Task 3: Media Equipment in School
A school wants to be better equipped in the field of new media. It has
either the possibility to spend 10.000€ or 50.000€ for new media
equipment. As a result of this, the school would like to have to
concepts to spend money for media.
If the school has a budget of 10.000€ for new media equipment, it would be a good idea to invest mostly in mobile units, such as portable media suitcases, equipped with a projector, a notebook and speakers.
Several companies, e.g. TSP (www.tsp-online.de), offer to build these portable presentation suitcases after the expectations of the costumer. One can choose which projector or speaker system one likes to have or which software on the notebook. These suitcases are approx. 3.000€ each. But with them, you got the possibility to have presentations, watch movies or listen to audio samples in class. You can carry them wherever you want to, but as you only buy one for now, because of your budget, one has to share it with other colleagues.
If the school has a budget of 10.000€ for new media equipment, it would be a good idea to invest mostly in mobile units, such as portable media suitcases, equipped with a projector, a notebook and speakers.
Several companies, e.g. TSP (www.tsp-online.de), offer to build these portable presentation suitcases after the expectations of the costumer. One can choose which projector or speaker system one likes to have or which software on the notebook. These suitcases are approx. 3.000€ each. But with them, you got the possibility to have presentations, watch movies or listen to audio samples in class. You can carry them wherever you want to, but as you only buy one for now, because of your budget, one has to share it with other colleagues.
Another good possibility is the acquirement of a blu-ray player and a
flat screen TV. Depending on the situation in the school, one can create
a movie-room or equip several classrooms with media cupboards,
containing a blu-ray player, a flat screen TV and an access for a
notebook. A blu-ray player is available for 89, 46€ and the flat screen
TV will be 349€, so one can roughly calculate with 450€ for the
equipment of each media cupboard (depending on the type and model of the
products). If five classrooms are equipped with these media cupboards,
it will cost 2.250€.
Another acquirement for a school, especially for presentations and language classes is a camcorder to record the students work and watch it afterwards. A good-quality camcorder is available for 1.500€ a piece. As with the presentation suitcase only one will be bought, which means it has to be shared in school.
Also, voice recorders can be purchased for schools. This is especially helpful in foreign language classes to record to the own pronunciation and listen to it afterwards. A voice recorders is 30€ each and if you want to work with voice recorders in class, you can have a storage of 25 voice-recorders, which ends up to a prize of 750€.
Other media equipment used in school is a combined unit, which combines a printer, a scanner and a copier. This can be purchased at a prize of 100€ in average. So if you buy five of these units, you have 500€ to spent on printing, scanning and copying.
Also, voice recorders can be purchased for schools. This is especially helpful in foreign language classes to record to the own pronunciation and listen to it afterwards. A voice recorders is 30€ each and if you want to work with voice recorders in class, you can have a storage of 25 voice-recorders, which ends up to a prize of 750€.
Other media equipment used in school is a combined unit, which combines a printer, a scanner and a copier. This can be purchased at a prize of 100€ in average. So if you buy five of these units, you have 500€ to spent on printing, scanning and copying.
Also headsets for foreign language classes can be bought. This is
helpful for listening individually to audio samples or to communicate
via Skype, if a foreign language class is making an exchange program on
the web with schools in other countries. One headset is 15€, so if you
want to equip a large computer room, you want to buy thirty of them,
ending up with 450€.
To use with printers, to present something digitally or to create tasks for students that can be online, a Tablet-PC is useful. For 500€ a Tablet-PC can be purchased. You can draw graphics on it, make animations visible to the students and you do not have to buy an interactive whiteboard. If the school buys three of them, it will cost 1500€.
The remaining 50€ of the budget can be used for missing cables of maybe USB-sticks to transfer data from one PC to another.
To use with printers, to present something digitally or to create tasks for students that can be online, a Tablet-PC is useful. For 500€ a Tablet-PC can be purchased. You can draw graphics on it, make animations visible to the students and you do not have to buy an interactive whiteboard. If the school buys three of them, it will cost 1500€.
The remaining 50€ of the budget can be used for missing cables of maybe USB-sticks to transfer data from one PC to another.
For the budget of 50.000€, the school can think about installing
interactive whiteboards in school. The cheapest version of an
interactive whiteboard is without speakers or a document camera is
1.988€. But to use all the possibilities and features of the whiteboard,
one has to pay roughly 4000€. An interactive whiteboard can be used in
many ways, e.g. to show graphics, do interactive tasks on screen,
highlight words, give presentations etc. The interactive whiteboard is
not only useful for foreign language classes, but also for the natural
sciences or arts, for example. The school could buy five interactive
whiteboards for a start, which will cost 20.000€ all together. In that
way, every department in a school could use one - the foreign language
teaching, the art classes, the natural sciences, math or politics.
Another suggestion for a school is a notebook trolley with 24 notebooks
included. The prize for this trolley is 17.599€. It is very useful to
use in class to supply every student with a notebook. Because of the
prize, it makes sense to buy only one, which has to be shared in school.
Here, the headsets, mentioned above can also be a good tool to use with
the notebooks and to work with audio samples, short movie clips or
Skype as mean of communication with English speaking countries. This is
possible through a W-LAN access point in the trolley. Also different
modes are to choose, such as “lesson”, “charge” or “off”.
My suggestion would be to spent the approx. remaining 10.000€ on the first calculation of media equipment, because flat screen TVs, blu-ray players, cameras, etc are very useful for lessons and definitely should be taken into consideration when thinking about such a budget.
My suggestion would be to spent the approx. remaining 10.000€ on the first calculation of media equipment, because flat screen TVs, blu-ray players, cameras, etc are very useful for lessons and definitely should be taken into consideration when thinking about such a budget.
