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David Gilmour

Monday 16 January 2006

Best news of the day - we've now got toner in the department printer so can print again after a printer-free first week. Although we've a helpdesk for ICT faults, the replacement of toner cartridges requires that a budget-holding department head takes the time to track down the part and supplier, sit down at their PC, raise an electronic order and even - in this case - fit the cartridge once it arrives. My harassed PT fitted it incorrectly with the tape still on, and the first lot of prints were blank. Perhaps printer support is a topic for the ICT strategy ?

I wonder if maybe we could have one or two large shared printers centrally maintained and available to all users, just as with copiers? Departments have to budget for their own printing costs, so when one department's printer dies it's not possible to connect to one elsewhere. Cost per print would be lower - IT departments usually push to centralise printing for that reason.

Comments

Printers

Brian

Friday 05 May 2006

The idea of having centralised printing is a great one, as is the idea of an ICT co ordinator. I havent heard about the proposals of new ICT co ordinators in schools. A way to get round the printers, cartridges problem would be to have reprographic technicians in schools in a central reprographics department. At the moment its the job of clerical assistants or auxiliaries to do the photocopying. We are lucky at MGS to have a member of staff who has previous experience in the printing trade. Technology advances, new skills, abilities and responsibilities are required, especially in ICT crossover disciplines such as reprographics but no financial enhancement is paid for these extra duties. Indeed its likely under the single status agreement the lower paid clerical, admin and auxiliary workers are the most likely to lose out. Until the schools make a commitment to recognising the important role that support workers have in a modern education environments and pay them accordingly for their skills, ideas such as centralised printing and other initiatives to reduce the amount of time teachers spend doing admin will never get off the ground

Printers

Ollie Bray

Wednesday 01 February 2006

Alan, I think you have made some excellent points here. Would it be possible to set up a networked printer and then to electronically log who has printed out on it? This way departments could be charged for their printing costs as parts of their department per-capita? Ollie

Printers

Alan Cruickshank

Tuesday 31 January 2006

David,

Couldn't agree more with your comments about having one or two large centrally located printers within schools. However when this has been put to schools in the past it has always been rejected on grounds of impracticality and lack of space. I find it hard to believe that the majority of schools couldn't manage to rationalise at least a percentage of their printing and in the process make savings. In general the smaller and slower the printer the more expensive it is to print a page. However for this to happen there has to be a willingness from staff to change their working habits and practices and from management to drive the change.

Rather than needing to add printer support specifically to the schools ICT Strategy, I would see printer maintenance as being one of core tasks of the proposed new ICT Coordinator role. It would make sense for this person to coordinate the purchasing and fitting of consumables as well as first line support for the printers throughout their school.

Alan

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