NComputing

Compute Smartly

Silvia Boblea's blog

Colyton Primary School in Devonshire is representative of many schools in the UK looking to optimise ICT in order to improve teaching and learning, whilst at the same time working within tightening budgets.

The school previously had in place desktop computers that were over 10 years old. This proved a serious hindrance to lessons, with each PC booting up at different times and server updates taking hours to implement. Nic Harris, the school’s headteacher, was even spending his evenings and weekends conducting ICT maintenance tasks and software updates.

The university of Pisa is one of the oldest education institutions in Italy and in the world. Its offices and departments are spread across different locations in the Tuscan capital. Recently the University found itself in the need to update its computer science environments and platforms, making them more functional and less burdensome in terms of energy consumption. One of the key challenges for the IT department was that existing PCs were quite old and required frequent maintenance and repair.

Computers in classrooms have become an important part of education in German schools. However, until recently nearly 80% of secondary school students didn’t have access to ICT technology in core classes such as German, Mathematics, English and Biology. One of the reasons for this technological gap was that schools didn’t have the capacity and equipment required for widespread computer use.

European educators recognise that information technology should be a core component in the education of younger children. But, traditional IT was letting teachers and students down.

Personal computers have proved to be increasingly unreliable in classrooms and costly to maintain. With school budgets constrained in most European countries, replacing obsolete PCs with the latest hardware able to run newer multi-media applications is hard to justify. Finding educational ICT that combines affordability with performance that supports ambitious e-learning is key.

Like many British schools, Camden School for girls in North London was in urgent need of upgrading its ICT systems and providing wider access to computing to students and teachers on campus. However, budget constraints and issues with aging PC desktops that, over time, would require constant upkeep and maintenance meant that replacing all PCs with new computers would require high capital costs which the school couldn’t afford.

Africans have worked with us and our local partners to create their own innovative solutions for widening access to information technology in education and training for several years now. In the run-up to the continent’s most important event on ICT in education – eLearning Africa – we’re looking back on some educational success stories with our desktop virtualisation solutions in Africa.

Africans have worked with us and our local partners to create their own innovative solutions for widening access to information technology in education and training for several years now. In the run-up to the continent’s most important event on ICT in education – eLearning Africa – we’re looking back on some educational success stories with our desktop virtualisation solutions in Africa.

Africans have worked with us and our local partners to create their own innovative solutions for widening access to information technology in education and training for several years now. In the run-up to the continent’s most important event on ICT in education – eLearning Africa – we’re looking back on some educational success stories with our desktop virtualisation solutions in Africa.

 

Africans have worked with us and our local partners to create their own innovative solutions for widening access to information technology in education and training for several years now. In the run-up to the continent’s most important event on ICT in education – eLearning Africa – we’re looking back on some educational success stories with our desktop virtualisation solutions in Africa.

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