stevebt

iTrader: (8)

does anyone have any links or infomation on the scheme to introduce pda's into schools ?? i have been given 1 week to pay £300 for a pda for use in the classrooms for my 8 year old daughter !! this will be of use to her for another 2 years then ???? there seems to be no infomation on the product or alternative retailers ??? im sure this is going to be a nationwide scheme so if you havent heard of it yet you will !!!!!

Sonic'

Steve

I know we are looking at PDA's for teachers for registration to get rid of the pathetic psion infrared rubbish they have at the moment

Most schools are going down the laptop route and not necessarily PDA's more so in private schools

some schools are starting to get funding to provide children with Laptops, and we are putting a lot of managed wireless out there now in readiness

stevebt

iTrader: (8)

i dont mind buying my daughter a laptop, but i have been told i have to buy their PDA and there is no mention of spec/model or why another PDA can not be used !!! its just you have to buy ours !!!

frisby

steve, would be interested in hearing which school your daughter goes to and what model PDA they are offering. I'm a department head in secondary and have been asked to look into both the laptop and pda options for our 6th form students.

PM me if you want.

regards

Stu

pslewis

We use LapTops in our school ... and we do NOT ask the parents to fund them either!!

stevebt

iTrader: (8)

frisby - my daughter goes to "kells lane primary school" in gateshead and there has been no mention of any specific pda just that we have to use their pda !!!

Sonic'

Steve

I will ask the head at the school I am at tomorrow, I will also ask our sales manager, as he is really clued up whats happening with schools on the IT side of things, as it is our core business (well one of them at least)

We have been providing quotes to schools for pda's now for a while too, and the pda's too

Steve

ScoobyDoo555

We've been looking into this for the last 2yrs......

At the time, I was looking at it for my staff - an Ipaq HW6515. So I could record the classes, take pictures of kit (up close front panel stuff - Music Technology & Sound Engineering), maybe some low res video, to upload to our server for students to download.....

The system works well, and as a result, quite a few students have bought both PDAs and as we're 99.9% Mac-based, various models of Mac

As for rolling it out for the entire student base.....hmm not convinced. We have enough trouble with bl00dy mobiles, let alone PDAs with multimedia capabilities
But they are good for teaching tools - I just found that the Ipaq does it all, just not as well as I want (at the time it was the BEST multimedia PDA).....

Dan

scoobynutta555

All this money on laptops, PDAs etc and the kids still won't be able to add up or string a sentence together

Parents should not be asked to fund these gadgets, they should be provided free of charge or not used at all.

_Meridian_

iTrader: (1)

Trans: the local Council Tax payers should foot the bill you mean?



M

GrahamG

Sounds a little strange because there is not much on there or software out there that would be worthwhile. I can see why a laptop would be good, but not a PDA.

I use my PDA at work and tbh the only thing it's good for is emails. oh and Navi at home... Internet is crap, word, excel crap.... Jawbreaker is ok!

G.

CrisPDuk

We had something similar when the ginga stepbrat's school insisted that all the parents had to buy scientific calculators from them, they wouldn't provide us with any of the specification to do a price comparison

When the calculators finally turned up it turned out we could have got the same model a tenner cheaper from WHSmiths £300 on an 8yo I would tell them where to go.

Because our kids went to a catholic school we used to get quarterly begging letters too I wrote them a polite letter back referring them to the bit in the New Testament where Jesus overturns the tables laden with money. Then reminded them that if they were that stuck for cash, their bosses could always sell a small portion of their priceless art collection, or their priceless literature collection, or their vast (the worlds largest) pornography collection, or a small percentage of the prime real estate they own worldwide

pwhittle

At least 1 local school is trialling Blackberries (SP?)
They have found that (particulary boys) are doing more homework, and reading more, as it's far cooler to read a naff little screen than a book.

alcazar

iTrader: (2)

Care to tell us their response? I don't know many catholic swearwords;(

Alcazar

Abdabz

My better half teaches 7 year olds and has had no mention of PDA's in her primary school in the Knowsley District...
Telling a parent to pay for a PDA is offensive... It was bad enough when I was 13 and told I HAD to have a Casio scientific calculator which cost about £15... (back in 1987)

lozgti

Kids laden down with great technology.

And they still emerge at 16 not knowing how to read, write or add up.

Something is missing

Sonic'

Steve is the school a private one ?

Spoke to the head and he has said that under no circumstances should a parent *have* to provide a pda or laptop for school

If its not private then if the school require the pupils to have pda's/laptop's then the school *have* to provide them not the parents

more importantly they cannot demand it either

Steve

Wurzel

iTrader: (1)

So you have finally admited it you are a teacher and not a 78 year old nuclear expert from AWE.

Not that this is new news

ScoobyDoo555

stevebt

iTrader: (8)

its not a private school !! and the form is worded sothat its a charitable donation huh but they insist we have to buy it !!!

Flaps

iTrader: (1)

What would they want one for in the first place? I know some other schools near ours have considered PDA's for the teachers to register with but I can't see why the students would need one?!?!
We (the staff) use HP laptops (unless you are a ICT teacher so you get a tablet , the kids are impressed by them anyway).

scoobynutta555

Don't state schools provide IT equipment as present? I wouldn't like to guess, but I'd say each school has heavily invested in desktop computers etc. Besides if there isn't the budget for it then, as I suggested above, they should not be used.

Sonic'

You are not obliged to, they should provide them esp if part of the curriculum

I would go in and have some words with them teachers, 300 quid is more than a donation, thats buying one for your daughter, and paying half for someone elses kid

Imagine how much money the school would make for staff parties if all parents dibbed in 300 each for a pda for their kid

They will have probably have been funded by the clc to purchase them anyway

for an extra 50 quid you could get your daughter a laptop which as you know will be far more beneficial for her

Teachers are using PDA's for registration (or at least starting to) but not one single kid out of the tens of thousands we deal with uses a PDA that is required by the school, if they have one, its cos mum n dad have got a few quid, and essentially are techno show offs along with their latest mobile phones and ipods etc

CrisPDuk

Never got a response as such, but the atmosphere at subsequent parents' evenings was a a tad cooler Especially with the RI (religious indoctrination) teachers, but then they never liked me anyway
Somehing to do with me sending my stepdaughter into their lessons with a head full of wild and crazy ideas

CrisPDuk

Ah, them were the days was yours the slimline one with the metal front, in the brown wallet?
I've still got mine, I used it at work most days before I came out here Which must actually make it one of the best investments I've ever made

CrisPDuk

IRC Wurzel, Pete has more than once said that he's on the board of governors at his local school. I think you'll need to try harder if you want to blow his cover

carl

Fool, he's probably a school governer.