Make a Difference. Donate Today!|info@phillykids.org

Classroom Computers

Classroom Computers news articles are shown below. Learn more about our “Classroom Computers” program.

PCF Donates High-End Computers to Lankenau High School

Virtually all of the thousands of computers PCF has donated to families, schools and other programs over the years, were donated to us. And the process is fairly straightforward: individuals or companies donate the computers, we wipe the data, refurbish them as needed, put Linux on them and then gift them to whoever with matching chargers, power cords, monitors, etc. In the early days, we would have to wire them up (switches, routers, etc) for [...]

June 29th, 2025|Categories: Classroom Computers, PCF News|
Read More

600+ Laptops Donated to Philadelphia Public Schools

Through the generous equipment and monetary donations from Radnor Middle School, Einstein Healthcare Network, Jefferson Health, the Drumcliff Foundation, and private donors, PCF has been able to significantly increase our support to Philadelphia public schools in the 2019-2020 school year. All in all more than 600 laptops have been donated this year already to various schools including: HH Houston, FS Edmonds, J Logan, WG Harding, T Mifflin, and others. In some cases, the PCF-donated laptops [...]

December 4th, 2019|Categories: Classroom Computers, Corporate Donation|Tags: , , , , |
Read More

Classroom Computers/Printers for Our Partner Schools

During the 2018-19 school year, PCF donated and installed hundreds of desktop computers to various local schools including Houston, Emlen, Logan, Mifflin, and others. The bulk of them were installed into classrooms with the remainder used in computer labs, libraries, and parent resource (HSA) rooms. About 20 printers were installed in various classrooms too. The computer equipment is donated to PCF by various local businesses. We then clean it up and refurbish it (add memory [...]

June 18th, 2019|Categories: Classroom Computers, Corporate Donation|Tags: , , , |
Read More

~160 Computers Donated, Delivered, and Installed at Houston Elem.

For the second year in a row, HealthShare Exchange (web ») employees helped PCF with a full day of volunteering. About 30 employees showed up on a hot late summer day at the beginning of the school year, rolled up their sleeves and helped refurbish, clean, and install about 120 desktop computers at Houston Elementary school on Allens Lane in Mt. Airy. In addition, PCF provided another 40+ laptops throughout the building. Just carrying them [...]

September 17th, 2018|Categories: Classroom Computers, In the News, Volunteering|Tags: , |
Read More

60 High-End Laptops to Three Schools

On August 20th, PCF Western suburbs co-founders Ashwin and Srikar, along with their new volunteer Divyesh G., had the opportunity to visit three Philadelphia public schools to distribute a total of 60 laptops. Over the summer, the duo contacted local area companies and organizations to solicit the computer donations. In the end, they acquired about 120 great laptops, many of them with touch screens, lots of memory and crisp displays. Ashwin and Srikar cleaned the equipment [...]

August 20th, 2018|Categories: Classroom Computers, PCF News, PCF Suburbs|Tags: , , |
Read More

Classroom Computers Installed

During the 20117-18 school year, a great deal of effort was spent ensuring that the teachers in the schools we work with have all the computer equipment they need...or that they have room for, in some cases. The District has done a great job providing schools with additional computers and ChromeBooks but the need remains great. So PCF has worked hard to try and fill the gap. In many cases. the hardest part for us [...]

May 16th, 2018|Categories: Classroom Computers|Tags: , , , |
Read More

30+ Projectors Distributed

Two weeks or so ago, Friends' Central School in Wynnewood donated a van-load full of iMacs and Projectors to PCF. This week, the projectors were distributed to some very happy schools including Emlen, Logan, Dobson, Mifflin, Steel, Houston, and Edmonds. To save each school's tech person the hassle, PCF changed the settings on the projectors as they will not be ceiling mounted. It is a little quirky changing the settings when the screen is projected upside [...]

November 21st, 2017|Categories: Classroom Computers, Corporate Donation|Tags: , , , , , , , |
Read More

DIY Classroom Computers at Mifflin

Today we spent some time in Ms. Salter's classroom at Mifflin Elementary School in East Falls. She requested 10 laptops to use for Google Classroom assignments, typing practice, creating papers, and doing research for projects. Since we do not have a Tech-Master program up and running at Mifflin, Ms. Salter offered her 4th graders to help refurbish the ten laptops PCF donated to her classroom. The students learned to boot the laptops from an external [...]

November 14th, 2017|Categories: Classroom Computers, Technology Classes|Tags: |
Read More

“Tech-master” Program at Logan

PCF is delighted to implement our "Tech-Master" program (a.k.a. "It Support Team" or "Geek Squad" program) at Logan. Logan has utilized PCF's Classroom Computers for a few years now and the goal is to teach a small group of 3rd and 4th graders how to install and update PCF's computers as needed. PCF has always utilized students whenever possible but this class' goal is to make these young students responsible for our equipment. In the process, [...]

October 26th, 2017|Categories: Classroom Computers, Tech-Masters, Technology Classes|Tags: |
Read More

Health Partners Plans and PCF Provide 60 Laptops to Lab Charter

On Tuesday September 19, The Philadelphia Children's Foundation, Health Partners Plans, and the Health Partners Foundation presented The Laboratory Charter School with 60 refurbished Laptop Computers. The computers will be used by the teachers and their students. Established in 1997, 'Lab Charter' has three locations in Philadelphia: 2 in the Overbrook section of Philadelphia and another in Poplar (below Fishtown). Laboratory Charter School provides a progressive, multi-lingual, and culturally diverse educational environment. PCF's long time [...]

September 19th, 2017|Categories: Classroom Computers, Corporate Donation, Sponsors|Tags: |
Read More

Lab Wiring at ET Steel

When we contacted Steel about updating our classroom computers at their school, we learned that they needed some help in their computer lab. The first two rows of Macs needed to be hardwired. SDP had been asked but as the beginning of the school year is crunchtime, no guarantees were made as to when they'd be able to do the work. Later that day, PCF purchased some cable 'channels' (to run wires on the floor) [...]

September 11th, 2017|Categories: Classroom Computers|Tags: |
Read More

10 More iPads to Jenks in Chestnut Hill

A King of Prussia based company, which prefers to stay anonymous, donated 10 additional iPads to PCF (they donated iPads int he past). Last year, many of the same firm's employees spent a day at the warehouse organizing, refurbishing computers, and sorting library books. PCF purchased the chargers and USB cables and wiped them so get them ready for use. After consulting with the regional school district coordinator, we chose to give these 10 units [...]

June 1st, 2017|Categories: Classroom Computers, Corporate Donation|Tags: |
Read More

Radnor District Donation Benefits Houston

The Radnor School District has been incredibly supportive of PCF over the years donating hundreds of laptops and hundreds (thousands?) of books. Their donations have helped all the schools we work with and have made a real difference. Libraries at Emlen, Steel, Logan and Houston have all been supplemented by their donations. And all the schools we work with plus many of the take home laptop computers were donated by Radnor. On this most recent [...]

May 5th, 2017|Categories: Classroom Computers, Corporate Donation, Library Support|Tags: , |
Read More

30+ Laser Printers to Teachers/Centers in Need

PCF has been busy distributing and installing Laser Printers to schools and community centers in need. In many schools, teachers only have access to the printer in their school's main office, which means they have to leave their classroom and walk several flights of stairs just to print a document. For the Community Centers, it allows their users to print their resumes, applications and other documents. PCF came into a large donation of 40 HP Laser [...]

April 18th, 2017|Categories: Classroom Computers, Publicly Accessible Mini-Labs|Tags: , , , |
Read More

PhillyKids is Looking for Part-Time Worker/s

The Philadelphia Children's Foundation is looking to fill a part time position as soon as possible. Philadelphia Children’s Foundation Elementary School Technology Program Development and Instruction Position Description Background PCF is a non-profit organization of people who passionately believe that tomorrow’s leaders need computer skills today.  Many inner-city households have no or no working computer, and their children often go to schools in the same boat: many classrooms have few or no working computers to assist in [...]

March 24th, 2017|Categories: Classroom Computers, Library Support, PCF News, Publicly Accessible Mini-Labs, Take Home Computers, Technology Classes|
Read More

Refurbishing Lessons at Houston

In our effort to make schools more self sufficient, we created our "IT Support Teams" program which teaches 4th and 5th graders how to do parts of the refurbishing and performing the updating of machines themselves. Last year, PCF spent a lot of time coming up with a process that makes this possible (thanks to DAO Technologies as described here). The intent is for these young students to do the bulk of the updating and [...]

January 8th, 2017|Categories: Classroom Computers, Tech-Masters, Technology Classes|Tags: |
Read More

Pilot: Emlen 5th Graders Refurbish (& Install) Their Own Computers

PCF spent the day at Emlen Elementary in East Mt. Airy to launch a new way for us to support schools with classroom computers. PCF's "IT Support Team" program refurbishes and installs computers on-site with the help of the school's own students. These students learned a lot while PCF benefitted from their labor. And together we made 4 teachers very happy campers with computers in their classrooms. Earlier this year DAO Technologies donated a lot of their time and devised a great new [...]

December 17th, 2016|Categories: Classroom Computers, Tech-Masters, Technology Classes|Tags: |
Read More

Logan Computers Updated

PCF Recently updated all 50-some-odd computers at Logan Elementary. Logan was the first school we updated using PCF's new "imaging" method. Since we installed the computers at Logan last year, Adobe discontinued Flash for the version of Linux we had been using and Google replaced Chrome with another browser (Chromium). As a result, some websites used by students did not work anymore. In the past, it would have taken several volunteers about a week to [...]

November 24th, 2016|Categories: Classroom Computers|Tags: |
Read More

PCF’s New State-of-the-Art Refurbishing Process

We could have used a few different titles for this post such as "How To Save Yourself 60+ Minutes Per Machine", or "Fast and Error-Free Refurbishing" or "How DAO Technologies Saved PCF !" among others. PCF has been incredibly fortunate to have received support from DAO Technologies this Fall. DAO devised a very practical, state-of-the-art way to refurbish computers or to update those already installed: Rather than configure each machine individually, we now create a [...]

November 24th, 2016|Categories: Classroom Computers, PCF News, Publicly Accessible Mini-Labs, Take Home Computers, Tech-Masters|
Read More

PCF in the Chestnut Hill Local

A long article about PCF, written by Sue Ann Rybak, was published in The Chestnut Hill Local today. Sue accompanied PCF's Jan Deruiter at a recent 3D printing class at Emlen Elementary in East Mt. Airy. Thank you Sue for your in depth article and raising awareness of the urgent need in our public schools and the work PCF does for our public neighborhood schools. View the article on the Chestnut Hill Local website. If [...]

May 18th, 2016|Categories: Classroom Computers, PCF News, Technology Classes|Tags: |
Read More

20-Unit Laptop Cart for Houston Elementary

Today, we put the finishing touches on a 20-unit laptop cart at Houston Elementary. The second grade teacher, Ms. Renfer, is getting assistance from the district's regional Technology Integration Specialist on how to best integrate technology into her curriculum. The Philadelphia Children's Foundation believes that the earlier students are exposed to technology, the better. So when an ambitious second grade teacher reached out, we were determined to try and help. The most important piece was [...]

May 17th, 2016|Categories: Classroom Computers|Tags: , |
Read More

ABCya! Lowers Flash Requirements

ABCya! is one of the most popular educational games websites among students in the various schools we work with. It offers students of all ages/grades educational games to teach them math, reading, and so on while having fun. A few weeks ago, we learned that the company had raised its Flash requirements to the latest version offered by Adobe. But unfortunately, that latest version of Flash no longer works on older computers, including the ones [...]

May 6th, 2016|Categories: Classroom Computers, Take Home Computers|
Read More

Classroom Computers for James Logan

We found out about Logan Elementary, located just NW of Mt. Airy, from the Principal at Emlen. After meeting with Logan's Principal and TTL, PCF decided to support them with our Classroom Computers program. Man, are we glad we did. In fact, we liked working with this school so much that we will be starting our 3D printing class at Logan in mid May. Like all other schools, Logan's needs are vast. But what made [...]

April 1st, 2016|Categories: Classroom Computers|Tags: |
Read More

Classroom Computers & Mini-Lab at W. Cramp

Thanks to our donors and volunteers, PCF was able to install 30 computers into various classrooms and the Family Resource Room at William Cramp Elementary. Prior to installing the computers, PCF  provided Cramp with 8 donated iPads. In addition to setting up mini labs in various classrooms, we also outfitted a room that is used by parents to access the internet, fill out applications, write resumes, and take GED classes. We were thrilled to have [...]

March 30th, 2016|Categories: Classroom Computers, Publicly Accessible Mini-Labs|Tags: |
Read More

Classroom Computers at E.T. Steel

PCF installed almost 50 computers into Steel classrooms in a mad rush before the start of PSSA tests (at which point no visitors would be allowed into the building, let alone classrooms). Earlier in the year, PCF supplied hundreds of coded books to Steel, located in Nicetown (East of Germantown). We need your help to continue offering these important programs. Please consider making a donation to support our work. Or contact us if [...]

March 28th, 2016|Categories: Classroom Computers|
Read More

The Move Before The Storm

We have learned that it helps to move our equipment into staging rooms inside schools before we show up at a future date to install them. This way, we cut down on truck rental expenses plus we make the most efficient use of our volunteers' time during installation and it gives us a chance to get the lay of the land beforehand. We have also learned that for two people to move 130+ computers into [...]

March 17th, 2016|Categories: Classroom Computers|Tags: , , |
Read More

Computers to AB Day in Mt. Airy

PCF Board member Greg Bermon and Jan Deruiter installed approximately 20 computers at A.B. Day Elementary School in East Mt. Airy. Greg took a vacation day from his work to assist Jan with the installation. Like many of the other schools, some classrooms posed some challenges (in terms of finding power and/or getting Ethernet to work) but in the end we prevailed. Getting everything set up requires some creativity. We often have to scrounge for [...]

February 17th, 2016|Categories: Classroom Computers|Tags: |
Read More

33 Philly Public Schools Need Your Help

PCF was invited to attend the District's Partnerships Resource Fair during school break. Since we had not advertised our renewed focus on supporting schools, we did not expect the huge interest in our Programs. In the span of two hours, 33 schools filled out an application to receive support for classroom computers, library support, and technology teaching. View the full list of schools and a map here. The Fair was held during lunch on the final day of [...]

August 7th, 2015|Categories: Classroom Computers, Library Support, Technology Classes|Tags: |
Read More

200 iPads to 8 Public Schools

Just before summer break, Endo Pharmaceuticals contacted PCF about a donation of 200 used iPads. They came without chargers/cables but those were easy enough to get. 200 iPads was huge and we knew we'd make some teachers (and their students) very happy campers. We worked closely with the Philadelphia School District to identify the schools and teachers that would utilize them the most but at the same time, would be able to secure them and support them over time. [...]

June 27th, 2015|Categories: Classroom Computers|
Read More

Houston Elementary Classroom Computers

After our successful pilot program at Emlen Elementary, we were given the go-ahead by the Philadelphia school district to work with schools directly. Through the Mt. Airy Schools Coalition, we learned of the technology needs at Henry H. Houston Elementary and decided to see if PCF would be able to offer assistance. After our initial meeting with Principal Hall and computer teacher and TTL Ms Greenberg, we realized Houston was the perfect project for PCF. The need was [...]

May 19th, 2015|Categories: Classroom Computers|Tags: , , |
Read More

PCF in The Notebook: Out with the old? Not so fast

PCF was featured in an article in The Notebook, Philadelphia public schools' independent voice for parents, educators, students, and friends of Philadelphia Public Schools. In the article, PCF Director and Principal Thomas from Emlen were interviewed about the beginnings of what became PCF's Classroom Computers Program. Out with the old? Not so fast District schools like Emlen and Robeson are taking donated technology and making it work in classrooms By Paul Jablow on Mar 24, 2015 Jan Deruiter [...]

March 24th, 2015|Categories: Classroom Computers, PCF News|Tags: |
Read More

Classroom Computers Program Pilot at Emlen

PCF placed roughly 60 computers into various classroom at Emlen at the beginning of the 2014-2015 school year. Due to the success of our pilot program there, PCF received official permission from the Philadelphia Public School District's IT department to roll out our Classroom Computers program to other schools. After our successful pilot program, we are now officially allowed to work with other schools directly! We learned a lot from working with Emlen: the value these computers represent to [...]

September 4th, 2014|Categories: Classroom Computers|Tags: |
Read More
Copyright © 2021 Philadelphia Children's Foundation | All Rights Reserved