We'd been keen to know what other schools were planning for their computing fleet, particularly given the recent changes to the I.T. landscape (I'm speaking specifically of the iPad, Android and touch-enabled devices). Using connections I had with networks of I.T. Managers and E-Learning people I put together a survey. The survey was constructed with the intention of finding out what the future computing device plans were for schools in general. It received over 100 replies and helped dispel a few myths that were emanating throughout our College and other's. Below are the pretty graphical results of that survey, with my take on what the statistics (lies, damn lies not included) mean. I figure 15 years experience with Education I.T. puts me in a good place to interpret the responses:
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Very few primary-only schools responded, so they aren’t well represented here.
This probably indicates that most schools are changing school-wide (note middle-school grades weren't an option, this may have yielded more information).[/caption]
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Many thanks to the TISIT and MITIE forums for providing the responses.[/caption]
To sum up. The information gathered shows few schools diverging massively from what they were doing before. This is apparent when you take into account that most moving to Windows 8 are probably using a previous Windows already, which is more of a logical upgrade path than a sweeping change. Schools changing to iOS aren't nearly as widespread as some may have thought and poor old Linux an Android lag behind the rest. With respect to the latter, that story is far from over, particularly if Google can sort out a few interoperability issues. Time will tell.
I hope you found this as interesting as I did.
Great research, some interesting statistics and quite different from what we see in the media sometimes. I beleive Google will soon start pushing for Chromebooks as their education platform here as they have done in the US.
ReplyDeleteHi,
ReplyDeleteSome of us have been subtly approached by Google already (just a feeler, more than anything). If they can make the platform work it'll be a compelling argument when you look at the cost. Our problem will be the fact that Chrome OS is still 99% cloud-dependent, and we still have a number of parents who don't have regular or reliable internet access in their home, so students working offline at home is still a reality of some sort. There's also a bit of a paradox there as well, as the parents who are most concerned by cost are the ones with little or no internet access. It's tough. We're also seeing an increase in Android devices in our BYOD group, just to confuse the situation.
L8r.