Extending the Tech Life Cycle, Part 2

[Jerry Cobbs]

Some more thoughts on extending the technology life cycle, particularly as it applies to schools. The idea of a two-stage computer life cycle can be applied to ordinary school technology purchases, even without corporate hardware donations. If school purchases are done on a bid system, the specs may be written into the bid, which means the proprietary operating system and software is already included. This is fine; it is beneficial for students to have a variety of computer experiences, both proprietary and open-source. The question is, when a school upgrades one or more computer labs, what to do with the legacy equipment? One answer is to continue to use the systems as they are, with the existing OS and software. This may involve renewing annual site licenses, which brings yet another question: Is it worth the expense to maintain software licenses on these older computers. Also, are these older, slower computers able to continue providing a worthwhile experience compared to the newer "shinier" ones in the new lab?

In this situation, using these legacy machines to create a thin-client lab can maximize their useful life and provide a more satisfying experience for the student users. If the legacy machines are older, the school may want to purchase one or two newer, faster machines for classroom servers. Imagine those older computers suddenly running at the speed of a dual-core, 2+ GHz processor! All it takes is one newer machine to serve up to 25-30 thin clients. That's the beauty of thin-client architecture--the clients run at the speed of the server!