A brand new Facebook page, called Andover Home Learning reboot has been set up to refurbish, recycle and redistribute donated laptops to keep our young learning through these unprecedented times.
Andover Radio spoke to Maria Tierney, who is one of the admin of this new group, who told us , “We’ve started a community group called ‘Andover Home Learning Reboot’, on Facebook. The group has raised awareness to the gaps in the government criteria for free technology and the wait for technology even for the identified learners. Multiple families are struggling to keep their young people accessing their learning while away from school. Some fantastic members of our community have got together and are offering their time and expertise to refurbish, recycle and redistribute donated laptops. We are currently relying on members of the public to donate individual devices that they no longer need at home but we are hoping that some businesses might like to get on board and perhaps donate their retired IT equipment.”
Maria tells us, “All of our IT volunteers are either employed within the IT sector or education sector and are there to provide advice on any IT glitches families may be having with their home learning experience. We will have a’ just giving’ page which will help with costs for parts, cleaning products and anything else they need to get the devices back out there.”
They aim to raise £500 to support the repair team with needed materials. You can visit their Just Giving Page, here
The Facebook page also offers answers to questions and advice to parents on all IT related issues, The latest piece of advice shared is from Loui Reynolds who is IT Technician at Basingstoke College of Technology. He says, “If your computer or laptop is slow and you don’t want to pay out for an upgrade, just turn it into a Chrome device for free -> https://www.neverware.com/freedownload#intro-text . Another bonus of this is there’s also a good chance your child has come across Chrome OS anyway as it is heavily used in schools and further education nowadays.“
Join their Facebook page, here
If you require a reconditioned device to facilitate remote learning for your children, please fill in this form https://docs.google.com/forms/d/1qnP-ZhvAn7YXZL3L0ZWSDeyIqTRT-JkMFECzHNf4snU.
If you would like to donate a device, please fill in this form https://docs.google.com/forms/d/10X9G7ca24E1JmkjDKjPVKIb90PT-fMAIihTlQFJMRT8
If you are doing something great for our local community we would love to tell others about it, please contact us via community on our contact form here
