All Schools In Northern Ireland To Receive New Laptops
18 February 2008
All schools in Northern Ireland will receive new laptops before June 2008 under a programme being rolled out by the Department of Education and C2k in conjunction with Northgate Managed Services.
The C2k Managed Service Laptop Option provides schools with notebooks and carrying cases. It is up to each school to decide how to use their allocated laptops. They can be used by teachers for their own school work or used as an additional classroom computer.Therefore, schools can ensure that their teachers are provided with high level access to ICT at school and home.
The programme will provide software, including titles from a bank of 250 curriculum resources, as well as Windows XP and access to the Management Information System in the school. Northgate Managed Services provide the laptops as part of their ICT Managed service to all schools in NI ensuring hardware and software are operating at maximum efficiency. The ICT specialist provider’s helpdesk ensures schools have all of the access and support they need until November 2011.
Grove Primary in Belfast is one of the first schools to have received the new laptops. Susan Mitchell, ICT Co-ordinator at Grove Primary, took delivery of six new Dell notebooks last week and is ecstatic about the flexibility and improved efficiency that will follow as a result. “The introduction of the laptops has meant that now teachers can access school files at home, allowing them to download forms which are essential for the tracking the progress of pupils. It also enables teachers to access the intranet from home and upload files to print off at school. This enables teachers to keep their pupils up-to-date with news and events as they happen.”
Mary Kane, C2k Implementation Manager explained, “This is a pioneering project by the Department of Education to provide 20,000 laptops to nursery, primary, post-primary, and special schools. We are confident that this huge investment will increase the pace at which ICT is being embedded in schools and will provide teachers with flexible and secure access to their school work.”
Stuart Gunning, C2k Client Director, Northgate Managed Services thinks this initiative will be extremely welcome in schools. “All schools will have leading-edge laptops and it won’t cost them a single penny. The C2k Managed Service Laptop Option will provide universal access for the first time,” he said. “Increasingly teachers have to juggle their time and cannot set aside specific periods to access ICT. They need to be able to log on at a time and a place that suits them. They have never had that opportunity before. They will now be able to use the machines in school or via the internet from home. They can be confident that they can pick up their work, plan their lessons and access data in a safe and secure manner. We are aiming to make the whole process as seamless as possible.”
