Tuesday 25 March 2014

New school - what device to use?

I've been asked by a friend to advise someone on what devices to use in a completely new school. Should it be Mac or PC? Are iPads a good idea for student use? What should staff use? What is the best solution for a school?

This is an incredible difficult question to answer, which is why I've gone for a blog post to give me room to explore the various options. My first piece of advice is to read. Find case studies of schools where different technologies have worked for them, and where it hasn't worked for some schools. There are a fair few schools that have gone down the 1:1 device route, be it with netbooks, iPads or other devices, see if it has worked, and whether they would recommend it. Also, talk to the other people at your school, and if you have a fair sway in what devices you are going to want to use, make sure you;re best friends with the Network Manager, as you're about to put a whole heap of work his way!

Before I get into my advice, a disclaimer. I've only ever worked in a Microsoft environment. We have one Mac onsite, which helps manage the 10 or so iPads we have. I like Apple products, but Apple products don't like our budget, so we've gone PC. I'll try to keep the advice generic where possible, but I can't go into great details about Macs as I haven't had the opportunity to manage them.

The backbone

Before looking at any devices, make sure that the school has a suitable wireless infrastructure in place. This can be Aerohive, Ruckus, Meru, Aruba, Meraki, Cisco or any other brand of managed wireless system, but it has to work for your devices to work. If coverage is poor, then access to the internet is poor, and a slow connection cripples any device, from a high end Mac to a low end Android tablet, connection speed is key. It is also fairly likely that the servers are going to be running Windows Server, or possible Linux, and Windows tends to be easier to manage. As that's a debatable point, I'll leave that there, but my wider point will be that whatever device you go for, make sure that the person in charge of managing the devices is competent on that OS. Managing a Mac environment can be very different from managing a Windows one, and linux another level more complex than both.

My final word on this though is that Teaching and Learning should come first, so if you need a specific device to a do a specific task to enable your course to be the best it can be, make sure that's what you get.

Teaching and Learning

As mentioned, it's the Teaching and Learning that should be key to your decision. What does your school need from Technology to achieve it development plan? Does your music teacher need Garageband to teach, and therefore Macs, or is your Media Studies teacher dead set against Macs, and will only use Windows? If you can get an idea of what the teachers need then it could be that the choice is made for you.

Mobile Device Management

There are many obstacles to implementing a 1:1 device to students scheme. I wouldn't want to put a school of implementing such a scheme, but make sure the following questions are answered first:
1, Who owns the device? The school or the student?
2, Who pays for the device? School or parents?
3, Who pays for the repair of the device if broken?
4, Who is responsible for the insurance of the device?
5, What is the provision if a student forgets the device/forgets to charge the device/has a broken device?
6, Can students print from their device? Where, and who pays for it?

But most importantly, what are they going to use the device for?

iPads, and tablets in general, are excellent at consuming media. You can read books, watch movies, use apps to test knowledge etc, but the actual creation of media is best suited to desktop PCs or Macs. If the expectation is for students to write essays or other more 'desktop' style activities, then perhaps a laptops of some description would be a better bet than a tablet.

Summing up

It's an important decision to make, but ultimately, make sure the technology meets your demands, and matches what you envisage teaching with. Look around, find the software that you want to use, or the technology that will enable your students to do the most in your lessons, and then decide the hardware that best matches that ideal.

Further reading I don't have too many case studies to hand, as this kind of opportunity doesn't come around too often. But here is a few resources to look at:

http://independenthead.blogspot.co.uk/search/label/BYOD - A headteacher that implemented a BYOD system in his school, he talks a lot about different devices and their pros and cons. Well worth a read before implementing iPads!

http://wpsit.blogspot.co.uk/#!/ - The Network Manager for Wheatley Park school, talks mainly about Google Apps.

http://cyber-kap.blogspot.co.uk/ - Investigates new technologies for teaching.

http://www.freetech4teachers.com/ - Free technology for teachers.

Personal preference

Speaking as a Network Manager, if it were left to me alone to decide, then I would go for a fully Microsoft environment for the back end, and the majority of ICT suites. It's tried, it's trusted and it's flexible for a schools environment. I would perhaps implement Macs for areas such as Media Studies and Music, with Windows machines for general ICT use.

If mobile devices were considered a must have, then the Surface Pro 2 with a keyboard attachment would be my device of choice. It has all the benefits of a tablet, but also allows for legacy Windows programs, and will work with pretty much anything you can throw at it (wireless, printers, flash player etc) and has USB connectivity. It's also a lot easier to manage than iPads or Android tablets (from my point of view anyhow!).

Whilst I would consider having a mix of Macs and PCs across the school, as the two can work in tandem. But I would insist that mobile devices be kept the same type. A mixed mobile device platform adds whole new dimensions of problems for teachers, if a website only works on two Android and Windows, but not Mac or iPad, then a teacher lesson can be ruined in a heartbeat. Basically, I would want to ensure that there was uniformity in a lesson. So if the lesson is Music, and it's using a suite of Macs, then every student has the same experience, and a teacher can prepare for that. The same with ICT using a suite of Windows PCs. If students are using their own devices in another lesson, they all need to have the same capabilities so a teacher can plan the lesson effectively.

That would be my preference!