Schools to receive 10m in IT funding

Treppen

https://www.rte.ie/news/2020/0422/1134053-education-coronavirus/


Read the fine print :pac::pac::pac:

...The funding, which has been redirected from a schools' IT strategy announced earlier in the year, is worth between €17,000-€19,000 for a typical large second-level school....

50million was announced last January https://www.education.ie/en/Press-Events/Press-Releases/2020-press-releases/PR20-01-13.html

spurious

700 post primary schools, 3500 primary schools.
50m gives an average per school of around 12k.

I hope nobody's expectations are very high.

doc_17

spurious wrote: »

700 post primary schools, 3500 primary schools.
50m gives an average per school of around 12k.

I hope nobody's expectations are very high.

230 students at post primary gets about €8000.

Laptops would be a waste of money,
Maybe cheap chromebooks and get more of them.

Comer1

So we buy, setup and give laptops to "disadvantaged" sixth year students to get them over the LC? These laptops remain the property of the school so we take them back when all this is over. I'd imagine that could present a challenge. What's the criteria for giving a laptop to a student. Surely this is very open to abuse.

Also, in my experience, the kinds of "disadvantaged student" who is not engaging now will not engage if I give them a laptop. My students who are not engaging are doing so because they are lazy. They did nothing in my class for the past year and a half, they will do nothing for the last two months outside my class, nothing to do with Coronavirus.

Treppen

spurious wrote: »

700 post primary schools, 3500 primary schools.
50m gives an average per school of around 12k.

I hope nobody's expectations are very high.

I think they are going with DEIS schools first.

byhookorbycrook

Devices aren’t much use without proper broadband.

r93kaey5p2izun

I don't think equipment is the main problem. Most class content can be accessed on a phone. Very few teens, no matter how disadvantaged, don't have a smart phone.

Broadband is a bigger issue and this won't fix it.

But generally I think the problems causing student disengagement are mostly not tech related. Students are overwhelmed, they have switched off, they are busy enjoying themselves, they are looking after kids, or like nearly every 5th and 6th Year I know (mostly disadvantaged), they are working full time now and flat out in supermarkets.

I think the device problems are mostly younger kids who don't have a smart phone, and teachers, many of whom don't have an up to date device as they use school equipment, and because their device needs to handle content creation and not just watching videos and uploading the odd photo.

rainbowtrout

Shouldn't the title be 'Schools to receive the 10m they were due to get anyway only now they've been told how to spend it'

doc_17

I think the money is coming that part of the grant that goes to schools that make an extra application. We applied for this last year and got 2k on top of the per student grant. So that’s the money that has been redirected.

Comer1

doc_17 wrote: »

I think the money is coming that part of the grant that goes to schools that make an extra application. We applied for this last year and got 2k on top of the per student grant. So that’s the money that has been redirected.

2k would hardly buy four laptops.

doc_17

Comer1 wrote: »

2k would hardly buy four laptops.

Chromebooks are the better option if buying devices. You might get 6 or 7.

Comer1

doc_17 wrote: »

Chromebooks are the better option if buying devices. You might get 6 or 7.

We are an Office 365 school, are there limitations using Chromebook and Office Apps?

rainbowtrout

Comer1 wrote: »

We are an Office 365 school, are there limitations using Chromebook and Office Apps?

No, they login to Office 365 through a website.

s1ippy

Special school with 70 pupils, we're set to receive about €14k. That will get us around 20 very low-end laptops.

Comer1

rainbowtrout wrote: »

No, they login to Office 365 through a website.

Yes, but I assume they can also install Office 2016 or are they limited to using the online version of the Office apps?

doc_17

Comer1 wrote: »

Yes, but I assume they can also install Office 2016 or are they limited to using the online version of the Office apps?

I don’t think you call “install” anything on a chromebook, merely add extensions. You couldn’t install office the way you would on a laptop. And I don’t know enough about using Office on a chromebook to add anything further.

Treppen

There are a few schools that use chromebooks successfully but they seem to require a lot of knowledge around IT management and administration.

CESI forum are excellent for providing help. A lot of IT support on there.

rainbowtrout

Treppen wrote: »

There are a few schools that use chromebooks successfully but they seem to require a lot of knowledge around IT management and administration.

CESI forum are excellent for providing help. A lot of IT support on there.

We have a mobile unit of 30 chromebooks in our school and they are simple to use. We book the unit for a class and students login using their username and password and going into their office 365 account and do everything from there. They save everything they do to their One Drive. It also means that if they are working on something at school they can also work on it from home if they want, and have access to all the microsoft apps even if they don't have them on their own laptop, tablet etc.

wingnut

Treppen wrote: »

There are a few schools that use chromebooks successfully but they seem to require a lot of knowledge around IT management and administration.

CESI forum are excellent for providing help. A lot of IT support on there.

Exact opposite, chromebooks are the easiest hardware to deploy and manage. As for getting them.back if you get management licence you can remotely disable them.

You'll pick them.up for around €250 per device.

Random sample

I wonder has this money come through yet? No point prioritising 6th years now.

Comer1

Random sample wrote: »

I wonder has this money come through yet? No point prioritising 6th years now.

We received a remittance notice with description "Additional ICT Grant Funding" for about six times the amount I was expecting. It was dsted 27th April.

This money will be needed for helping disadvantaged students for the September distance learning that will have to be continued well into next year.

khalessi

It worked out for us as about €2500, wont go too far

Comer1

khalessi wrote: »

It worked out for us as about €2500, wont go too far

Is that what ye got, I was expecting about €2,000, we got over €12,000??? I was s bit surprised but if your school only go 2k, I'm now very confused 😕

khalessi

Well that is what we were told

downthemiddle

Comer1 wrote: »

Is that what ye got, I was expecting about €2,000, we got over €12,000??? I was s bit surprised but if your school only go 2k, I'm now very confused ��

Very different rates between primary and secondary.

https://www.education.ie/en/Circulars-and-Forms/Active-Circulars/cl0032_2020.pdf

Comer1

downthemiddle wrote: »

Very different rates between primary and secondary.

https://www.education.ie/en/Circulars-and-Forms/Active-Circulars/cl0032_2020.pdf

We are a post primary and I am not mistaken regarding the amount we received. I have a copy of both remittance notices, one is for PP ICT Grant 19-20 and over 26K, the other is for Additional ICT Grant Funding and is for over 13K. Guess I better not spend it just yet:)

strawberrie

Our addition grant for a primary school with nearly 200 pupils is 950 euro.

Comer1 wrote: »

We are a post primary and I am not mistaken regarding the amount we received. I have a copy of both remittance notices, one is for PP ICT Grant 19-20 and over 26K, the other is for Additional ICT Grant Funding and is for over 13K. Guess I better not spend it just yet:)

Comer1

strawberrie wrote: »

Our addition grant for a primary school with nearly 200 pupils is 950 euro.

It makes no sense the amount we received???

Ger Roe

The roll out of IT facilities in schools needs to be coordinated and managed by the Dept of Ed. Allowing schools to continue to muddle through their own IT setup is a costly experience as they all try to solve the same problems, individually, or else all employ the services of the one company that seems to be laughing all the way to the bank in being the assumed 'experts' in school IT.

The introduction of IT (especially tablets) in the irish school system is costing parents far more money than it should, because there are no central purchasing deals being done and no economies of scale being leveraged.

This scheme will be another waste of money - throw funding at the problem and pass the responsibility to individual schools, all of whom have wildly varying levels of competency in technical matters, and very little understanding of cost reduction potential.