School At Home IT Solutions
I work in education and recently have been in contact with a number of schools in Northern Ireland, Scotland and a couple in England to find out what barriers students are encountering in continuing their learning from home. While a small number of families are reporting problems with their broadband connections, by far the biggest barrier is actual IT hardware. Often this is in families with three or more children where there are not enough computers to go around, especially if mum, dad or both are also working from home.
An announcement was made by the Department of Education in England last week that IT hardware would be available for loan to students and some schools in NI have already lent laptops to students, but there are nowhere near enough to go around.
Now obviously in our house we are spoilt, but only because we up-cycle 'obsolete' IT equipment and run everything on Linux, but that hasn't stopped me looking at possible solutions for others.
It occurred to me that most young people have a mobile 'phone, these are pretty much all smartphones and they have fairly large screens. There's quite a lot you can do on a smartphone, but writing an essay is not going to be easy. So what about this sort of set-up, a mini stand and Bluetooth mini keyboard with track-pad. When the keyboard is paired up with the 'phone a cursor appears and apart from the small screen this will work much like a netbook PC.
Now I'm not suggesting that this is ideal, but what you see in the photo (apart from the 'phone obviously) cost under £10 and bought in bulk I have worked out the stand and keyboard would be about $5 (Ali Express). Surely this would be a cost-effective and expendable giveaway for those students who have a smartphone, but limited or no access to a full-size computer?
An announcement was made by the Department of Education in England last week that IT hardware would be available for loan to students and some schools in NI have already lent laptops to students, but there are nowhere near enough to go around.
Now obviously in our house we are spoilt, but only because we up-cycle 'obsolete' IT equipment and run everything on Linux, but that hasn't stopped me looking at possible solutions for others.
It occurred to me that most young people have a mobile 'phone, these are pretty much all smartphones and they have fairly large screens. There's quite a lot you can do on a smartphone, but writing an essay is not going to be easy. So what about this sort of set-up, a mini stand and Bluetooth mini keyboard with track-pad. When the keyboard is paired up with the 'phone a cursor appears and apart from the small screen this will work much like a netbook PC.
Now I'm not suggesting that this is ideal, but what you see in the photo (apart from the 'phone obviously) cost under £10 and bought in bulk I have worked out the stand and keyboard would be about $5 (Ali Express). Surely this would be a cost-effective and expendable giveaway for those students who have a smartphone, but limited or no access to a full-size computer?
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