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
Back to
case studies >> |