Kowloon Junior School

	Enhance in-classroom learning experience and strengthen the IT infrastructure at a lower cost by HP Remote Clients Solutions

Part of the English Schools Foundation (ESF), a respected non-profit educational organization in Hong Kong, Kowloon Junior School (KJS) has earned a strong reputation since 1902 for its well-rounded primary education offered to both local and expatriate children aged from 5 to 11 years old. In order to keep up with the fast-paced world, the School has recently changed its curriculum to the International Baccalaureate Primary Years Program (PYP), an internationally recognized trans-disciplinary educational framework that emphasizes structured inquiry as a crucial part of learning.

Objective: Aimed to give its 900 students a more stable, interactive learning environment under a new enquiry-based curriculum, while also improving technical support efficiency and reducing future IT cost. Approach: Kowloon Junior School replaces notebook PCs and desktop PCs with HP Remote Client Solutions. IT Improvements: Consolidated the school’s computing infrastructure Enable efficient application upgrades Minimize operational support and future IT expansion costs Business Benefits: Increased reliability of in-classroom Internet access and computer usage. More flexibility to deliver computer resource across the campus. Ensured lower future IT add-on costs		Remote Client Solutions facilitates inquiry-based curriculum According to Steve Francis, Principal of KJS, the core of PYP relies heavily on a robust information and communication technology (ICT) infrastructure on which students are able to efficiently investigate, research, develop questions and share knowledge with teachers and other fellow students via the Internet. “Computers that can access to the Internet have become an important tool for both teaching and learning at our school. We want our children not only be able to read, write and do their arithmetic but also know how to solve problems and work in teams with the use of computers. Therefore we were looking for a permanent structure that offers a high-level of Internet access as well as enabling us to manage the infrastructure and build more access at a very cost-effective way,” Francis said.

 

This prompted KJS – the first amongst the 16 schools under the ESF – to replace its conventional distributed client infrastructure that comprised notebook PCs and desktop PCs with HP’s new Remote Client Solutions (RCS). “We had several Blade PCs set up for trial at our school in May 2007 for a week. We tested them with all our programs, making sure everything going to work. Everyone was very pleased with their performance. So we made the purchase in September and everything was installed and ready around mid-October,” said Joe Leithhead, IT coordinator at KJS. The school invested HK$1.3 million on HP RCS based on 120 HP Thin Clients and 90 Blade PCs for 900 students across two campuses. The new infrastructure ensures KJS to have a reliable Internet access and computing experience through Thin Clients in the classrooms, more efficient application upgrades and lower operational support and future IT expansion costs. Francis commented on the partnership with HP : “We’ve established a very good relationship with HP for the last three years, using their notebook PCs. Their after-sales services and technical support have been very reliable. Whenever there’s any technical problem, they can fix it or give us a replacement within 24 hours. Therefore, we’re very happy to stay with HP and try out their new remote client technology.” Enhanced reliability Since the new inquiry-based PYP was implemented in 2006, students at KJS have been given a focused period of time on computers almost every day. Initially, many classroom activities were done through HP notebook PCs such as online researches, visiting specific websites assigned by teachers, updating learning journal and posting homework through the school’s CLC (Connected Learning Community) website. “Each year group shared a limited number of 30 HP notebook PCs among five classes. That means we couldn't always have them in the classroom,” said Jane Lewis, year five teacher at KJS. “Besides, we always had to make sure they were charged and it took quite some time to log on and get them hook up to the Internet. It was quite a hassle.” With the HP RCS, four Thin Clients, served as simple access devices are networked to Blade PCs and storage devices in a centralized data center, are installed in each classroom to offer students an immediate, more reliable access to the internet. Most importantly, students and teachers can fully enjoy non-interrupted classroom time. “Each lesson only lasts for 40 minutes and we expect the 40 minutes to be fully used on teaching rather than spending ten minutes on sorting out technical problems,” said Leithhead. “Even when a Blade PC crashes, it will automatically log out and another available Blade PC will be assigned, the whole process takes less than 4 minutes, end-users can still continue their work without knowing the problem. However, if something goes wrong with the notebook PCs'motherboard or hard drive, they're immediately out of action. You need to take it out and get it fixed or replaced.” Compact in size and ease of use As Thin Clients are simplified, centrally-managed computers devoid of CD-ROM players, diskette drives and expansion slots, they are compact in size and can be mounted in many different orientations such as on a wall or behind the display, which is a perfect solution for space-constrained environments such as the small classrooms at KJS, each of which accommodates 30 students. Moreover, Lewis was particularly impressed by the ease-of use of Thin Clients. She said: “ [ Thin Clients ] are so much easier for children to use and there isn’t many buttons for them to fuss around. Even restarting the machines, students can handle it by themselves easily. All they have to do is to hold the button down on the top and then press it again.” Matthew Caplin, another year five teacher, added: “It’s nice to have a fixed station that is always on and plug-in. HP Thin Clients are more reliable than notebook PCs as they can come back on more quickly.” Luna Otaki, year six student, agreed: “Sometimes notebook PCs freeze quite easily when logging on and it takes so long until it moves. So far I haven’t encountered any problems with the Thin Clients. They look like a desktop PC with the keyboard and screen display but work so much faster.” Since there is no hard disk or external port on HP Thin Clients, they can prevent any unwanted student behavior such as downloading inappropriate files, thus virus will not be stored, Caplin stressed. Reduced total cost of ownership While delivering a true PC experience as well as enhanced efficiency and ease-of-use, HP RCS can also help the school reduce the total cost of technology ownership by as much as 50%. Said Leithhead: “Although the one-time acquisition cost [ for the Blade PCs and servers ] is expensive, the add-on cost will be much cheaper, which can be reduced at least by half. For example, the cost for a new set of Thin Client plus monitor starts from HK$4,000, whereas a new PC set cost HK$7000 and a notebook PC for HK$10,000. Now we have the ability to expand at a much cheaper price.” Currently, KJS has 120 Thin Clients and 90 Blade PCs installed across the Rose Street and Perth Street campuses. More Thin Clients are planned in the coming new school year. The total number of units will be increased up to 160 units. “Since we’ve saved up some money from the lowered add-on costs, we’re able to provide more access points in the near future. Right now we have four Thin Clients and two notebook PCs in each classroom. We aim to have an optimal level of 10 computer units – whether they be Thin Clients or portable Thin Clients – in the next two to three years,” Leithhead added. Ease of management by centralization In the HP RCS, since the central processing unit, memory and hard disks are split across Blade PCs and storage devices in a centralized data center, IT tasks such as hardware management, application upgrades and new application deployments can be done remotely by the three-manned IT team of KJS in a more efficient way.Frederick Wong, Supervisory ICT Technician of KJS, noticed at least a 20% increase in operational support efficiency after the HP RCS deployment. He explained: “Through the centralized management console, we can remotely monitor and control all Blade PCs and Thin Clients, without physically going to the problems. Now we can easily finish all the start-up and health check procedures every day in the morning before the school starts.” Application upgrade and installation on hundreds of computers can take days or weeks but Wong pointed out that the new consolidated infrastructure greatly reduces the time needed by 70%. “All we need to do is to create an image from the console and then deploy it onto all 90 Blade PCs in just several steps. For instance, even taking the image testing time into consideration, it now only takes 20 minutes to upgrade a particular application rather than 90 minutes in the past,” he said. The efficiency gain also allows Wong and his team to have more time for inventory management and future IT planning. Currently, KJS is in the process of upgrading its existing 100Mb infrastructure to a Gigabyte network. “The performance of Blade PCs will be greatly enhanced with a much faster and more stable connection. We aim to finish the network upgrade in October this year,” he said.

	“We’ve established a very good relationship with HP for the last three years, using their notebook PCs. Their after-sales services and technical support have been very reliable. Whenever there’s any technical problem, they can fix it or give us a replacement within 24 hours. Therefore, we’re very happy to stay with HP and try out their new remote client technology.” Steve Francis, Principal of Kowloon Junior School.

Future investment on mobile Thin Clients

To further bring flexibility to the end-users, KJS is also interested in deploying HP portable Thin Client solution in the coming new school year. Test runs have been done in May this year. “The portable versions can offer students more flexibility as well as an enhanced interactive learning experience inside the classroom. With wireless connectivity, they work in teams and interact with their peers far better than the existing fixed station setting,” said Francis. “We’re also planning to replace some of the teachers’ old notebook PCs with the new mobile Thin Clients, especially for the Mandarin teachers. They don’t have their own classrooms so they need to carry books and their notebook PCs with them to the class. The Mandarin lesson is only half an hour long, but it takes them at least five minutes to plug in their computers and maybe another five minutes to connect to the digital whiteboard. But with the mobile Thin Clients, it is just plug-and-play. They can log in whichever room they are in and connect to the interactive whiteboard straight away.”