I love receiving questions from readers of my blogs and newsletters. There is one type of question that I generally refrain from answering. That type of question is about hardware. (Just to clarify, I do respond to emails with hardware recommendation requests, I just don’t make a recommendation). This afternoon I went live on Facebook to explain why I don’t make hardware recommendations. The video of my Facebook Live session is embedded below. If you’re in a setting where you cannot see or hear the video, read below for a summary.

In short, there are too many variables for me to consider before I can make a recommendation about hardware purchases for a school. In addition to budget constraints, some of the things that I need to be able to account for are who will be using the laptops/ tablets/ Chromebooks, the goals of the IT department, the vision of the school leaders, and existing hardware compatibility concerns. Gathering and accounting for all of that information and more cannot be done well through a few emails.

When I’m working with a school district in an on-going consultation role, I will make hardware recommendations because in those situations I do have much more information available to me. If you are interested in that type of consultation, please get in touch with me at richard (at) byrne.media