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Wireless Laptop Trolleys at Joseph Chamberlain Sixth Form College
Background
Joseph Chamberlain College, which is based in Inner City Birmingham, exists to serve the education and training needs of the diverse populations of the City and beyond, especially:
- Those from inner-city areas
- Those aged 16-20
- Adults returning to learning.
The majority of work is focussed on students aged 16-20 from the local inner city wards. A broad curriculum is offered including general education and vocational education. Specific pride is taken in work with students for whom English is not their primary language. The College also provides internal and external assistance to local schools by providing equipment and teaching skills.
Technical Support
The IT support team at the college support somewhere in the region of 500 -600 computers plus approximately 150-200 laptops. The college runs two separate LANs, which at present separates the administrative and curriculum systems. The curriculum network runs on Windows 2000 server with a full active directory setup.
The Trolleys
At present the college has nine fully functional wireless laptop trolleys. Two of the trolleys are wooden and are now in permanent rooms. The other seven (of which five are departmental-based) are metal, fully mobile and accessible to all departments. Each trolley has full access to all college facilities including Internet access, printing and shared drives. We presently use a paper-based booking system which the Teaching staff complete.
The IT technicians are then responsible for delivering, setting up and collecting the trolleys after the lessons have finished. As support technicians, we tend to remain with the trolleys at the beginning of the lessons until all students have logged onto the system correctly.
We have learnt that this negates the need to be recalled to lessons to sort out various issues such as students who cannot log on due to password problems, students who cannot print, access the Internet or access their home directories because they have not logged on correctly.
Why the Trolley System was Started
The need for wireless access points and mobile laptop trolleys arose initially from issues such as lack of rooms, and the problems posed by embarking on any additional medium to large-scale cabling projects within the building. The introduction of wireless based technology not only addresses our problems with physical space but has also given our technicians the chance to develop the skills needed to implement and support the technology, skills that will be essential in the new college where a wireless networks will form an integral part of the infrastructure.
The Trolley Design and Costings
Prior to the college acquiring the metal laptop trolleys we had two wooden laptop trolleys. All these trolleys are available on the open market. The two mobile trolleys which are presently in use are metal-built with easy access to all components and cabling. They can contain up to 20 laptops each and both have printing capability. It only requires one technician to move the trolleys around the building. The approximate dimensions are 4’(h )x 3’(l) x2’(w) which means that the trolleys are light, streamlined and easy to control.
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Source: Ferl First - ferl.becta.org.uk/index.cfm
