Church School Computer Labs

[Mimi]

Jim, I have questions for you. We are shopping prices/donations for computers (preferably refurbished) for our little elementary church school. At present, we need only five. I need info to take to the school board.

In 2013, is it best to acquire laptops rather than desktops? We are open to MACs or PCs. Which would you recommend?

We will not necessarily need a network for them (I don't think), but we do wish that they are all the same, IOW, cloned, for the teacher's sake.

The best Bible software I know of is free - e-sword. Do you still recommend that?

And, we want the research edition of the Spirit of prophecy on each. May I buy 1 disk for use on all of them?

Thanks, Jim. 

[Mimi]

Our school board corrected the number of computers to 15. Yikes! but so be it. Let me know on these questions. Thanks, Jim!

I just love having a computer geek among us! 

[LindaRS]

I'm not Jim, but as for the EGW software, you should contact the Estate to see if you need, and the price, to purchase a license that will allow the school to load it on multiple computers.

[Mimi]

Okay - I will. Thank you, Linda.

[JimB]

Jim, I have questions for you. We are shopping prices/donations for computers (preferably refurbished) for our little elementary church school. At present, we need only five. I need info to take to the school board.

In 2013, is it best to acquire laptops rather than desktops? We are open to MACs or PCs. Which would you recommend?

We will not necessarily need a network for them (I don't think), but we do wish that they are all the same, IOW, cloned, for the teacher's sake.

The best Bible software I know of is free - e-sword. Do you still recommend that?

And, we want the research edition of the Spirit of prophecy on each. May I buy 1 disk for use on all of them?

Thanks, Jim.

Macs or PC's is the first question. I've worked with both. I'm still a fan of PCs. Apple marches to the beat of a different drummer which is fine so long as your tech person is familiar with apple products. So the answer to your question is... it really depends on the knowledge of the person who has to support the computers. However, for compatibility sake and ease of repair I would go with PCs.

Laptops Vs. Desktops --- Are the students going to need to take these home or will they need to able to take them from classroom to classroom? If the answer is no I would go with desktops. I know it's a christian school but laptops are much easier take off with and if the screen breaks you don't have to trash the whole computer.

E-Sword is probably one of the best free pieces of Bible software. Especially since some have developed add-ons for Mrs. White's books. But that is just my opinion. There is another free piece of software that is really good. You might check out... http://www.theword.net/

I think if you'll read the licensing agreement on the EGW software disk it says it's only good for one computer. But you'll have to double check that as Linda has suggested.

Now... here is one of the biggest time saving thing I believe you can do when it comes to supporting a bunch of computers in a classroom setting. Here are 2 links to different competing software companies that do the same thing.

http://www.centuriontech.com/smartshield.aspx

http://www.faronics.com/products/deep-freeze/enterprise/

Here is why these are so important. When you have students on a computer they can't help themselves from playing around and messing with settings on the computers. This in turn creates a huge headache in supporting them. This kind of software will protect your computers from anyone making any kind of changes. They can do anything they want. Even try to format the hard drive and it will even look like it's working. However, when the computer is rebooted it puts back the old settings as though they haven't done anything. This will save your tech person countless hours of support time.

[Mimi]

Thanks, Jim. I love the last feature you addressed.

Will get back on these. Thank you so much!

[JimB]

Just wondering how the plans were coming along.

[Mimi]

Bless you for asking. I was getting nowhere with this project and finally was forced to turn it over to someone else. I could not readily tap a source for donated or greatly reduced (price) computers for a non-profit. The teacher preferred PC desktops because she could easily monitor students' web access. Last year the laptops were too easily taken from the classroom and covertly used on social media sites during recess. She does not want a repeat of that situation. My focus turned to playground equipment and the Lord immediately provided a magnificent jungle gym for the little ones. The former head of AWR is our head elder and if anyone has access to a pool of donors, it is that man. I pray he was successful. Need to follow up.

I appreciate the information you provided and will forward it to him. School begins in two weeks.   

[Richard Myers]

We will provide the Ellen White programs for the five computers. What better can we do for our young ones!!

[Mimi]

Oh, they will be so happy! Thank you. I will notify them right away! Thank you!