A question arose about the laptops replaced by the new lease in our 1:1 program. We did lease 900 new laptops which will go into the hands of grade 6 and 7 students and their teachers. The 4yr old macbooks they replaced were moved into the carts in grade 8 and the middle schools to replace the G4 laptops. Grade 8 (and nine at the middle schools) were assigned 1 year old laptops wherever possible which we obtained due to a numbers bulge in the WWP.
The G4 laptops which are onto their sixth year will be decommissioned. This will likely mean that we sell them (more info to come), without any software on them as we need to maintain our licenses for the program. There will also be no guarantees on decommissioned assets. We’re planning on getting rid of these as they are on the vintage/obsolete list for Apple which means parts for repair aren’t available or won’t be available shortly.
We still have several more 4yr old macbooks left over and plan to replace a few labs on the replacement cycle. Here were the suggestions we received for the extra computers. Feel free to comment and give some more.
- Lab replacement on the cycle (high probability)
- 10% of grade 8 cart laptops kept for spare parts since they are no longer on warranty (high probability)
- replace library search terminals in schools
- literacy centres in primary
- Have some that teachers outside the WWP could use instead of a teacher desktop
- mobile learning lab for BO
- Signout for teachers doing their masters
- Add/replace computers to Evergreen program at NPSS
- laptops for grade 5s in a 5/6 split
We will consider the options and move as quickly as possible according to available staffing. Options will be considered with the facts that no extra money or staffing are allocated to these “extra” laptops.
If you have any further suggestions please feel free to comment on this post. Please note comments are public and will be published.