5 KEY THINGS TO CONSIDER WHEN CHOOSING EDUCATION TECHNOLOGYWhen you’re making decisions about IT for staff and students there are several issues to weigh up:

Will teachers be able to boot up quickly and easily before class starts?

Can it survive if tea is spilt on it in the cafeteria - or if it’s dropped in the playground?

How important is portability?

What happens if it goes wrong?

Does the screen size and flexibility allow several students to see it at the same time?

Are software updates and licenses easy to manage?

Will the device’s battery last a full school day?

What package offers the best value for price, build quality, robustness, reliability, after sales service, warranties etc.?

HOW WILL THE TECHNOLOGY FIT INTO YOUR SCHOOL’S IMPROVEMENT PLAN?

CONSIDERATION #1:

You should definitely keep in mind your school’s improvement plan when deciding on technology for the classroom. Recent research has shown that many computers in primary and secondary schools are “ineffective”.

So if you’re in charge of choosing and maintaining technology for your school you need to make sure the equipment you choose will deliver on all its planned uses – not just now, but in the future. You need to look at everything, from better basic classroom computing and management, to the best in-touch and immersive reality in software, hardware and services, so that you’re making sure your students and teachers can bring new educational opportunities to life in the classroom.

A third of computers in UK schools are “ineffective” according to a major new survey examining the state of ICT in the sector. The independent survey of a representative panel of UK schools, carried out by the British Educational Suppliers’ Association (BESA), says that this implies there are 1.1 million such computers in our schools. The survey showed that 35 per cent of all computers in secondary schools, and 31 per cent in primary schools, were ineffective. This would leave the average secondary with 144 ineffective computers, compared with 22 in the average primary. The report says that “in recent years an increasing number of computers have been recorded as ineffective due to condition, age or specification”.

According to the BESA survey, the proportion of schools saying they are well equipped with ICT infrastructure and devices has dropped to its lowest point in six years:

Even though many school budgets are being severely stretched due to real-terms funding cuts, schools are still looking to increase their IT spending. That’s because they’re recognising more and more the positive impact that technology has on pupil performance – especially when properly applied.

A third of secondaries say they’re well equipped – that’s down from 37 per cent last year and 64 per cent the year before that.

Primaries are more likely to see themselves as well equipped – 60 per cent say this is currently the case, though this is down from a peak of 67 per cent in 2016.

1 | 5 KEY THINGS TO CONSIDER WHEN CHOOSING EDUCATION TECHNOLOGY LenovoNewSchool.co.uk

YOUR BUDGETCONSIDERATION #2:

Obviously your buying power depends on your funding sources and the availability of those funds. Technology can be replaced more often if the funds are available on a recurring basis. If not, then longevity is important. In that case, when making a one-time allocation of funds you will probably need to go for technology with a longer lifespan.

Budget is always a major factor. We always want the best but we need to be grounded on what we can actually afford.

TO HELP MAKE THE MOST OF YOUR BUDGETING, YOU SHOULD ESTIMATE THE TOTAL COST OF THE CONTRACT ACROSS ITS LIFETIME, INCLUDING:

� The price of the software, hardware and set-up services

� VAT

� Delivery charges

� On-going maintenance costs

� Running costs

� The cost of removing and disposing of an item or service you no longer need

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THE SCOPE OF YOUR REQUIREMENTSCONSIDERATION #3:

Without a large grant or investment, the range and extent of your IT needs is probably the main issue when deciding on classroom technologies. You’ll also need to look at the technology capacity of your classrooms. So for a 1-to-4 computer-student ratio, or a notebook initiative, make sure there’s enough space and electrical capacity in the classroom, and check the location of the electrical outlets. If your computers are all crowded along a single wall your students won’t have the room they need to work in small groups.

Here’s a list of requirements you may want to factor into your scope of work:

� THE BREADTH OF SCOPE: Enabling technology, extending to student learning, professional development, staff presentations, internal comms etc.

� APPLICABILITY TO MOST SUBJECT AREAS: Technology that can be used for instruction across the curriculum, reducing the need for specialised training and support.

� EASE OF USE: Teachers are likelier to embrace technology that’s easy to connect, turn on, and use right out of the box.

� EASE OF INTEGRATION: Teachers don’t have a lot of time. The best technologies allow teachers to transform lessons into exciting and visually rich activities that produce results.

� MINIMAL TRAINING AND SUPPORT REQUIRED: Set-up, training and annual support should take less than an hour, and the technology should be easy for teachers to troubleshoot.

� LONGEVITY: The technology should deliver on all the performance features it was selected for – for at least five or more years after it’s been installed.

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THE TYPE OF EQUIPMENTCONSIDERATION #4:

NOW IT’S TIME TO LOOK AT THE COMPUTER.

Here are a few of the most important things to think about when you’re actually buying the machine:

DESKTOP, LAPTOP OR WORKSTATION?

LAPTOPS & TABLETS

WHERE THEY BELONG

LENOVO ADVANTAGES

PORTABILITY The biggest advantage of laptops and tablets is their portability. Laptops and tablets are much smaller and lighter than desktops and workstations. Laptops are an all-in-one solution that contains your entire computer system in one easy-to-carry unit. Integrated batteries improve the laptop’s portability by giving you up to several hours of work even when disconnected from a power source. Although easier to carry and taking up less desk space, laptops and tablets typically have smaller screens and keyboards than desktops and workstations. So, if you or your students spend most of the school day in one location, you’ll probably be more comfortable at a desktop or workstation. That’s because of the full-size keyboard and the larger display mounted at a more ergonomic viewing angle. POWER & CAPACITY Even though modern laptops offer near-desktop performance, those type of higher-end systems come at a price - and it still won’t match the raw processing power of a high-end desktop or workstation. So if all you’re looking for is the most processing power for your money, then you’re probably looking at a desktop or workstation solution.

UPGRADABILITY The smaller, integrated structure of laptops and tablets makes them harder to upgrade or repair. Modern laptops usually offer fairly easy options for commonly upgraded items such as RAM, hard drive and battery, but if your screen, webcam, keyboard, touchpad or speakers die, it’s not easy to replace them.

• Classrooms

• Labs/libraries

• Teacher devices

• 1:1 deployments

• Proven, industry-first education-built form factors and features

• Integrated security and manageability

• Proven durability

• Windows and Chrome support

4 | 5 KEY THINGS TO CONSIDER WHEN CHOOSING EDUCATION TECHNOLOGY LenovoNewSchool.co.uk

THE TYPE OF EQUIPMENT (continued)CONSIDERATION #4:

DESKTOPS

WHERE THEY BELONG

LENOVO ADVANTAGES

PORTABILITY Most desktops rely on external power sources to operate, so they reduce your freedom to move about. POWER & CAPACITY For running standard office applications such as word processing, e-mail, and presentation software you can get all the performance you need from a standard desktop PC.

UPGRADABILITY The desktop computer’s modular design makes it easy to swap out such peripherals, usually without ever opening your case. Also, this modular design gives fewer limits on the size and spec of replacement parts, so you’ll have a bigger choice of products.

PRICE Desktops are generally less expensive laptops. That’s not because they’re lower in quality computer or old-school technology. It’s just that there’s a lot more that goes into building a laptop than there is for a computer that sits on your desk.

• Computer labs

• Administrative office

• Testing centres

• Optimized for space, energy, heat, and noise efficiency

• Designed for superior long-term total cost of ownership

• Proven durability

• Windows and VDI- ready solutions

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THE TYPE OF EQUIPMENT (continued)CONSIDERATION #4:

WORKSTATIONS

WHERE THEY BELONG

LENOVO ADVANTAGES

PORTABILITY Most workstations rely on external power sources to operate, so you’ll need to work in that one place. Workstations are difficult to shift, because you have to unplug parts and find safe ways to carry everything without causing damage. POWER & CAPACITY From Computer Aided Design (CAD) to number-crunching to video editing, compared to a desktop PC an entry-level workstation will provide intelligent performance for many applications. Workstations usually support faster CPUs, more memory modules and larger hard drives than desktop and laptop systems, and their components are less expensive. If you don’t need portability, you’ll save money by sticking with a workstation.

Workstations generally use higher end hardware (sometimes called “workstation-class” components) like motherboards and GPUs. So they are held to a higher standard than a typical desktop PC, because they use better capacitors and other components. These components can be used at high demand, and can handle these expectations, day in/day out without failure or error. All these parts make workstations more reliable and dependable than a typical desktop.

PRICE Because of the higher end hardware, workstations are usually more expensive than desktop PCs.

• Classrooms

• Media labs

• Innovative tool free form factors

• Superior energy efficiency

• Diverse portfolio, including world’s first multimode mobile workstation

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THE PROCESSOR Any discussion about microprocessors can quickly become confusing. All you need to know is that you’re not getting a new computer with old or outdated technology. One way to assess a computer’s processors is to find out the number of cores - and the speed. The speed of the processor tells you how much data it can process in how much time. In general the bigger the number the better. A microprocessor with 3.0GHz speed should be twice as fast one running at 1.5 GHz. So what about cores? Today, there are dual-core and quad-core processors. A core is the “working part” of the processor. A dual-core processor is like having an extra brain in your head to help you do things. Multi-core computers make it easier to run several programs at the same time. As you go up in price, you get “more” of everything. That sounds great, but you could end up buying more than you actually need.

RAM Basically, the more ram you have, the more browsers and applications you can open. 4GB is the most basic nowadays. 8GB is the sweet spot for most people. For photo or video editing, or planning to do CAD/CAM work, you might need at least 16GB of Ram.

MEMORY All ads for computers (laptops and desktops) will tell you how much memory the computer comes with in gigabytes. The higher the number, the better off you’ll be, especially if you do a lot of multi-tasking, which means running lots of programs at once or watching videos while you’re creating complicated spreadsheets and listening to music.

THE HARD DRIVE The hard drive is where the brains and information in the computer is stored. Whenever you load a program (for example, Microsoft Word), it gets stored on the hard drive. And whenever you create your files and save them, they’re stored on your computer’s hard drive. The operating system and the programs you run are also stored on the hard drive. Most new computers come with 1 terabyte hard drives (1 TB). That’s the capacity of 1,000 gigabytes. But if you happen to store your information online on cloud storage, you might want to rethink how much hard drive space you actually need.

COMPUTER SOFTWARE Most computers come with Microsoft software. The latest is Windows 10.

ANTI-VIRUS SOFTWARE The last thing to consider about a computer is - does it have a good virus and spyware package? You can’t overestimate how important this is. Most computers are bound to get attacked at some point – so you need to be prepared when that happens.

THE TYPE OF EQUIPMENT (continued)CONSIDERATION #4:

7 | 5 KEY THINGS TO CONSIDER WHEN CHOOSING EDUCATION TECHNOLOGY LenovoNewSchool.co.uk

THE TYPE OF EQUIPMENT (continued)CONSIDERATION #4:

Mil-SPEC testedTested to military standards to be tough enough for school

Easy management Save valuable teaching time with fast software updates and simple license management

Backlit keyboardDesigned to be used in a darkened classroom or lecture hall

LightweightEasier to carry around between classes

Clamshell designSpecial hinged screen enables sharing and working as a team

Touch screenMaking teaching and learning more exciting and interactive

Waterproof keyboardProtection from accidental spills in the cafeteria

24/7 onsite warrantyIf things go wrong, students and teachers can get back to work fast

On-board cameraPerfect for taking photos and videos for projects

Large screen sizeEasier for teachers and students to share a screen and collaborate on projects

Long battery lifePerfect for a long school day

HD screen Reduces eye strain for more time studying

Fast boot-upSave time in the classroom by getting up and running fast

OTHER THINGS TO LOOK FOR WHEN CHOOSING MACHINES FOR YOUR EDUCATION NEEDS – ALL AVAILABLE FROM THE LENOVO PRODUCT RANGE OF EDUCATION SOLUTIONS:

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GETTING ADDED VALUECONSIDERATION #5:

APART FROM SPECIFICATION REQUIREMENTS, THERE ARE A FEW OTHER POINTS FOR YOU TO CONSIDER WHEN MAKING YOUR DECISION – THESE ARE ABOUT ADDED VALUE:

� Finance options

� Warranties

� Technical design and support

� Contract management

� Training support

REFERENCES

Lenovo products come with specialist finance and warranty cover for Primary and Secondary Schools. And with the support of Lenovo Education Partners you’ll be sure of on and off-site services and support, for peace of mind and confidence, whenever you need it, whatever the situation – your IT needs are fully covered.

To talk to a Lenovo Education Partner today LenovoNewSchool.co.uk/EducationPartners

https://www.tes.com/news/school-ict-spending-set-rise-first-time-three-years

https://www.tes.com/news/school-news/breaking-news/nearly-18000-schools-face-budget-cuts-unions-claim

https://www.streetdirectory.com/travel_guide/116135/computers/top_ten_things_to_consider_when_buying_a_computer.html

https://whatismyipaddress.com/buying-computer

https://edtechmagazine.com/k12/article/2009/04/choose-but-choose-wisely

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