Hey All, I was just curious what people would purchase in an education environment if their budget was unlimited. Focus on infrastructure? Software? Student or Staff Devices? What do you think would best help the clients (students) to achieve their learning goals?
10 Spice ups
Coming from someone in Education I would say by far focus $$ on infrastructure…especially switches and wireless access points. And oh yeah internet bandwidth doesn’t hurt either.
2 Spice ups
The entire scope of IT is making due within a budget or providing the best ROI. The idea of having no budget makes for some ridiculous outcomes. LIke every student gets their own supercomputer, and a person system admin and 100GB fiber to each desktop.
3 Spice ups
matt338
(Matt338)
4
I think I have said this somewhere else on here, but infrastructure would be my first priority then devices and software for the staff and students. Then I would invest in PD for my staff and I would use a budget for more employees.
brycekatz
(Bryce Katz)
5
The question as posed is meaningless. “Education” is like “IT”: It encompasses a large swath of things that are often quite different. What a large public university would prioritize is very likely different from what a small private college would prioritize, and both of those would likely be vastly different from the needs of an inner-city K-12 school.
Infrastructure and bandwidth!!! If you have unlimited money spend it on wiring, fiber, switches, wireless and bandwidth. Build a solid network. None of the other stuff that is flashy and sexy and trendy will work as designed with crappy infrastructure. Devices will have to be replaced continuously, software is so very trendy in education, and staff and students cycle through a lot.
We spent almost $750K on a network rebuild 9 years ago and we’ve had to replace next to nothing. The only major overhaul we did was replacing our wireless infrastructure. But the guts of the network; the wiring, the fiber and the core switches are the same ones we bought 9 years ago.
From stand point Education will be less budget focused on Software. In my state most software services are purchased by the state or free be’s given by the software vendors.
THanks for the responses, I was just offering a topic for discussion. I obviously work within a very tight budget. Just wondering what other fellow IT in education people prioritize. I also agree infrastructure and bandwidth go a long way. Especially with students often having their own devices.
Right, but does a student REALLY need a supercomputer? I think OP might be asking what likely resources would be purchased if an unlimited budget was obtained (example, every student gets a Surface Pro) 
weirdfish
(WeirdFish)
10
Here in my K-12 world, I would add extra staff/personnel. It’s easy to fantasize about hardware and networks and parts and pieces, but at the end of the day, we need people to make it all work and keep working.
My org is fortunate in that we’re pretty current on infrastructure and end-point technology. We’re a pretty affluent district, so money talks; we throw away stuff that’s more advanced than what many other districts in the county have.
Which brings us back to personnel and the inevitable question “well, why don’t you refurb the stuff you don’t want and sell it at a steep discount to the districts that are salivating to upgrade to the tech that you consider obsolete?”
We don’t have the time/people to refurb and manage the distribution.
Despite the wealth of our community, our department is a skeleton crew and obviously, our main focus is what is currently in the classroom and what our teachers need to do their jobs.
So with money to burn, I would start with personnel. And a revamped office location to house everyone plus the facilities we’d need to do our staging and prep.
1 Spice up
chivo243
(chivo243)
11
We are constantly looking for ways to better our infrastructure. Wireless is #1 at the moment.
We are always looking for a better projection/interactive system. We have Smartboards, Polyvision boards, Epson Smart interactive beamers, and are now piloting a large interactive flat panel display.
1 to 1 program works very well for us. Every student grade 5 and above have a dedicated 11" MacBook Air. iPads for every student grade 1-4.
1 Spice up
ich
(ICH)
12
Whilst I agree infrastructure is key, where I am at the moment has reasonable infrastructure. HP Procurve switches, 1 Gig to the desktop, good wireless coverage throughout the two sites. Not spectacular, but certainly adequate at the moment. My current pinch point is storage. I would put in a NAS box to provide enough space for the next 3-5 years, and upgrade the backup system to handle the increased capacity.
Second would be to replace all the projectors/Smartboards in the classrooms with touch screens. We have already done this in a couple of classrooms.
Third on my list would be software, chosen by the teachers.
Fourth would be to update the older desktop & laptop computers in the classrooms.
Fifth would be to upgrade the admin staff desktops.
Sixth would be IT software, to upgrade my monitoring suite.
Seventh - now I would look at Improving the infrastructure.
Check out our NetCrunch network monitoring suite. We’re well represented in the EDU/GOV market, and you don’t need an unlimited budget to monitor an unlimited number of sensors/elements, as we license exclusively by nodes. On top of, of course, our EDU/GOV discounted pricing.
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