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!

Technical help - User Profile cannot be loaded

If you've worked with Windows 7 for any length of time, you're sure to have come across this error sooner or later. Most of the time it's relatively easy fix involving the registry, which you can find here (this works for Vista, windows 7 and 8: http://www.eightforums.com/tutorials/38838-user-profile-service-failed-sign-fix-windows-8-a.html However this one laptop was not playing ball. I'd ran through all of the above steps, and nothing, no new accounts could be created, the guest account wasn't working and I was in a state of confusion. After reaching the third page of Google, I found an unlikely solution here: http://arstechnica.com/civis/viewtopic.php?f=15&t=1160819 THe problem was, Windows Live wasn't installed on this laptop, but I thought the idea was sound, so I tried this: Browse to C:\Users\Default (ensure you can see hidden files and folders) Right click AppData Choose Security Advanced Change permissions Edit Everyone and give them Full Control Click Okay Then click on the tick box next to Replace all child permissions with inheritable permissions from this object Click Apply then Yes to the Security warning Amazingly, this solved the issue, so my assumption is that if a file in the Default User profile has it's permissions screwed up, new accounts can't be created. Since every other solution was either to go back to a system restore point or rebuild the machine, I thought it worth blogging on here as it might save someone a lot of time and effort!

Ultimate Tic Tac Toe

I'm not going to take any credit for this, I just saw it on an awesome blog that can be found here: http://blog.mrmeyer.com/ and the website, which can be found here: Ultimate Tic Tac Toe You can play online here: Play TicTacToe10 It breathes new life into a very old game in a fun and strategic way. Okay, it's not technology exactly as it can be played with paper and pencil, but I found it due to a blog, and it can be played online, so I'm counting it as technology.

MathDisk

Taken from an Edugeek post by DaveP

Create your own worksheets to visualize, interact with and explore the amazing world of mathematics. MathDisk is absolutely free for everyone...
Link: https://www.mathdisk.com/
MathsDisk YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/user/mathdisk
Link: MathsDisk How To...
Can be installed as an iOS or Android App, and as it's all on the web there's no installation required!

iTunesU - A reason for iPads in schools? #1

We've been using iPads in school in an ad hoc manner for around a year now with some small successes, but with no killer app being used across the school. Looking at this years BETT line up for talks brought me to the SEN stage, and a talk on using iTunesU to create specific courses for SEN students. A quick google later brought me to the iTunesU Apple page and suddenly I'm very interested to discover more.

It looks, from the outset, like a massive resource, full of lesson ideas, videos, tests, handouts, all available to UK schools for free. Hook up the iPad to a projector via Apple TV and suddenly the iPad could become extremely useful in lessons. Further more, if the lessons can then be accessed by the students later on, you've got massive potential for independent learning.

I'll certainly be attending the talk at BETT if I can, or catch the video later. This could not only benefit our SEN students, but it could give that iPad that's been sat in the corner the workout it needs.

Dropbox sharing

Want resources for your subject areas, or want to shate your own with like minded teachers?  http://www.classroomtm.co.uk/teaching-dropboxes/ is worth looking into. Free resources, regularly updated that are being used by other teachers across the country, an excellent use of digital sharing!

Sploder - Game design

Continuing on the theme of games and education, our new Head of English is starting to use Sploder in his English lessons to promote creativity. Here's the Gadget show explaining Sploder far better than I can (Starts at 5:30 in)

As far as I can see, this should be a fantastic use of technology, games, creativity and English in one website!