New IT at a School District

[Negamatt]

Hello All,

 

I just got hired at a local school district and they are looking for me to not only fix computers and tech but also implement new tech into the schools system

 

So I turn to LTT Forums full of tech people; What tech do you think would benefit a school?

 

The school already has smart boards, chromebooks, etc.

 

School info:

In USA, Ohio in a well off area

 

EDIT:

 

I am not a teacher there, just going to be doing IT work and implementing new Tech\Fixing existing tech

[Oshino Shinobu]

You ever watched the Resident Evil films? One of those laser security systems to protect the server room. 

 

[2FA]

Can you list more than just those two things?

 

We use iPads in our lower grades (PreK to 6th) though I'm not familiar with the apps installed as I didn't set that up.

 

We also set up a maker space last year with 3D printers, a laser cutter, and some other tech stuff that I question whether or not it's actually used (The HS principle was behind this idea without any solid plan on how to use it in curriculum).

[VinsinityKT]

Be careful.

 

"The more complicated the technology, the greater is the need for a flexible structure and progressive culture to enhance managers ability to respond to unexpected situations"

 

I don't really know what schools need these days but to me I don't think they need more technology. With that being said, my high school didn't get Wifi and only ran on Pentium 4 machines until 2014.

[Negamatt]

1 minute ago, 2FA said:

Can you list more than just those two things?

 

We use iPads in our lower grades (PreK to 6th) though I'm not familiar with the apps installed as I didn't set that up.

 

We also set up a maker space last year with 3D printers, a laser cutter, and some other tech stuff that I question whether or not it's actually used (The HS principle was behind this idea without any solid plan on how to use it in curriculum).

I haven't started yet, so I cannot list all the things.  I know during the interview they were interested in the maker space idea,  I floated it to my local town hall and they were interested but now the school is too.  

[AngryBeaver]

Grab 30 or so raspberry pi's and do some project related stuff... maybe even some basic coding in the way of python on them.

[Negamatt]

1 minute ago, AngryBeaver said:

Grab 30 or so raspberry pi's and do some project related stuff... maybe even some basic coding in the way of python on them.

Like this Idea, the current place I am at uses Pi's as a way of people using unblocked sites to verify them.  But making some Nintendo Pi's or cool other stuff would be cool as well.

[Arika]

 

8 minutes ago, Oshino Shinobu said:

You ever watched the Resident Evil films? One of those laser security systems to protect the server room. 

that part of the movie always confused me. why not just start with the one you can't get passed?

[LogicalDrm]

Make tracking system where you "allow" students to access otherwise restricted sites in sandbox-style environment and then go on busting them.

[jefire411]

I have to make the argument that sometimes technology is not needed, rather it is sometimes forced. I had "smart" boards at my middle school and that worked well for teachers about 80% of the time. When it did not work for whatever reason, time would be wasted trying to either trouble shootan issue, or find a way to get at what the teacher is trying to present through another way. In my Elementary school in the mid 2000's I remember seeing something that resembled a microscope. They called it an "Elmo". Teachers had that connected to a projector and it was simple thing. Now in my high school, they have huge Samsung TVs above were the whiteboard or wherever the front the of the classroom was. Not one teacher I know of in my high school uses the TVs aside from watching movies based from a book (or powerpoint notes which few do that). Also, please don't let money be wasted and actually spend money on computers that make sense, just a few days ago I found out what one of the computers my school has costed them a little over 2 grand. I found it cringy considering the specs: an I7-6700 (non k of course) NO discrete GPU (this is a computer is used for video and photo editing) 8 gb of ram, and a 500 gb HDD for local storage, I guess some of the money could have gone to the design as it was an all-in-one but that also means there likely won't be any possible upgrades.

 

Speaking of upgradability, why don't schools upgrade machines when the time comes that more is needed out of a computer? Do all counties have that policy were after a brief period of time, the PC is treated like garbage never to be seen again??

[jefire411]

18 hours ago, AngryBeaver said:

Grab 30 or so raspberry pi's and do some project related stuff... maybe even some basic coding in the way of python on them.

No K-12 school that I know fo has a curriculum on programming. Very unfortunate although I wonder how many students would genuinely be interested in a class like that taking up one of their electives.

[AngryBeaver]

12 minutes ago, jefire411 said:

No K-12 school that I know fo has a curriculum on programming. Very unfortunate although I wonder how many students would genuinely be interested in a class like that taking up one of their electives.

The school systems here DO have a programming curriculum, but they basically just use drag and drop prewritten code. Better than nothing though.

 

The thing is you can do a lot more than just programming stuff on a Pi. There are tons of nice little projects you to can on them. 

[AngryBeaver]

17 minutes ago, jefire411 said:

I have to make the argument that sometimes technology is not needed, rather it is sometimes forced. I had "smart" boards at my middle school and that worked well for teachers about 80% of the time. When it did not work for whatever reason, time would be wasted trying to either trouble shootan issue, or find a way to get at what the teacher is trying to present through another way. In my Elementary school in the mid 2000's I remember seeing something that resembled a microscope. They called it an "Elmo". Teachers had that connected to a projector and it was simple thing. Now in my high school, they have huge Samsung TVs above were the whiteboard or wherever the front the of the classroom was. Not one teacher I know of in my high school uses the TVs aside from watching movies on a book (or powerpoint notes which few do that). Also, please don't let money be wasted and actually spend money on computers that make sense, just a few days ago I found out what one of the computers my school has costs, which was  little over 2 grand. I found it cringy considering the specs: an I7-6700 (non k of course) NO discrete GPU (this is a computer used in editing) 8 gb of ram, and a 500 gb HDD for local storage, I guess some of the money could have gone to the design as it was an all-in-one but that also means there likely won't be any possible upgrades.

 

Speaking of upgradability, why don't schools upgrade machines when the time comes that more is needed out of a computer? Do all counties have that policy were after a brief period of time, the PC is treated like garbage never to be seen again??

I have found that when things don't work... the process of working with the students to fix said issue offers much more mental growth than the original idea for it would have.

 

Some of the most fun and enlightening experiences I had in college were from those type of scenarios. 

[AngryBeaver]

Another thing they could do in schools is when they finally do replace there outdate machines... they recycle them to the classrooms to be used to disassemble and rebuild. This would allow a teacher to give students hands on experience with common computer components while also giving them the ability to basically build their own PC in a controlled environment where if something is damaged or broken then it was going to be tossed anyways. Gives these outdated computers a sort of second life.

 

For example you go over the components learn how they are put together, what they do etc.  Then one day you come to class and the teacher has a pile of motherboards, power supplies, ram, hdd's, etc. Everything is wiped..  The students would be responsible for putting together the components into an actual PC, installing a copy of windows and maybe even troubleshoot problems... maybe the teacher plants a few dead ram sticks or components in the piles.

 

There are just tons of things that can be done with old donated/retired machines that would benefits students in this day and age.

[jefire411]

45 minutes ago, AngryBeaver said:

Another thing they could do in schools is when they finally do replace there outdate machines... they recycle them to the classrooms to be used to disassemble and rebuild. This would allow a teacher to give students hands on experience with common computer components while also giving them the ability to basically build their own PC in a controlled environment where if something is damaged or broken then it was going to be tossed anyways. Gives these outdated computers a sort of second life.

 

For example you go over the components learn how they are put together, what they do etc.  Then one day you come to class and the teacher has a pile of motherboards, power supplies, ram, hdd's, etc. Everything is wiped..  The students would be responsible for putting together the components into an actual PC, installing a copy of windows and maybe even troubleshoot problems... maybe the teacher plants a few dead ram sticks or components in the piles.

 

There are just tons of things that can be done with old donated/retired machines that would benefits students in this day and age.

Say, are the schools you are referring to located in California? In Florida, I have yet to see a school do something like this.

[BlueChinchillaEatingDorito]

21 hours ago, Negamatt said:

Hello All,

 

I just got hired at a local school district and they are looking for me to not only fix computers and tech but also implement new tech into the schools system

 

So I turn to LTT Forums full of tech people; What tech do you think would benefit a school?

 

The school already has smart boards, chromebooks, etc.

 

School info:

In USA, Ohio in a well off area

 

I think it all really depends on the direction the school district wants to go in terms of course offerings. If it wants to expand into coding, then you would want to make sure your current machines aren't potatoes. If they want to offer more visual media, things like Wacom tablets would be great. 

[hardtofindinthefuture]

Not block stupid shit

my prison blocks the god damn GeForce website 

[GDRRiley]

think about a multi media class, CAD, and programming 

[Negamatt]

17 hours ago, jefire411 said:

No K-12 school that I know fo has a curriculum on programming. Very unfortunate although I wonder how many students would genuinely be interested in a class like that taking up one of their electives.

During my Junior Year I went to a career center for programming, though I dropped it for networking.  But I think that the older students starting to think about their future would like it.  Plus who wouldn't want to learn about possibly making a Nintendo Pi

[Negamatt]

14 hours ago, BlueChinchillaEatingDorito said:

I think it all really depends on the direction the school district wants to go in terms of course offerings. If it wants to expand into coding, then you would want to make sure your current machines aren't potatoes. If they want to offer more visual media, things like Wacom tablets would be great. 

STEM is something I have found in my review of the school to be lacking.  So something along those lines.  

[Negamatt]

10 hours ago, GDRRiley said:

think about a multi media class, CAD, and programming 

That is what I am thinking of doing.  I come from a video background (worked in freelance film), and IT for corporations, and some assistant teaching in colleges. I found in when assistant teaching that they lacked a lot of basic knowledge that would greatly help in those beginner classes.

[AngryBeaver]

16 hours ago, jefire411 said:

Say, are the schools you are referring to located in California? In Florida, I have yet to see a school do something like this.

No they are not. They are located in the Minneapolis, MN area.

[GDRRiley]

58 minutes ago, Negamatt said:

That is what I am thinking of doing.  I come from a video background (worked in freelance film), and IT for corporations, and some assistant teaching in colleges. I found in when assistant teaching that they lacked a lot of basic knowledge that would greatly help in those beginner classes.

So I can give you a bit of background on my schools multi media classes. We had about 1 t5i/t6i per 5 students in the largest period (it is much better around 3). We then have some misc cameras because we were created in early 2000s. Get some normal t5 with some different lenses if you plan on having some photography focused classes.

 

An interesting but not an easy or budget option would be to build out a TV studio. 

Find industry people to work them or at least get people who are interested in this and get them trained. 

 

(note I am using all canon models because that is what we have)

[Tribalinius]

17 hours ago, jefire411 said:

Speaking of upgradability, why don't schools upgrade machines when the time comes that more is needed out of a computer? Do all counties have that policy were after a brief period of time, the PC is treated like garbage never to be seen again??

It's a budget matter. Let's say that you want to upgrade a complete class (30 basic workstations (i.e.: i3, 4/8GB, 128GB SSD or 500GB HDD, iGPU, 3y/5y warranty) + monitors + required software licenses), you are looking at probably around 1000-1200 CAD$ /computer setup bearing any volume and\or educational discounts, just to be up and running for basic tasks. You are easily looking at 25-35k CAD$ investment for a single class equipped with basic computers for research or office productivity. You would probably end up spending about the same for 15-20 decently equipped desktops for video editing\content creation\rendering and probably less for Macs. Regardless, it's a huge chunk of money to invest in. That's probably why schools tend to put that on the bottom of the priority list and try to stretch the lifespan of computers so long. At the same time, they should have a yearly budget reserved for renewing computers to be able to do a good rotation and be able to do staggered deployment over the years. Unfortunately, that does not seem to be the way schools administration work these days :p.

[geo3]

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