How many PCs do you need so that you can sit next to your friend?

In our Learning Resources Centre we have 190 PCs.  They are spread over the three floors of the LRC in approximately equal numbers.  We operate a booking system using MyPC which works well - students come up to the appropriate desk / counter on the floor that they wish to work on and ask to be booked onto a PC.  We are always busy but rarely at absolute capacity.  This is because most of our students want to sit next to their friends when they are working so we are always booking in 2s or 3s which sometimes leaves us with odd ones.  We try lots of ways to optimise every space but to no avail - it is a social / cultural thing - even when working it is important to be with friends and be able to easily communicate

CAD PCs

We have had a set of 6 PCs installed on the 3rd floor of the LRC which have CAD software on them. They are for engineering students to use for extra work when not in their classroom.


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Sunny days

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Location:Mbro College LRC

iPod, iPhone and iPad Apps for education

We are setting up a project to look at how ipod, iphone and ipad apps can be used in education.

Details at http://mbroelearning.wordpress.com/

Monday

Monday morning is a chance to catch up on staff and check whether they have any issues.
Secondly it is the time to deal with urgent issues. We moved from Blackboard 8 to Blackboard 9 last week. It went very well but has exacerbated a long running issue of browser cookies. There is a temporary fix I.e. deleting browser history and cookies but if a student is faced with an error message while trying to access Blackboard then they will be deterred. We have put help sheets on Blackboard and an All Users email.
There have been a few requests for using the QuietStudy room in the LRC for classes but we can't do this as it cuts down on the number of open access PCs.
We have net books which are proving popular - the only issue being the short battery life. The number of 'technologies' which we have available for loan has Increased and we have a dedicated bespoke database to keep track of bookings and reservations.