Is anyone using the EEE PC?

[Steve Dickie]

We've been thinking about getting some Asus EEE PCs. Is anyone out there using them in an educational setting? Thoughts? Concerns? Recommendations?

Thanks,
Steve

[Janene Kosman]

We're going to put 36 of them in our High School on a cart on Monday. I'll post here how it's going.

[Steve Dickie]

That would be great.

Thanks.

[Kevin J. Galbraith]

I have one and am looking at it as a potential unit for classrooms. At MACUL'07, HP had a prototype that was similar, but haven't seen it in the wild yet. I also understand that Dell will have a similar unit on the street sometime between July and October of this year.

As far as the Eee goes, it's a pretty flexible device. My only complaint is that the battery only lasts a couple of hours. I also had a little difficulty getting it connect to my home WAP using WPA2, but that's more of a Xandros issue I believe, than one with the unit itself, but they are not much help.

[Janene Kosman]

The cart is out! Today our HS Western Civiliation teacher uses the discussions and journal features in Moodle so students can submit their research on people of the era they are studying.

We also have implentented Google Apps for our HS students this year. This will be one of the first times the students and teachers will share Google Docs to 'turn in assignments" and for collaboration.

We put a Linksys wireless router on the cart and configured it to be unencrypted and on it's own subnet., away from our network. Then we added another Content Filter server to route that subnet's traffic through it. In each computer we set the proxy setting to go through this path only. If a student takes those setting out, they won't have Internet. (unless of course they find some other AP, not associtated with the school.)

We also use Infuse on top of Citrix to allow our students access to thier network drives and Microsoft Office. If they need to save anything to thier Home Drive they will log into this through a link on our web page. We're encouraging them to use Google Doc's though.

In the Network program we configured each machine to automatically connect to this classroom AP so the students won't have to connect each time.

Since we didn't have a cart for these, I went to Lowe's and bought a 3-tier wire shelving unit and attached (with plastic tie wraps) pullout wire baskets to each shelf. 12 compuuters fit in each basket. I attached a 6 outlet power strip to the front and back of each basket and attached another heavy duty powerstrip on the bottom of the cart for all those power strips to plug into. Our Metal shop class attached a bar so that this strip could be mounted on the cart easier.

So far the teachers like the openess of it, but I'm concerned with the computers growing legs.

More later...

[Larry Russlin]

Janene-

Waiting for the "More later..."

What are the students saying about them? Is the keyboard the only negative? Teachers?

[Janene Kosman]

From what I hear, the students love them. Some parents are going to purchase an EPC for their high schoolers. The teachers that have used them like the quick start up time and ease of use. There is no waiting for the log in script! The teachers that have used the cart used it mostly for research. i bought external keyboards for those student who just couldn't use the keyboards, and as of today no one has requested to use one. The students adapt just fine, it's the teachers who are the most vocal about the keyboard size.

Printing has been an issue as there is no printer on the cart. One part of me likes the fact that they can't print so they get used to thinking differently and discovering that they don't NEED to print everything. The other part realizes that change takes time and that we will investigate the best way to provide printing.

Another thing that helped with the ease of use is the open wire mesh cart. It's easy for several students to get the computers on and off the cart at one time. The openness also allows the teacher to quickly see that all the computers are back on the cart.

We are going to get 2 more carts next year. I'd like to wait for the second generation and hope for a bigger screen. I see that HP has a micro computer out now.

At this point we are continuing to research how we can best provide unencrypted, filtered, wireless internet access to our high school students as we will encourage them to bring their own computers to school...next year.

The EPC's are a wonderful, affordable tool that will allow more of our students access to the internet which is a portal to more and more of the applications we're choosing to migrate to...and so far none have grown legs!

[Larry Russlin]

Thanks for the Update!

When using technology in the classroom, prep time is always a concern. By the time you get a Windows notebook out of a standard cart and booted, 10 or more minutes can waste away. It’s interesting to hear that your wire mesh cart and the boot times are some of the positive aspects of using the EEE.

Asus officially launched the 8.9 inch screen EEE PC 900

http://www.asus.com/news_show.aspx?id=10911

[Steve Dickie]

What is the battery life like? We got a couple in to play with. It seems like it doesn't recharge very quickly or charge much while being used.

[Janene Kosman]

I get 2 hours and 45 minutes pretty consistently. If I keep the computer on to recharge it takes a long time. If I turn it off and recharge it I get to 25% in 15 minutes from 3%. I haven't been able to remember to check it at 30 minutes and 45 minutes and so on. I'll try to test this today and let you know.

[Lori Collins]

Does anyone know if there is a smaller cart out there to hold 25 eeepc's?

[Janene Kosman]

We bought these carts from dcgraves.com that seem to be working well. 4 computers fit in a bin. We have 32 computers on this cart. It's a sturdy cart and is the right height to put a data projector on.

The power cords lay at the bottom of the cart and run up in between the two inside walls. We Velcro-ed the cords in bundles of 4 to easily attach to the computers.

We attached the Access Point right to the cart so when a teacher uses it, they plug in the AP in their classroom and then each computer is configured to automatically find that AP.

We are only using 8 of the 16 bins that can fit on the cart, but the other bins could easily be added for more storage.

We've been using them at our High School and the teachers love the easy access. We lock the cart up at night and knock on wood, haven't had any grow legs yet.

[Lori Collins]

Thank you so much for the input. Did you purchase the electrical adapters through the same company?