Project Lead The Way - High School Program - Are you IT Administering this?

[jgwatson]

Our school has just signed up for this program, and we are going to be using Mac laptops (thank the Lord of Light!)

Anyone else have this program, and any have any tips they fancy sharing?

Thanks

[cbrewer]

So you are going to run Windows on these Macs? The program involves using Autodesk Inventor - at least in our district.

[cbrewer]

I guess the engineering track is where the need for Windows comes in.

APPENDIX C – COMPUTER SPECIFICATIONS

[jwzg]

I have. You might want to use Winclone to set up a partition in Boot Camp, vs. doing any VM's as Autodesk programs are memory hogs. Let your students initiate the installs, and let your instructor have the Admin credentials to complete.

It's a bit tricky but quite worth it.

[Andrew78]

Good advice from jwzg. What model of Macs are you using cbrewer?

[cbrewer]

We've gone Dell for this initiative. After years of doing dual boots, we've come to the realization that it's just a lot easier to manage machines when they have a dedicated purpose. And as much as we love Macs for what they're good at, they make an expensive Windows machine - especially when outfitted to meet the PLTW requirements. Our currently spec'ed computer for this is an Optiplex 9020 with 16GB of RAM, 4GB NVidia video, Quad core i7 and an SSD.

[strider_knh]

We have this program at our schools as well. Crazy specs for the PLTW Curriculum, makes the computers not cheap. Autodesk software is annoying and resource hogs. All other software is third party and much of it is free. Doing the setup on one station can take a long time so I ended up using Sysprep and ImageX to make an image for my labs. Still al lot of work but it saved time in the long run.

[jwzg]

The school I worked at has a 1:1 Mac program, so it was cheaper for us to do the dual boot rather than buy dedicated machines. Choices, choices...

[jgwatson]

We are doing the High School PLTW Biomedical Science. We received the specs from PLTW about needing Duel Boot Macs to run the programs needed, and we budgeted for that. Luckily we sent one of our teachers to the Teacher Training Course, and she was told we could do everything on OSX - no need for Dual boot.

Glad we sent someone along.

[nessts]

Duel Boot huh, what are you arming those computers with for the duel, and can you put a youtube link up when one kills the other :)

[Jon_Munford]

We are a mac 1:1 but decided to get a lab of PC workstation laptops for PLTW. I heard nightmares about dual booting and trying to run the autodesk software so this was the safest route for us. Also, if you have airs in your 1:1 I would be worried about HD size left after putting on a windows partition.

[Andrew78]

Update for my organization: For the 2016-2015 school year, I have budgeted to purchase Parallels for the Engineering student MacBook Pros. I am also increasing the RAM to 8GB. I have done this to a couple of those computers and the difference in performance for the student was dramatic. We have considered going to Dells or Lenovos, but our experience has been that they just do not last as long. And, they can't be managed with Casper, just inventoried.