http://www.shack.ca/index.php?id=21
Sometimes this blog is just a place for me to write down something I don’t want to forget. For the last six years PVNC has used a simple evergreen policy…take the number of computers you have in production and divide it by the length of time you want to keep them to give you your annual refresh. Simple, right? Well, we have a couple bumps…the first year we refreshed in this way, 2002, we had some extra money and bought 1000 machines, 400 more than our usual refresh level, leaving a few “dips” later in our refresh plan. We have also opened a number of schools where we put in all new computers in one building (meaning they are all aging at the same rate).
If I had a time machine, I would go back and purchase a mix of new and refurbished computers to keep the refresh balanced and also ensure that we don’t have an entire school filled with six year old computers down the road. If I take those 1000 machines from 2002 as an example, if I had purchased ~300 refurbs, it would normalize future replacement and protect us from a spike in repairs due to a large number of machines getting very old at the same time. I ran into this problem at a Secondary School last year, we opened the school in 2001 with 100 computers. In 2007 they had added some computers but the bulk of their machines were 6 years old which heavily impacted computer based courses in those schools. If I had bought half refurbs, I could have replaced those refurbs with new machines in 2005.
To sum up, for a big purchase, I want to remember to consider including a one time purchase of refurbished computers to offset future replacement.
Keywords: Education, educational technology, management, technology