Further to our recent blog post on the GetOnline@Home initiative, Go ON UK looked further into the deal to see what the scheme offers.
Originally posted on the Go On UK website.
Following the launch of the amazing new initiative from Get Online @ Home, we got Go ON UK's resident tech expert, Aaron Donnell, to see what all the fuss was about.
The cost of buying and connecting a PC can be a huge barrier for many of the 16 million Brits without Basic Online Skills.
That’s why this June, Get Online @ Home’s offering a £24 refurbished PC or £74 refurbished laptop with broadband from £2.99 per month for those on certain benefits. Aimed at those with low or no digital skills, it’s designed to help more people get online with cheap but high quality refurbished computers and broadband.
Prices are low, but what hardware do you get and how good is it for beginners? Here's Aaron's verdict:
Tech spec
The laptop I’ve reviewed is a refurbished Dell Latitude D630 with a 14 inch screen. They won’t all be the same, but will have a minimum of 2GHz CPU, a 60GB HDD, a CD drive and a 14” screen. Plus they’ll be Wi-Fi enabled for wireless web access, have a webcam and a 12 month warranty.
Out of the box
The laptop comes nicely boxed up, with power brick, webcam and setup and licensing guides. A reassuringly hand filled and signed quality check sheet is also included alongside guides. It’s very clean and in as-new condition. It’s also light and the screen’s clear and crisp – it has a high 1280 x 800 pixel resolution. This is fine for most uses such as viewing photos, browsing, video chat and viewing videos (as long as you don’t require full HD).
Capability
The laptop is powerful enough for all but highly intensive use, with a 2 GHz processor and 2GB of RAM memory. A 75 GB hard drive could be on the small side for those that save large files such as videos or music, but capacity could easily and cheaply be expanded by adding external memory to one of the 4 USB ports. Alternatively, old files can be transferred to DVD via the built-in DVD Rewritable drive. Wi-Fi is built in for wireless access to the Internet.
Getting started
As the laptop comes with genuine Microsoft software licensing, Windows 7 requires initial setup. The included step by step guide will help inexperienced users through the process.
What’s it like for basic online activities?
Once set up is complete, the first window that appears is to set-up the Anti-Virus software, Microsoft Security Essentials. This gives a layer of protection from malicious software right from the start, helping new users stay safe online. Internet Explorer 9 is installed to access the Internet and use search engines. Plus users can easily connect to Outlook for e-mail and calendars (all you need is an e-mail address and password). A fully licenced version of Microsoft Office Basic 2007 (Excel, Outlook, Word) is included.
The verdict
This laptop is superb value, especially considering full licences are provided for both Windows 7 and Office 2007 Basic. It’s quiet, portable and powerful enough for everyday tasks such as creating and saving documents, e-mailing and web access; great for beginners and people looking to boost their Basic Online Skills.
*Both deals must include broadband signup, which is not reviewed here.
This fantastic starter manual, written by SharePoint MVP Alex Pearce, will give you a step by step guide to implementing Office 365 Education for your school, college or university. The guide covers the subscription process, how to register your first domain to some simple Exchange, Lync and SharePoint housekeeping.
The full starter manual can be viewed/downloaded below. If you have a question about the guide, please do not hesitate to leave an update in the comments below or reach out directly to Alex.
Microsoft Lync helps you communicate with ease, and gives you the ability to adapt your workflow allowing you to get more work done - whether in the office, at home, or on the go.
Lync 2013 has some great new features, not to mention the fact that it’s modern, quick and personalised! Below are just a few of the fantastic new features which make 2013 that much better:
If you want to see Lync in action, the Microsoft UC user group are hitting the road with a number of events across June. Find out more about what they’ll be doing here.
Check out when they’re coming to you: http://mucuguk.eventbrite.com/
Guest post by Eylan Ezekiel.
We have all been to inspiring conferences, and seen awesome presentations from those leading the change in the way education can be. To turn those ideas into action we need a space to work with others to make them happen. Finally, someone has created an event that combines those threads: Inspire / Provoke / Create
#creat_ED is a new event, bringing technology, education and the creative industries together, on the 21st of June at The Barbican.
Born from the ashes of the much loved LWF13, #creat_ED has been built by the community created by that event. It is an unconference (much like a Barcamp/Teachmeet), focussed on doing.
There are will be inspiring and provocative speakers, including the amazing Stevyn Colgan, an ex-Cop who helped to found Scotland Yard's Police Problem Solving Unit and is now a QI elf and writer. He'll be speaking about challenging orthodoxy, making unpredictable connections and problem-solving. Watch a video of him in action here.
Alexandra Deschamps-Sonsino, founder of the Good Night Lamp and designswarm will be speaking about how the 'internet of things' will change the way we learn.
The rest of the day will be dedicated to making your ideas happen, and expert catalysts will be supporting workshops to help you be the change.
Tickets are only £40, and there is a discount available for those using the promotional code MicrosoftPIL .
Register your ticket for #creat_ED today!
Eylan Ezekiel is the co-founder of #creat_ED. Eylan is currently a consultant for The Innovation Unit, and was previously Head of BrainPOP UK.
City College, Coventry is a crucial resource providing potentially life-changing opportunities for a diverse population of young people and adults in a City where GCSE results are below national average. In 2009 the College moved to a newly built campus in the heart one of the most deprived area of the City and since then has been on an improvement journey.
The IT department, led by IT Services Manager Kevin Vashi, are keenly aware of their key role in supporting high quality teaching and learning. As part of their drive to improve efficiency through the deployment of appropriate technology, the IT department moved the College’s telephone system, in December 2012, from Cisco to Microsoft Lync.
‘We looked at different systems, but Lync appealed to us,’ says Kevin Vashi. ‘We were using Office Communicator already. We talked to other users and trialed Lync earlier in the year and decided that was what we wanted. There would be cost benefits, and easier collaboration with other colleges.’
The immediate gain, though, would be in the improved experience for the College’s 600 staff users.
‘The ability to see when people are available without wasting time, and to listen to voicemail from anywhere.’
A little further down the line would come video conferencing and desktop sharing – already well used by the IT team for support.
It was important not to rush, however. Moving to Lync from a legacy telephone system can be something of a culture shock for users.
‘A full blown push confuses people, and it’s best to do it in stages. The change of culture and technology takes some getting used to.’
Nevertheless, he estimates that eight of ten users at City College now like the system, with the rest gradually catching up as they experience what Lync can do for them.
The installation itself was relatively easy, explains Kevin.
‘The main issue was the porting of numbers. The system itself was self-explanatory. The software is quite easy, the functionality is quite fantastic, it works well and ties in with Office 2010 and SharePoint.’
Kevin emphasises the importance of integration and a unified experience for staff.
‘With Lync, because we had Communicator already, it was a soft transition. People grasped it quite quickly. If we’d moved to something different, there’d be a lot of hours spent putting things right.’
Kevin is very clear about the crucial role that his eleven-person team plays in the College’s drive for continuous improvement.
‘Our motto is “Everything we do is about the user experience”. That’s the key to our success. We drive to get our systems integrated so that the staff can perform at a level which makes learning a fantastic experience for students.’
All of that, of course, has to be done within a budget, and against a background of high expectations from students.
‘Technology changes all the time. It’s quite hard to keep up, and we have to make the case to senior management on both cost and functionality.’
Meanwhile, the drive for cost effectiveness continues, and while the operational benefits of Lync are being enjoyed by all the college is working through associated contingent contracts to further increase the cost benefits.
Except from our ‘Enabling and inspiring students and teachers with Windows 8’ eBook.
School, like work, has become more than just somewhere to go. Teachers now expect pupils to take a certain amount of control over their own education, particularly when it comes to the latter years and home study. Even at a young age, pupils and parents need access to a variety of content outside of school hours. Timetables, teacher’s reports, lesson plans and homework should all be available for access whenever a pupil needs them. Windows 8 empowers pupils to take control of their own learning though accessing and sharing content. Using sharing technology, such as OneNote, Office 365 Education and SkyDrive enable pupils to access securely and easily information about their classes, additional content and material when outside the school gates.
OneNote for example, enables pupils to continue study groups while outside of lessons and collaborate with other pupils in order to complete joint tasks. Teachers can upload lesson notes online with the confidence of knowing classes can refer back to the notes whenever they need to, particularly at exam time to help with revision, for example. And, vitally, with OneNote, notes can travel with the pupils, regardless of device; students access OneNote at school and save content, they can access that content once home in order to complete the day’s work. Windows 8 can empower pupils to set their own pace of learning outside of the classroom and gain deeper knowledge regardless of location.
Collaboration and creativity are core attributes of a 21st century education system and sharing technology that pupils can use every day. SkyDrive is a cloud-based central repository for content and could be used to store all of the lesson materials on a particular topic, for example.
Our full ‘Enabling and inspiring students and teachers with Windows 8’ eBook can be viewed/downloaded below for free:
Students with a valid academic email address can now save 10% when they purchase any Surface RT device through Microsoft Store!
The offer is available for students, faculty and staff, and requires verification of eligibility using an .ac.uk email address.
The discount is only valid until 31st October 2013, so get in quick to be sure you don’t miss out!
For full details of the deal, head over to the Surface website.
Excerpt from our ‘Enabling and inspiring students and teachers with Windows 8’ eBook
The importance of access to technology, particularly 1:1 (ie one pupil having personal access to a computing device) cannot be underestimated. The Sutton Trust, an organisation aimed at helping social mobility through education, has recently stated that 1:1 computing can help children from disadvantaged backgrounds keep pace with their more affluent peers. By having 1:1 access to a PC or browser device, pupils can be empowered to offer feed-back, conduct peer-assisted learning strategies, complete homework and learn ICT skills. This, in turn, will help them be more prepared for the 21st century workplace. Learning technology skills is becoming increasingly imperative for school children; in the near future it is estimated almost 90% of jobs to require knowledge of ICT, therefore equipping pupils on a 1:1 basis with technology becomes even more essential.
One possible method for schools to equip pupils without incurring major hardware costs is to mirror the business community with a Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) scheme. Enabling pupils to bring their own technology alleviates schools from the cost of having to supply the hardware, while simultaneously saving time and costs of any training for the pupils because they are already familiar with the device. And research shows that schools already adopting this policy; Research from RM shows that 62 percent of secondary schools have already adopted a BYOD approach or intend to within the next 12 months.
However, there are complicated elements for schools to also consider, such as technical restrictions, cyber security and management as well as how teachers can manage and assist with learning if the student devices are all different. One way around this could be that all devices must be internet ready – a scheme Bournemouth University runs and calls BYOB – Bring your own Browser. In this model the emphasis is not on the device, but on the device’s ability to access and browse the internet. All content creation and consumption can then be done through the browser in a uniform manner.
Our full ‘Enabling and inspiring students and teachers with Windows 8’ eBook can be viewed/downloaded below for free.
When you’re looking at buying a new device it can be really hard to compare each device with one another without flicking between multiple tabs in your browser.
The Windows team here at Microsoft have now made it easy, with their new comparison site for tablets.
The site gives you the option to compare some of our favourite Windows 8 tablets, including our very own Surface RT, against the iPad, showing you all the key specs you want to know such as battery life, weight and the ever important price.
In addition, you can find out about a few of the features and functions that each tablet provides, such as the Office suite, free cloud storage and printing capabilities.
Whether you’re in the market for a tablet, or are just interested in seeing the difference in available devices, check it out!
Excerpt from our ‘Enabling and inspiring students and teachers with Windows 8’ eBook.
Technology has changed the way pupils want to learn. No longer are children confined to desks, staring at the board in front and listening passively as a teacher talks at them. Today’s generation have been brought up with technology as an integrated part of their lives; three-year-olds can work tablet devices, primary school children carry mobile phones and teenagers expect internet access anywhere and everywhere.
With this access to technology at home, pupils expect the same at school, not just for communication and gaming, but to help make learning easy. Schools that embrace this trend can not only use it to help change teaching and learning practices, but also encourage children to be more enthusiastic about learning altogether.
The ease of using Windows 8 on a tablet device can open up a host of positive experiences around technology; the ability to research a topic on one half of the screen while taking notes on the other half, for example. Tasking pupils to go out and take photographs around a particular subject then moving content around from phone to PC with ease can help bring any kind of topic to life. By enhancing education through creative experiences, lessons and learning are likely to be more dynamic and therefore more likely to be understood and remembered by pupils.
Our full ‘Enabling and Inspiring students and teachers with Windows 8’ eBook can be viewed/downloaded below.