So my school just got screwed by Fujitsu

[fierydemise]

Originally posted by: Smartazz
Actually, this school isn't part of the town ship, our school is private. I've never heard of a public school buying laptops for kids.

You have now, my school district passed a huge levy last year to give a new macbook to every high school student (about 2400 students) in the district and ibooks to middle school students (about 1400 students) and 5th and 6th graders (about 1400 students). They also put a projector in every classroom and a fancy device that displays whats on a page in real time.

 

[Smartazz]

Originally posted by: fierydemise

Originally posted by: Smartazz
Actually, this school isn't part of the town ship, our school is private. I've never heard of a public school buying laptops for kids.

You have now, my school district passed a huge levy last year to give a new macbook to every high school student (about 2400 students) in the district and ibooks to middle school students (about 1400 students) and 5th and 6th graders (about 1400 students). They also put a projector in every classroom and a fancy device that displays whats on a page in real time.

oh man, that's fantastic.

 

[Baked]

Originally posted by: Smartazz

Originally posted by: fierydemise

Originally posted by: Smartazz
Actually, this school isn't part of the town ship, our school is private. I've never heard of a public school buying laptops for kids.

You have now, my school district passed a huge levy last year to give a new macbook to every high school student (about 2400 students) in the district and ibooks to middle school students (about 1400 students) and 5th and 6th graders (about 1400 students). They also put a projector in every classroom and a fancy device that displays whats on a page in real time.

oh man, that's pathetic.

Fixed.

 

[fierydemise]

Originally posted by: Smartazz

Originally posted by: fierydemise

Originally posted by: Smartazz
Actually, this school isn't part of the town ship, our school is private. I've never heard of a public school buying laptops for kids.

You have now, my school district passed a huge levy last year to give a new macbook to every high school student (about 2400 students) in the district and ibooks to middle school students (about 1400 students) and 5th and 6th graders (about 1400 students). They also put a projector in every classroom and a fancy device that displays whats on a page in real time.

oh man, that's fantastic.

No it isn't, the things are basically useless. The district is so concerned about the laptops being used for "non-educational purposes" the laptops can be used for office, internet and iCal. Widgets are disabled as is the dvd drive and camera (although that doesn't surprise me), they refuse to enable "Windows file sharing" so they can't recognize my home network which means to print I have to email a document to myself, download it on a PC then print it and of course you can't install or run any unauthorized programs.

Oh and I forgot to mention about a month after the levy passed the district announced they had a 5 million dollar (and growing) budget deficit because the superintendent?s office massively overestimated numbers of students.

 

[Smartazz]

Originally posted by: fierydemise

Originally posted by: Smartazz

Originally posted by: fierydemise

Originally posted by: Smartazz
Actually, this school isn't part of the town ship, our school is private. I've never heard of a public school buying laptops for kids.

You have now, my school district passed a huge levy last year to give a new macbook to every high school student (about 2400 students) in the district and ibooks to middle school students (about 1400 students) and 5th and 6th graders (about 1400 students). They also put a projector in every classroom and a fancy device that displays whats on a page in real time.

oh man, that's fantastic.

No it isn't, the things are basically useless. The district is so concerned about the laptops being used for "non-educational purposes" the laptops can be used for office, internet and iCal. Widgets are disabled as is the dvd drive and camera (although that doesn't surprise me), they refuse to enable "Windows file sharing" so they can't recognize my home network which means to print I have to email a document to myself, download it on a PC then print it and of course you can't install or run any unauthorized programs.

Oh and I forgot to mention about a month after the levy passed the district announced they had a 5 million dollar (and growing) budget deficit because the superintendent?s office massively overestimated numbers of students.

You never mentioned that there was a deficit.

 

[Eeezee]

$2200 a piece for one of those is a horrible price. Does your school IT know anything at all?

Normally when you buy in bulk the price should go DOWN, not up!

 

[waggy]

Originally posted by: fierydemise

Originally posted by: Smartazz

Originally posted by: fierydemise

Originally posted by: Smartazz
Actually, this school isn't part of the town ship, our school is private. I've never heard of a public school buying laptops for kids.

You have now, my school district passed a huge levy last year to give a new macbook to every high school student (about 2400 students) in the district and ibooks to middle school students (about 1400 students) and 5th and 6th graders (about 1400 students). They also put a projector in every classroom and a fancy device that displays whats on a page in real time.

oh man, that's fantastic.

No it isn't, the things are basically useless. The district is so concerned about the laptops being used for "non-educational purposes" the laptops can be used for office, internet and iCal. Widgets are disabled as is the dvd drive and camera (although that doesn't surprise me), they refuse to enable "Windows file sharing" so they can't recognize my home network which means to print I have to email a document to myself, download it on a PC then print it and of course you can't install or run any unauthorized programs.

Oh and I forgot to mention about a month after the levy passed the district announced they had a 5 million dollar (and growing) budget deficit because the superintendent?s office massively overestimated numbers of students.

well no duh they had a deficit. unless you are in a very rich area spending that much on students for something that has a marginal impact on learning is stupid.

computers are a great tool. but to many think it will do wonders. they then make students buy them and all it does is hurt a family who has to purchase one (or more when the kid loses it or get stolen). man property tax's are already high enough without stupid stuff like this.

 

[Smartazz]

Originally posted by: Eeezee
$2200 a piece for one of those is a horrible price. Does your school IT know anything at all?

Normally when you buy in bulk the price should go DOWN, not up!

They're a bunch of morons, these laptops don't cost nearly this much in store.

 

[fierydemise]

Originally posted by: waggy
well no duh they had a deficit. unless you are in a very rich area spending that much on students for something that has a marginal impact on learning is stupid.

computers are a great tool. but to many think it will do wonders. they then make students buy them and all it does is hurt a family who has to purchase one (or more when the kid loses it or get stolen). man property tax's are already high enough without stupid stuff like this.

Just to clarify the deficit had nothing to do with the laptops, superintendent?s office massively overestimated numbers of students so they budgeted alot more money from the state then we actually received. The reason the district wanted to push the laptops was so they could control them, they see that in the future laptops will become a classroom fixture like calculators are today. If they provide the laptops they can control them instead of having to work with the multitudes of different student laptops, I don't agree with the rationale but I can understand it.

 

[waggy]

Originally posted by: fierydemise

Originally posted by: waggy
well no duh they had a deficit. unless you are in a very rich area spending that much on students for something that has a marginal impact on learning is stupid.

computers are a great tool. but to many think it will do wonders. they then make students buy them and all it does is hurt a family who has to purchase one (or more when the kid loses it or get stolen). man property tax's are already high enough without stupid stuff like this.

Just to clarify the deficit had nothing to do with the laptops, superintendent?s office massively overestimated numbers of students so they budgeted alot more money from the state then we actually received. The reason the district wanted to push the laptops was so they could control them, they see that in the future laptops will become a classroom fixture like calculators are today. If they provide the laptops they can control them instead of having to work with the multitudes of different student laptops, I don't agree with the rationale but I can understand it.

you really think the laptops had nothing to do with it? hahah

i can't understand it. why force a burdon on the parents and tax base? for somehting that is going ot have a marginal impact?

 

[OVERKILL]

Originally posted by: Baked
High school students need tablet PCs because?

I usually disagree with this award winning lifer :gift:, but this time,

he's right.

What the heck are high school students doing with $2200 tablets?

And 256 ram for $2200, what a freakin ripoff

 

[spidey07]

LOL, so your school got owned by a salesmen? It's in the contract, if fujitsu defaulted then it will all work out.

but good golly, those prices are insane. normally educational institutions get hella discounts. Guess they should have bought american.

 

[fierydemise]

Originally posted by: waggy
you really think the laptops had nothing to do with it? hahah

i can't understand it. why force a burdon on the parents and tax base? for somehting that is going ot have a marginal impact?

I know the laptops didn't have anything to do with the deficit because the deficit existed before the levy passed. Also don't ask me to explain the decision any further then I already have, I don't get it either. The school piloted them at a middle school last year and basically forced teachers to change their lesson plans to make use of the laptops so they could show how great they were the problem is high school teachers weren't forced to do anything so basically they aren't and the laptops serve as an extra 5 pound dead weight in our already overloaded backpacks.

 

[MrCodeDude]

Our rival highschool got a technology grant that gave all sophomores laptops. A lot of them got sold on eBay or at the flea market and the students would just say they lost them. It was one of the worst wastes of money I had ever seen, but meh.

 

[RichUK]

Was this just a one off purchase through Fujitsu or do you hold a lot of business through Fujitsu.

I mean do you procure all IT equipment through Fujitsu?

 

[xtknight]

Originally posted by: Smartazz

Originally posted by: duragezic
Wow, stupid. So many townships and cities complaining of massive budget shortfalls in recent year, yet so many Elemetary/Middle/High schools manage to have money for this absolute waste.

Actually, this school isn't part of the town ship, our school is private. I've never heard of a public school buying laptops for kids.

Many public schools do. They use the money from student count day. It's up to the school itself, not the district though (the situation I'm talking about). Many middle schools around here did that (though the middle school I went to didn't), but none of the high schools did.

They should have just bought everybody the latest TI graphing calculator. At least it would have been sorta useful for school. Maybe they thought they'd get people to take notes more if they had a tablet PC. Funny.

 

[Smartazz]

Originally posted by: RichUK
Was this just a one off purchase through Fujitsu or do you hold a lot of business through Fujitsu.

I mean do you procure all IT equipment through Fujitsu?

I think this was the first business purchase by them.

 

[Smartazz]

Originally posted by: xtknight

Originally posted by: Smartazz

Originally posted by: duragezic
Wow, stupid. So many townships and cities complaining of massive budget shortfalls in recent year, yet so many Elemetary/Middle/High schools manage to have money for this absolute waste.

Actually, this school isn't part of the town ship, our school is private. I've never heard of a public school buying laptops for kids.

Many public schools do. They use the money from student count day. It's up to the school itself, not the district though (the situation I'm talking about). Many middle schools around here did that (though the middle school I went to didn't), but none of the high schools did.

They should have just bought everybody the latest TI graphing calculator. At least it would have been sorta useful for school. Maybe they thought they'd get people to take notes more if they had a tablet PC. Funny.

Funny, we don't have graphing calculators.

 

[randomlinh]

wow, i've never heard of such a huge waste of money in my life. ok, maybe they can try to pull they "every child have an equal opportunity" bit.. but still.. shouldn't they be focusing on helping teachers do their job.. ie, teach? There seems to be so little incentive for teachers.. they get paid crap, have to deal w/ 30 little rugrats, and somehow... convey some sense of authority on a bunch of kids who have no respect for adults.

 

[waggy]

Originally posted by: randomlinh
wow, i've never heard of such a huge waste of money in my life. ok, maybe they can try to pull they "every child have an equal opportunity" bit.. but still.. shouldn't they be focusing on helping teachers do their job.. ie, teach? There seems to be so little incentive for teachers.. they get paid crap, have to deal w/ 30 little rugrats, and somehow... convey some sense of authority on a bunch of kids who have no respect for adults.

yeah lovely message to send to the teachers. "we do not think you are worth a small raise. instead we are going to force EVERY child in your class to buy a computer so they have a chance to learn"

 

[JS80]

shady salesman ftl

 

[thirdlegstump]

$2200 may sound like a lot on the surface but it's likely that it includes the price of required software and a support contract that's attractive to the school's method of management (at least on paper). School's IT administration is probably a lot smarter than ya think : )

 

[fbrdphreak]

going with IBM would have probobly been a better idea.

Lenovo, but yes

Originally posted by: deathkoba
$2200 may sound like a lot on the surface but it's likely that it includes the price of required software and a support contract that's attractive to the school's method of management (at least on paper). School's IT administration is probably a lot smarter than ya think : )

Bingo

 

[QueBert]

Originally posted by: Smartazz

Originally posted by: duragezic
Wow, stupid. So many townships and cities complaining of massive budget shortfalls in recent year, yet so many Elemetary/Middle/High schools manage to have money for this absolute waste.

Actually, this school isn't part of the town ship, our school is private. I've never heard of a public school buying laptops for kids.

you'd be surprised, when my nephew went to Mahatten Beach High, all the seniors got IBM Thinkpads. Meanwhile, less then 10 miles away kids ar Crenshaw high had to share text books because the school didn't have enough.

lovely how unbalanced our educational system can be.

 

[Eeezee]

Originally posted by: deathkoba
$2200 may sound like a lot on the surface but it's likely that it includes the price of required software and a support contract that's attractive to the school's method of management (at least on paper). School's IT administration is probably a lot smarter than ya think : )

I'm sorry, but $2200 is no way justifiable. They should have gone directly to the software distributors for site licenses rather than through the tablet provider. That would have easily shaved $100+ off per laptop.