Case study : Hastings & St Leonards. Education Action Zone.
Through
the ICT Project, Schools without Walls, the EAZ was looking
to purchase laptops and approached various suppliers.
Rock were able to meet the required specification, within
a tight time frame, and quoted a reasonable price. It was
a bonus that Rock loaned the EAZ a demonstration model to
enable them to test the machine with in-house software before
making an order.
The EAZ works alongside East Sussex County Council and it
was important that the laptops met their minimum specification
of Pentium III 1Ghz, 128Mb RAM and Windows 2000 – Rock supplied
this in the form of the Sigma Si model. To save much of the
setting up time, the EAZ supplied Rock with a hard drive image
so that this could be copied onto all new laptops before delivery
– this has saved hours of work.
During the last 12 months the EAZ have purchased 80 Rock
laptops. 40 of these are travelling around the zone’s primary
schools on a half termly basis, with the goal of the laptops
being used for 90% of the school day. As pupils in years 5
and 6 use them, the laptops have to be robust to stand up
to hard Hastings and St Leonards Education Action Zone was
launched on 1st September 2000. The EAZ offers support to
17 primary schools and 5 secondary schools and 3 special schools.
Another 12 of the laptops are currently being used in our
Excellence Challenge project. This gives families who have
children in Yrs 12 and 13 the chance to borrow a laptop to
help with the pupils studies.
The remainder are used for training sessions for EAZ and
school staff. These laptops are either be used in the ICT
Suite at the EAZ offices or are taken out on location into
schools. The courses, led by the zone’s Website Editor and
ICT Trainer, include: Word, Excel, PowerPoint, using the Internet
and web page design.
The EAZ are now using Rock as their main supplier of laptop
computers and they are currently evaluating the higher specification
Rock Xeno laptop.
The EAZ have had to return a small quantity of laptops for
repair, but once contacted, Rock offer a very good collection,
repair and return policy within 10 days.
For more details on the Hastings and St Leonards Education
Action Zone please visit their website at http://www.hstleaz.net
Testimonial by: Stuart Old, ICT Technician, Hastings and St
Leonards EAZ
Products Purchased:
80 Sigma Si notebooks
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