Daily Archives: June 16, 2010

Being the ICT coordinator means that I get a heap of brochures, fax printoffs and emails for this product or another lobbing in my in box. I've lost count of how many times I've put a copy of the latest HDGuard solution into the recycling box. But I'm always surprised what different vendors think that schools should shell out their limited budgets on.

Today it was a publisher offering blackline master books for the teaching of "computing skills" and "inquiry learning". I don't even remember the company's name.

Then there was the pdf from this mob with their "low cost" student laptop. Honestly, should schools shell out A$599 for a 7 inch screen and 128 MB internal memory machine? Heck, I paid nearly $200 less than that for an Acer Inspire One with a 10 inch screen and 250 G hard drive, and I've seen them cheaper than that since then.

Obviously, plenty of companies are just flat out guessing with what is actually useful in a classroom, or they see us as the biggest bunch of suckers going around. I suppose the BER rorting just confirms to many in the business world that schools are justĀ  fair game for any sort of financial exploitation.