When outfitting a classroom lab it is crucial to consider alternatives when the "dream" is simply not in your budget.
For example: I know you want Adobe CS3 Design Premium for all 14 of your student computers. I know you have big plans for a design class that will give your students marketable skills or even set them on the road to their dream career. But you just told me that your entire budget for this class is around $1,300. At roughly $93 per machine -- it is time to discuss another plan. Oh, you could buy 3 Design Premium licenses. And what? Let the kids work on those computers once a month with a rotation?
There are other less expensive, well known and respected products that are worth considering.
CorelDRAW Graphics Suite 4.0 - This is solid creative design software with all the tools you need to teach a design class. Never used it? Corel provides 2 hours of training with the product -- plus all kinds of training resources built into the product.
QuarkXpress 7.0 - For years Quark did not offer academic discounts. Because of this most high school tech people don't even consider it. Quark is, however, the industry standard in creative design and page layout. And the pricing now fantastic -- about $95 each for those 14 computers. It is reported to be really easy to use -- I saw a demo of QuarkXpress 7.0 at a trade show and it did look really intuitive. But no worries -- they offer free training videos on the Quark website.
Still too much money? Then Microsoft Publisher 2007 licenses are $23 each. Creative design for both print and web.
You can find something in your budget -- but you might have to rethink it a little.
