President's Report	by Shelley Wilcox
October 21, 2005 Regional Conference
Using a Blended Approach to Online Learning in an Urban Classroom	by Scott Parker
Computers may not hurt kids grades, despite Sun reports	by Alan Zisman
Now, again and always a Treasurer	by Glen Holmes
BCEdOnline a real and virtual success	by Shelley Wilcox
BCeSIS - the startup	by James McConville
Benefits of your CUEBC membership	by Wayne Ulian
Time to put a Tiger on your school’s desktops?	by Alan Zisman
Integration of Technology and Science	by Kevin Amboe
CUE's new and 10% improved website	by Chris Rozitis
Pre-owned PC's: something sustainable?	by James McConville
Supporting adult learners with ICT	by Ray Steigvilas
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Pre-owned PC's: something sustainable

by James McConville, jmcconville@sd43.bc.ca

As e ducators keep hearing about the $100 laptop being developed at MIT and anticipate the changes when these arrive. While these machines are at least three years away, there is the problem of what to do right now with our old and failing machines. Most elementary schools are lucky to scrape together enough money for a handful of new machines each year. Considering the number of machines in the school it is likely that schools end up with 7 or 8 different generations of computers in a single computer lab. The teacher is forced to be creative when teaching a lesson on gathering electronic information and the, cutting edge computer of their day, MAC LC 475's, can't even get on the internet.

Our district started purchasing pre-owned computers a few years ago. The first arrivals weren't great. They suffered from different internal hardware and high failure rates. Things have changed. Now the resellers understand what education needs, such as the ability to have one ghost image that works on all machines. The hardware is reliable due to an improved shop testing before they are sent to schools. The resellers even manage to give a three year warrantee where they ship replacement parts directly to schools.

The price that seems to work best is about $300, including a monitor. This gives a Dell Optiplex tower which is very sturdy and durable for classrooms. Now replacing an entire computer lab is a mere $10,000 if you include some of the required educational software.

While the future will likely provide one to one wireless computing for all students, pre-owned PC's work great for now.