TCEA, FETC are a few that come to mind. These conferences are usually a week long and they have workshops, poster sessions, and an exhibit hall with all things tech.
If you have more questions, feel free to reach out to me.

[philgman]

I been in IT at a community college for 13 years and have 3 mobile carts of 15-20 dell laptops, various classroom desktops, but primarily dell thin clients in our classrooms. There have been very few tablets deployed as no instructor has yet provided us with a use case where this was a more effective or better ROI for the students (beyond “it’s cool”). The tablets we do have were supplied by an outside training partner for a specific course or purchased independently by a department head after their request was rejected by IT. Out of the 15 tablets and Chromebooks we did purchase and deploy to students 8 are sitting in our storage and the rest are either “lost” or sitting unused in an instructor’s office. Board Members are provided laptops or Ipads for their meetings and the IPads have been a constant source of annoyance to support.

In almost every classroom there is a mix of legacy Smartboards or Epson interactive projectors and whiteboards. the room control systems are Extron equipment (Extron sales and support are 10/10 awesome). Standard instructor podiums have blue-ray disks players, Zotac it Intel NUC desktops, ceiling mounted HD document cameras, and several have multiple camera ZOOM Video Conferencing capabilities. We Have 6 campuses within a 500 km radius.

here is a 2 projector room with VC

here is a basic 1 projector room with no VC

[williamstubbs2 (WIlliamB5)]

K-12 school here, We have almost exclusively chromebooks for 1st-12th in the form of classroom carts. K has stations of iPads, Of the past 2 years we have been getting away from projectors and went to flat panels. We have boxlight ifp’s and Promethean ifp’s 75in ones to compare size. Staff have mostly macs, macbook pros or airs for teachers. 1400 or so chromebooks mostly dell about 1/3 of them are acer.

[cweb]

Up to date with hardware and software means you are integrated into the decision making process and have someone on the team that understands both the technical tech side and the curriculum side. The people that can straddle both worlds are not that numerous. You are wanting to mix sound pedagogy with a technology that is user friendly and sustainable by you as a vendor/partner with the district.

Is it doable, yes? Will district be willing to pay for it, maybe.

I work full time in K12 IT, and moonlight/consult across the state in the realm of technology leadership and automation, I try to help the schools improve their workflow so that the understaffed teams can support what they have while moving the district forward to bring in new technologies. For some districts that might be VR, others it might be something like Google classroom, or Chromebooks. Every district is different and knowing what the in place people can support and grow into is vital to helping any technology initiative be successful in K12