Incoming 5th years - AACs and personal devices (Ireland)

[Mclaren10]

Just curious what schools in Ireland are doing with regards personal devices in school.

My child will be going into 5th year in August and the school has just brought in 1 to 1 devices for Senior Cycle. I know other schools that have devices and just assumed that we would be given a make/model and told to get one, I was planning on looking around for the best deals or refurbed options, or getting one that can either be handed down to a sibling or used for college.

The school advised that we would need to buy this one device through the company Wriggle only and added on mandatory extras for the device stating that it would cost €700.

This is for a device with 8GB RAM and they couldn't answer if it could be passed on to a sibling...it didn't sound great with the battery failing so much every year and also a better spec might be needed in a couple of years.

Just wonder what other schools are doing? Can they not use the computers in school for the AACs?

Did they not have an ipad for junior cycle? In our school and any others in fact I know of we bought ipads in 1st year and they are meant to do till 6th year although by 5th year they are in bits and the memory and lagging is shocking. All has to be bought through one company as books will be downloaded onto the ipad and no I would not think they would be in any state to be passed on.

No, they didn’t have ipads for Junior Cycle. Using it for 5 years wouldn't be as bad.

What company is that?

6 years in our case as TY is a standard year. It was through Select online - I only know as I emailed recently to see if I had bought 3 or 5 year apple care on it. Turns out I bought none of course but c 'est la vie.

We had to buy one last year for first year

We had to buy chromebooks in first year. A deal was set up with a local company and they could be bought with or without optional extras (cases etc). The school also provided the specs and there was no obligation to purchase from the company they linked. You could buy independently if you wished.

I wished they used textbooks more tbh.

Only the Educate Togethers here do Ipads and they are very expensive locked down things. Its just social selection, doubt there is any educational benefit. One of the other schools trialed it but abandoned it after 2 years, especially now text books are free.
DC school don't allow any devices from home, unless its a disability adjustment. The school has laptops, and they're expected to access to a computer at home.

Definitely not just the Educate Togethers in my part of the country. The local DEIS secondary school doesn’t have them, maybe because of the extra expense to parents? The local Catholic-ethos secondary does.

Thanks, good to know that is in fact possible as the school was implying that's not possible for schools to work with. What kind of school is it? How did the school control the content or did they. Eg if a pupil was on social media during class?

They are still using textbooks. This device is mostly for doing the new AAC's.

It’s a Catholic-ethos school, one that used to be run by a religious order but all lay staff now. Just a normal secondary school, not a fee-paying one or anything.

I bought through the company I mentioned as I don’t know much about tech…I did have a quick look online first to see if I could get similar cheaper, but nothing popped up.
The company set it up and delivered to the school. I’m not sure how the school monitors it during schooltime tbh. It seems pretty locked down and they’re logged in through a school account mostly. I’d say there are ways around that though!

They have all the textbooks too, but at home the work is mostly done from the screen. For example, the teacher will set homework on google classroom and may attach some links. My DC often write their answers in a copybook, but they’re reading mostly from a screen not a book. That’s what I see happening every evening and I’m not a huge fan. I’d like them to be actually using the books more.

That said, I think they do use the books in school. They say it varies from teacher to teacher and subject to subject how much the chromebook is used. Even though the textbooks are online they still seem to be dragging books to and fro. Not sure why as they don’t seem to use them much as above. I suspect lack of organisation and just wanting to rush home as soon as possible.

With the new updated Leaving and Junior Cert I think that there will be a massive increase in schools introducing 1:1 devices this coming September.

Our school is buying via Wriggle. There is management software on them so the teacher has control over what’s happening on screens in classroom. €700 was price for the junior cycle. It was a good bit cheaper than that for the class going into 5th year but maybe it depends on how many are being bought. Wriggle came to the school to go through everything with parents. You can pass it down to siblings as you own it. When student leave secondary school the management software can be removed. It’s expensive but it’s best that they can’t go on social media on those laptops.

Our school choose laptops because they are a Microsoft school with teams etc.also schools don’t have the IT knowledge to let 800 students onto their WiFi with no precautions.

Other schools have gone iPad or Chromebook route and then found they have had to re format the students submission to Department of Education Portal.