This seems like very poor planning.
Colorado districts built up a supply of Chromebooks. Some are nearing their end
11–20 of 27 posts
Re: Colorado districts built up a supply of Chromebooks. Some are nearing their end
#12There's something core to this discussion that I feel like everyone misses. Yes, kids annihilate computers. Yes, Chromebooks have an expiration date that's pretty arbitrary. Yes, Chromebooks generally have lower end hardware that doesn't last as long. Yes, making them last longer could mean you cycle through 8,000 Chromebooks in 4 years instead of 16,000.
My question is, do we really need 1:1 programs for kids? I absolutely think it's important to have computer skills, but I think that's more of an issue of class offerings rather than available tech. I'm 30 now, so well removed from when I went to school, but the amount of schools offering comp-sci related classes is embarrassingly low. Wouldn't those classes in labs with proper equipment provide better computer skills than a Chromebook?
And yeah, this is ignoring benefits that Chromebooks have like potential to a learning environment at home. I've worked in schools in various IT positions and I still just can't see the justification in having one laptop per child, especially if it's a Chromebook.
Re: Colorado districts built up a supply of Chromebooks. Some are nearing their end
#13[dead]
Re: Colorado districts built up a supply of Chromebooks. Some are nearing their end
#14This sounds weird: "DPS sends its outdated Chromebooks to an electronics recycling vendor" Why would the recycler be a 'vendor'? Is the district sending them laptops and paying them? I'd have thought competition would mean the winning bid would be offering to pay the district something (even if only $20 per device) rather than requiring payment.
Commercial quantity electronics recycling has a cost component because it would not be economical otherwise to process the waste stream. This is not uncommon at all, to have a vendor you pay to recycle your e-waste. This is not the same business as recycling scrap steel, aluminum, or other materials.
https://info.mayeralloys.com/ewaste-blog/why-is-there-a-recy...
Re: Colorado districts built up a supply of Chromebooks. Some are nearing their end
#15There's something core to this discussion that I feel like everyone misses. Yes, kids annihilate computers. Yes, Chromebooks have an expiration date that's pretty arbitrary. Yes, Chromebooks generally have lower end hardware that doesn't last as long. Yes, making them last longer could mean you cycle through 8,000 Chromebooks in 4 years instead of 16,000. My question is, do we really need 1:1 programs for kids? I abs…
I'm a high schooler and I can say I need a chromebook/personal device for almost every one of my classes. Everything is digital and embeded into the Google ecosystem. A good 95% of writing is done on Google Docs, slideshows are created on Google Slides, and then this work is turned in on Google Classroom.
While yes, computer labs with traditional desktop PCs would be more economically feasible, they simply aren't possible for public schools (at least the one I go to) today.
Re: Colorado districts built up a supply of Chromebooks. Some are nearing their end
#16There's something core to this discussion that I feel like everyone misses. Yes, kids annihilate computers. Yes, Chromebooks have an expiration date that's pretty arbitrary. Yes, Chromebooks generally have lower end hardware that doesn't last as long. Yes, making them last longer could mean you cycle through 8,000 Chromebooks in 4 years instead of 16,000. My question is, do we really need 1:1 programs for kids? I abs…
There's been a big push to replace pen and paper with computers in school. To the extent that one school here that taught their students to write with pen first got reprimanded by the authorities and had to introduce computers earlier. Since you replace both books and pens with a computer, it kinda makes sense from that perspective that every student has their own computer.
Ironically many people still seem to be poor at comp-sci. Chrome and iPhone apps teach you to swipe and push buttons, not how computers or traditional software actually works.
Re: Colorado districts built up a supply of Chromebooks. Some are nearing their end
#17This sounds weird: "DPS sends its outdated Chromebooks to an electronics recycling vendor" Why would the recycler be a 'vendor'? Is the district sending them laptops and paying them? I'd have thought competition would mean the winning bid would be offering to pay the district something (even if only $20 per device) rather than requiring payment.
Commercial quantity electronics recycling has a cost component because it would not be economical otherwise to process the waste stream. This is not uncommon at all, to have a vendor you pay to recycle your e-waste. This is not the same business as recycling scrap steel, aluminum, or other materials. https://info.mayeralloys.com/ewaste-blog/why-is-there-a-recy...
I understand the idea in principle: there are potential costs for data protection and environmental safety.
But in this particular case:
1. The laptops are being disposed of not because they have physical faults, but because their software is out of date. So there are no toxic materials to be disposed of.
2. These laptops were used by children, for school work. They don't contain state or commercial secrets, so the hard drives don't need to be shredded.
3. Even if there are secrets on the laptops, it's sufficient to do a single-pass erase before install ChromeOS Flex.
I'm really curious: if someone were to give you 1000 4-year-old Chromebooks, of which 200 had physical faults and the remainder had only software issues, how much you would spend (on labor for re-imaging and physical cleaning, and on processing waste materials) vs. how much you'd recover by selling the laptops on ebay.
Re: Colorado districts built up a supply of Chromebooks. Some are nearing their end
#18Earlier quoted context omitted.
Commercial quantity electronics recycling has a cost component because it would not be economical otherwise to process the waste stream. This is not uncommon at all, to have a vendor you pay to recycle your e-waste. This is not the same business as recycling scrap steel, aluminum, or other materials. https://info.mayeralloys.com/ewaste-blog/why-is-there-a-recy...
I understand the idea in principle: there are potential costs for data protection and environmental safety. But in this particular case: 1. The laptops are being disposed of not because they have physical faults, but because their software is out of date. So there are no toxic materials to be disposed of. 2. These laptops were used by children, for school work. They don't contain state or commercial secrets, so the h…
Okay, so lets say you were going to avoid e-waste recycling because of the points you mentioned. You will need to do the following:
1. Get approval by way of an exception in the process to sell any devices still functional while still processing non functional devices through an e-waste vendor.
2. Paying someone per hour to wipe the devices to ensure no school or children's data remains, and confirming this has been done (otherwise, reputational and data loss risk).
3. Paying someone per hour to facilitate selling these devices second hand.
Keep in mind labor shortages currently across the country, and why it is cheaper to write a check, ship these devices to a shredder at the e-waste recycler, and get a certificate of destruction back that no one is going to harass you about. Colorado minimum wage is $13.65. It is ~$400 to process one ton of e-waste.
Re: Colorado districts built up a supply of Chromebooks. Some are nearing their end
#19There's something core to this discussion that I feel like everyone misses. Yes, kids annihilate computers. Yes, Chromebooks have an expiration date that's pretty arbitrary. Yes, Chromebooks generally have lower end hardware that doesn't last as long. Yes, making them last longer could mean you cycle through 8,000 Chromebooks in 4 years instead of 16,000. My question is, do we really need 1:1 programs for kids? I abs…
I'm a high schooler and I can say I need a chromebook/personal device for almost every one of my classes. Everything is digital and embeded into the Google ecosystem. A good 95% of writing is done on Google Docs, slideshows are created on Google Slides, and then this work is turned in on Google Classroom. While yes, computer labs with traditional desktop PCs would be more economically feasible, they simply aren't pos…
The immediate rebuttal I can think of is of course you need a Chromebook; your school is now vendor locked to Google's platform. They did this by offering deep discounts to their cloud offerings.
The point about writing is a good one that resonates with me. I grew up in the age where typewriters were dead, we would outline on paper, and then do drafts/final revisions in the computer lab. I can absolutely see why going straight to digital removes a lot of inefficiency... but I'm just still not convinced it couldn't be handled by shared machines. Having robust dedicated machines, even still in the form of a laptop, could be part of the classroom.
Re: Colorado districts built up a supply of Chromebooks. Some are nearing their end
#20Earlier quoted context omitted.
I understand the idea in principle: there are potential costs for data protection and environmental safety. But in this particular case: 1. The laptops are being disposed of not because they have physical faults, but because their software is out of date. So there are no toxic materials to be disposed of. 2. These laptops were used by children, for school work. They don't contain state or commercial secrets, so the h…
Okay, so lets say you were going to avoid e-waste recycling because of the points you mentioned. You will need to do the following: 1. Get approval by way of an exception in the process to sell any devices still functional while still processing non functional devices through an e-waste vendor. 2. Paying someone per hour to wipe the devices to ensure no school or children's data remains, and confirming this has been…
I understand that it makes sense to outsource this work, rather than doing it in-house. I wasn't suggesting the district do it in-house.
What I don't understand is: why is the market-clearing price for this service positive, instead of negative?
I wonder how much net profit the recyclers make, per ton.