Just wondering if there are schools using Google Chromebox and what the pros and cons are! I would love to hear from anyone who has some knowledge of these.
Thanks
Lynne
Hi Lynne,
I have recently deployed chromeboxes across the school.
Pros
For us they have been a great value for money at around $200 each and a great opportunity to get more devices into classrooms. We have previously struggled with our ratio of devices to students and these have just made it possible to drastically improve that ratio.
We are a GAFE school so they are working just like our chromebooks...but so much more robust.
So they fit in with what the kids already know and they aren't another type of device to learn about.
Finally...we are loving them as an enviro school.....because it has allowed us to up-cycle our old screens...that i had stored away and was slowly selling on trade me. They live again!!
Cons...they take up wall space
Cheers
Hazel
Hi Hazel,
would love to know where you got a chromebox for $200, I have always thought they would be a great idea but the price point compared to a chromebook made them pointless when you get a screen with a chromebook for around the same price.
Mark
Hi Lynne,
I have never used a Chromebox in a school, but wish we had have gone down this route a couple of years back....
We had 50 odd Windows XP machines that did not have enough RAM to run Windows 7 or higher. We considered connecting a Chromebox to these machines - would have been $10 000. This was deemed too pricey so decided to set up a Terminal Server and run the computers as Thin Clients. Cost for this was minimal, only a few hundred for licences, but the technician costs to roll this out ended up being huge - and even when it was implemented we have had continual issues that led to us getting rid of most of the machines all together!
Hindsight is a great thing, I am sure if we had have purchased Chromeboxes instead they would still be in use!