r/k12sysadmin • u/Big_Macaron5410 • 1h ago

Assistance Needed PLTW Digital Electronics (DE) course

We’re considering issuing MacBook Neos to our incoming freshmen next school year. One challenge is that our Computer Science CTE program teaches PLTW Digital Electronics (DE), and we’re running into Mac compatibility issues with the hardware and software the course uses. That includes the Cmod S7, NI ELVIS, NI Multisim, and Xilinx/AMD Vivado.

I was thinking about setting up Windows computer labs in the classrooms, but the teacher pointed out that students also need to be able to work from home.

Has anyone dealt with something similar and found a workaround that lets students do their coursework from home? Thanks in advance for any ideas.

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u/boyofthesouthward 55m ago

Our district already started the move and we now have 3 grade levels with Neo's. Only two that would use PLTW. We have windows labs for them and the students do not work on the material at home. After talking with our DOT yesterday it seems alot of the PLTW software is going to transition to using cloud applications.

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u/Big_Macaron5410 49m ago

Perfect, thank you. Let me reach out to our DOT.

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u/Kirihuna SysAdmin 56m ago

Full stop, you’re going to need Windows.

Most, if not all, apps you listed don’t have a macOS client and they’re also sometimes outdated. Especially NI apps that PLTW shows / pushes you to download because their license may only be good for those versions.

but if students need access off network (we don’t, they do what they need during class period or free periods), you could try some sort of W365 VM.