Pictured from left to right: 
Barry Donn, Managing Director, Uptown Computers; David Welch, Senior Business Development Manager, Fujitsu Siemens; Tom Lundy, Head of IT at Belevedere College; Aidan Lundy, student. 

The new IT system will host a comprehensive teaching and learning solution which will also incorporate the school's administration system. Tom Lundy, Head of IT at Belvedere College, explains:
  
“Because of the amount of information, communication and teacher workloads that we are experiencing, we needed to implement a viable, reliable IT infrastructure that would host a comprehensive teaching and learning solution aimed at reducing teacher workloads and improving student attainments.
 
“Teachers here are encouraged to use technology to embellish their own teaching techniques and make learning a more exciting and enjoyable experience for the students.”

As a result of some research carried out by the college, it was decided to implement Fujitsu Siemens servers with Intel Xeon processors, 160 desktops – Scenics and Esprimos with P4 processors and some with Core Duo processors - and 30 laptops with Centrino and Core Duo processors.  

“Most schools work to an infinitely long IT redundancy plan so we needed workhorse servers that were scalable, reliable and robust and easy to use, yet powerful desktops and laptops,” Mr Lundy said. 

“All of the school’s administration, student and teacher reports, student and teacher lessons, files and work areas are partitioned onto drives. This allows teachers to plan, develop, share and deliver lessons”. 

Uptown Computers installed and configured the solution. Networked Fujitsu Siemens desktops and laptops running Windows XP, Office 2003, MS Exchange, e-mail service and IT Academy e-learning suite are located in Belvedere’s three computer rooms, art department where photo shop and relevant applications are running, and other departments, enabling the sharing of resources and allowing the students to educate themselves via interactive powerpoint. Information can also be sourced via the internet to supplement the available teaching materials.

“The Fujitsu Siemens solution is the hub around which our interactive educational timetable revolves”, said Mr Lundy. “We now have a scalable, reliable and highly flexible solution that we can easily grow when it’s needed”.

Belvedere College is a Catholic school under the trusteeship of the Jesuits. Founded in 1832 and located in Dublin city centre, the college has a current enrolment of over 950 pupils.