As a rule I tend not to use press releases or marketing material, but earlier today I was sent some information about LGfL and their procurement of thousands of Chromebooks. Having known what it was like as a Head of Computing and ICT Co-ordinator desperately attempting to get hold of extra devices without blowing the whole of the school’s budget, I thought this was worth giving a closer look.

One of the most noticeable side effects of lockdowns and school closures during the pandemic has been the widening gap between the haves and have-nots. It’s a laudable aim to want learning and teaching to continue as unabated as possible by moving it online, but what about those children (over 4 million of them in the UK apparently) living in poverty?

The Edtech charity LGfL-The National Grid for Learning is doing its bit to support such children by offering thousands of Chromebooks, procured as part of its successful #BridgeTheDivide initiative, at cost, to help schools ensure no child is left behind during the pandemic. For what is believed to be a UK first in the education market, Chromebooks will be available from £99.99.

At that price I’d be interested in one myself, but sadly because I don’t work in a school the offer isn’t open to me. Apparently, being a student of the school of life and being enrolled at the University of Hard Knocks don’t count.

The Chromebooks are available for as long as stocks last, which is estimated to be several weeks, and staff can have them as well as pupils if the school powers-that-be decide that. There’s no limit on how many devices an individual school can buy, while stocks last.

There’s more information on the LGfL website:

Devices

#BridgeTheDivide

I’ve used Chromebooks before and was very tempted to buy one a few years ago. I loved the fact that it took about three nanoseconds to fire up. (In contrast, my aged PC takes ages to get going. Once I’ve switched it on I can go to the supermarket, buy some tea, come back, make myself some tea, and by the time I’ve done all that I might, on a good day, see the Windows logo start to appear.) And the Google suite, of course, especially Docs, Sheets and Slides. One of the things that was running through my mind when I heard about the LGfL initiative was: can one use a Chromebook for learning programming? I did a quick search and it seems that you can.

Even without the programming aspect, I think having a bank of low-cost Chromebooks would be a great supplement or alternative to the traditional laptop trolley. A school could make them readily available for any class that wanted them, and perhaps even loan them to pupils to use at home.

Anyway, take a look at those links, and see what you think.