Tech
Teachers Can Get Special Discounts. These Are Our Favorites
Discounts for teachers are sought after for good reason. Teaching is a tough, important, and often thankless job. And with so many out-of-pocket costs for supplies and resources, even small savings can feel crucial. We’ve rounded up a list of exclusive discounts that educators can snag with their teacher credentials—so you can spend a little less time stressing out over full-price dry-erase markers and a little more time stressing about the kid who learned to swear over the summer. We thank you for your service.
Are you a parent or a student? You can usually score on discounts with a valid .edu email address as well. We’ve got a handy list of student deals, plus some roundups of Back to School Deals and Back to School Laptop Deals.
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How to Qualify
Retailers and service providers use various authentication methods to verify whether someone is eligible for faculty discounts. The website SheerID verifies teacher status and has a huge list of offers available to teachers. The same is true for ID Me. If you’re a homeschool teacher or a childcare provider, you may still be able to qualify for some of these deals and discounts. Double-check with the listed reward offerer for more information and details.
Tech and Apparel Deals
Photograph: Mario Tama/Getty Images
The Apple education discount isn’t just for students. Teachers can get 10 percent off Apple hardware. The company usually sweetens the deals in the fall. In 2025, you can get free accessories like AirPods or a Magic Keyboard with your iMac, iPad, or MacBook purchase.
Dell offers discounts to teachers for free, but the sign-up process is a bit confusing. You’ll need to sign in or sign up for a free Dell Rewards account. Navigate to your Membership settings, and then click “Verify Teacher Status” to verify through SheerID. You’ll get an extra 10 percent off select PCs, monitors, and accessories, plus up to 9 percent back in rewards.
Sign up for HP education discounts by verifying your .edu email address. HP says eligible shoppers can save up to 40 percent on select products, with “special discounts” for students, parents, and faculty. Find more HP coupon codes here.
Lenovo switches up its discounts on a regular basis, but students and teachers can get at least 5 percent off on top of any additional seasonal savings. Accounts are free and verified via ID Me.
Microsoft offers up to 10 percent off a variety of products, including Surface devices and accessories. Parents, students, and faculty are eligible.
Samsung’s program is for students, parents, and educators, who can get up to 30 percent off laptops, tablets, phones, and other gadgets. Usually, these discounts come in the form of extra percentage-based savings on already-discounted gear, but sometimes you can get additional storage for free or deals on bundled products. WIRED has additional Samsung promo codes you may want to check out.
Adidas offers teachers 30 percent off online and in-store orders and 15 percent off factory outlet purchases. Verification is completed through ID Me. You can find some Adidas promo codes here.
Teachers love Crocs, and who could blame them? (I also love my Crocs). They’re comfortable and fun to decorate. Verify your teacher status with ID Me to get 15 percent off full-price styles. (And yes, this includes Jibbitz).
Classroom and Supply Deals
Verify your educator status through ID Me at checkout to receive 15 percent off your Happy Planner order. This company makes our favorite paper planners. Some are even designed especially with teachers in mind.
Educators and school staff can take 20 percent off one qualifying online purchase through August 30. You’ll need to join Target Circle (which is free) to redeem the offer. You can also get half-off a paid Circle 360 membership (usually $99 per year).
Verify your educator status through ID Me to get a one-time 20 percent off discount online. You can also get a one-time 20 percent off discount for an in-store purchase, though it’s unclear whether you can redeem both coupons or whether you’ll need to choose between them.
Educators can always get 15 percent off at Michaels, including on sale items. Aside from picking up the obvious arts and crafts supplies, this could be a good way to get a slight discount on things like baskets, prizes, plastic drawers, desk accessories, and decor. (Or very oversized coffee mugs.)
Educators can join this program to guarantee that they’ll always get the lowest possible price at Blick. In-store purchases are matched to online pricing, with shipping and handling costs included. You’ll also get an extra 10 percent off your order total. Note that you’ll need to sign up for this program in-store. You’ll also need to present your faculty ID in addition to your membership card to get the discount when checking out in-store.
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Photograph: DmitriiSimakov/Getty Images
Teachers can get 20 percent off in-store purchases at Books-A-Million by applying for the free Educator Discount Program. You’ll also get free shipping on your online orders, and there are extra savings during “educator events” throughout the year. You can apply for the card in-store or online.
Half Price Books gives educators 10 percent off year-round in-store purchases. Note that the discount doesn’t apply to online purchases.
Meijer’s teacher appreciation sale runs through September 7. Show your ID to the customer service desk and you’ll be able to save on school supplies, home office gear, cleaning essentials, and more. There’s a big list of eligible items on this page.
Teachers get half-off a subscription to Vooks, which are essentially animated educational storybooks with read-along text. The price drops to $3 per month or $50 for a year. Note that this membership used to be free, but this still isn’t a bad deal if you’re in the market.
Teachers are eligible to receive a free used book valued at $7 or less when they purchase four or more books at ThriftBooks. Eligibility and signup are completed via SheerID.
Sign up for the free Extra Credit rewards program to get 10 percent off your purchases.
Music teachers can get 8 percent back through Sheet Music Plus’ rebate program. The cash back is given back in the form of a Sheet Music Plus gift card. If you’re buying lots of sheet music, it’s worth checking out.
The Eduporium Educator Discount Program offers teachers up to 20 percent off. The marketplace has several STEM resources such as 3D printers, drones, coding tools, and robotics devices.
The website Teacher Wish Lists allows educators to make a wish list that may be fulfilled by random donors or members of your community. If there are items you’d like to have but don’t necessarily need, this tool may be worth a shot. Get Your Teach On is another popular teacher wish list aggregator.
Free Educational Resources for Teachers
A few websites compile free resources, from worksheets to posters to fonts. Check out Teachers Pay Teachers, Crayola, and Canva for examples.
Software and Service Deals
This is nearly half off the normal cost of a six-month Babbel subscription. Babbel is our favorite language-learning app out of the many we have tried.
Eligible students, parents, and educators get 50 percent off Ableton Live Intro, Standard, or Suite license, or can apply the same percentage off to Live bundled with Push. This software is especially enticing for music creators, though if you’ve been considering uploading some fun projects to SoundCloud, it might be worth your while too. It’s the best DAW for DJs and live performers. You don’t need to be a music major to take advantage of the offer. Check out our guide to learning music online for more tips.
Students and educators can use a valid .edu email address to get free access to Word, Excel, PowerPoint, OneNote, and Teams, plus some Microsoft AI tools. There are free alternatives to Microsoft Office products, but if you use the suite frequently, this deal is worth considering.
Adobe Creative Cloud includes more than 20 apps, like Photoshop, Illustrator, Acrobat Pro, Lightroom, Firefly AI tools, and more. You also get 100 GB of cloud storage. It’s usually $70 a month, but students and educators can get it for $30 monthly with a free one-month trial. After a year, the $30 price raises to $40, but it’s still a good discount if you can’t access needed Adobe apps another way. This discount can be applied to monthly or annual plan purchases.
Courtesy of Apple
This bundle includes licenses for Final Cut Pro, Logic Pro, and more. It’s tailored to video and music creators and costs $200. Considering that Final Cut Pro sells for $300 on its own, this bundle is a worthwhile purchase if you plan on buying any of these software licenses individually.
Prezi offers a slate of tools used to perfect digital presentations. It can be integrated with Zoom and Google Meet, along with other services. Prezi has two educational premium plans for students and educators that cost either $4 or $8 per month (usually $7 or $19 per month, respectively).
Teachers can save on select phone plans and home internet plans at Verizon when they verify eligibility through ID Me. Phone lines start at $25 per month and Fios Home Internet starts at $45 per month. As is true with most mobile phone services, there are many terms and conditions. However, it’s still worth checking out, especially if you’re already a Verizon customer. These Verizon promo codes may also be of use.
Educators can provide their employee ID to get discounts on wireless services through AT&T. The discounts fluctuate often, but you can save on various phones, phone plans, and home internet plans. WIRED also has AT&T promo codes that may be helpful.
Verify your status with ID Me to get 50 percent off your first Home Chef box (up to $60), plus 10 percent off future orders. You’ll also get free shipping on the first box and free dessert for life. Home Chef is our favorite meal kit subscription service for families, and it’ll help a lot when you need to cook dinner after school and your brain is too tired to function. You can find more Home Chef coupon codes here.
Discounts on Magazine and Newspaper Subscriptions
We’re biased, but a year of unlimited digital access to WIRED costs $24 per year. Teachers can also get affordable subscriptions to The Economist, The Wall Street Journal, The Atlantic, Bloomberg, and more. If there’s a magazine or newspaper that you frequently read, you may be able to get a discount when you subscribe. It’s also worth checking your local library to see if you can get a free or discounted subscription there.
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Tech
PSNI resorted to pen and paper after issues with ControlWorks command and control software | Computer Weekly
Unexpected problems in the Police Service of Northern Ireland’s (PSNI’s) ControlWorks software led to police having to resort to manual forms to record calls from the public soon after the software’s introduction in 2019, Computer Weekly has learned.
The force has not reported the incidents to the Northern Ireland Policing Board, which oversees the PSNI, and has not mentioned any incidents with ControlWorks in its annual reports.
While there is no legal duty to report failures with ControlWorks to the Northern Ireland Policing Board, the Policing Board has told Computer Weekly it would expect any serious incidents with ControlWorks to be reported to it.
The PSNI uses ControlWorks as part of its command and control system, for managing, logging and categorising calls received by the emergency services from the public and for dispatching police officers to incidents.
Computer Weekly has learned that the PNSI’s ControlWorks system had technical issues after it first went live in May 2019.
These included slow-downs of the system that required computer systems to be restarted or software to be patched.
On some occasions, police were forced to return to using paper forms to record incidents reported by the public after ControlWorks became unavailable. Information on the forms had to be typed back into the system when the service resumed.
ControlWorks aimed to improve response times
The PSNI announced it was using Capita Communications and Control Solutions’ ControlWorks software in 2018, replacing its 20-year-old Capita Atlas Command and Control System, which had reached the end of its life.
From February 2018, ControlWorks was installed across the PSNI’s three regional contact management centres, before going live in May 2019, but is understood to have had a series of issues during its first few months of operation.
Critical incidents, which affect force-wide availability of ControlWorks, are categorised as P1 or P2. Less serious incidents that do not require urgent remediation are categorised as P3 and P4, Computer Weekly has previously reported.
Computer Weekly understands that the PSNI runs a 24-hour help desk to deal with IT issues, and that it has the ability to escalate incidents with ControlWorks to its IT supplier.
Missing persons search
Computer Weekly understands that a “major issue” with ControlWorks may have delayed information being passed to police officers searching for missing teenager Noah Donohoe, who disappeared from his home in Belfast on 21 June 2020.
Donohoe’s disappearance sparked a massive search operation, as police reviewed hours of CCTV, and hundreds of volunteers joined the search for the vulnerable 14-year-old.
Computer Weekly has learned that on the evening of 23 June 2020, police recorded a “major issue” with ControlWorks that could have led to delays in information being passed to investigators.
Computer Weekly further understands that on the evening of 24 June, a member of the public called police to say they had seen an individual attempting to sell Donohoe’s missing laptop.
This potentially critical information was delayed in being brought to the attention of police officers investigating Donohoe’s disappearance because of a problem with ControlWorks, Computer Weekly has been told.
It is unclear exactly how long the information was delayed by and what its impact on the search for the missing teenager was. But it is understood that detectives on the case reported and noted the delay during the investigation.
The issue with ControlWorks was understood to have been reported during the live investigation at a critical time when Donohoe was missing – two days after he had gone missing, and four days before he was found dead in a Belfast storm drain.
Manchester had serious IT issues
Greater Manchester Police experienced problems when it went live with its Integrated Operational Policing System (iOPS), which included ControlWorks, in July 2019. iOps attempted to integrate Capita’s ControlWorks software with Capita’s PoliceWorks record management software used by police officers for managing day-to-day investigations and intelligence records.
An independent review found serious issues with the project. At one point, police were forced to revert to pen and paper for 72 hours while records were migrated to the new system.
“This consumed considerable time and capacity, causing a duplication of work,” the report found. “In addition, some legacy demand, which included ongoing investigations, did not successfully transfer from the old systems, so could no longer be worked on.”
Greater Manchester Police subsequently announced plans to replace PoliceWorks after concluding it could not be adapted or fixed, but it has continued to use ControlWorks.
The PSNI uses a different record management system to Manchester’s troubled PoliceWorks system. The PSNI signed a £9m contract with the Canadian company NicheRMS to deploy its Records Management System, which records information about people, locations, vehicles, incidents and evidence, in 2006.
NicheRMS keeps duplicate records of reports from the public that are recorded on ControlWorks when they are escalated as an “incident”. This means that should data be lost because of problems with ControlWorks, the PSNI would still have access to duplicate records reported by the public on NicheRMS if they have been escalated as an “incident”.
Policing Board seeks clarification from PSNI
The Northern Ireland Policing Board has confirmed that if a major system disruption or significant information or data loss occurred, the board would expect to be informed.
A spokesperson told Computer Weekly that the board’s Resources Committee, which has oversight responsibility for matters including the PSNI’s technology systems, has asked the PSNI for clarification about the issues raised by Computer Weekly.
A coroner’s inquest into the circumstances of Noah Donohoe’s death is due to begin on 19 January.
The PSNI said it would “not comment on investigative matters while legal proceedings are ongoing”.
“With regards to questions relating to ControlWorks, police can confirm that, to date, there has been no instance of major disruption which has led to data loss,” a spokesperson said.
Capita declined to comment.
ISC2, the non-profit cyber professional membership association, has joined the UK government’s recently launched Software Security Ambassador Scheme as an expert adviser.
Set up at the beginning of the year by the National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC) and the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology (DSIT), the scheme forms part of a wider £210m commitment by Westminster to remodel approaches to public sector cyber resilience from the ground up, acknowledging that previous approaches to the issue have basically gone nowhere and that previously set targets for resilience are unachievable.
It is designed to incentivise organisations to pay more attention to the security of software products, and supports the wider adoption of the Software Security Code of Practice, a set of voluntary principles defining what secure software looks like.
ISC2 joins a number of tech suppliers, including Cisco, Palo Alto Networks and Sage; consultancies and service providers including Accenture and NCC Group; and financial services firms including Lloyds Banking Group and Santander. Fellow cyber association ISACA is also involved.
“Promoting secure software practices that strengthen the resilience of systems underpinning the economy, public services and national infrastructure is central to ISC2’s mission,” said ISC2’s executive vice-president for advocacy and strategic engagement, Tara Wisniewski.
“The code moves software security beyond narrow compliance and elevates it to a board-level resilience priority. As supply chain attacks continue to grow in scale and impact, a shared baseline is essential and through our global community and expertise, ISC2 is committed to helping professionals build the skills needed to put secure-by-design principles into practice,” she said.
Software vulns a huge barrier to resilience
A study of wider supply chain risks conducted last year by ISC2 found that a little over half of organisations worldwide reported that vulnerabilities in their software suppliers’ products represented the most disruptive cyber security threat to their overall supply chain.
And the World Economic Forum’s (WEF’s) Global Cybersecurity Outlook report, published on 12 January, revealed that third-party and supply chain vulnerabilities were seen as a huge barrier to building cyber resilience by C-suite executives.
A total of 65% of respondents to the WEF’s annual poll flagged such flaws as the greatest challenge their organisation faced on its pathway to resilience, compared to 54% at the beginning of 2025. This outpaced factors such as the evolving threat landscape and emerging AI technology, use of legacy IT systems, regulatory compliance and governance, and cyber skills shortages.
Pressed on the top supply chain cyber risks, respondents were most concerned about their ability to assure the integrity of software and other IT services, ahead of a lack of visibility into their supplier’s supply chains and overdependence on critical third-party suppliers.
The UK’s Code of Practice seeks to answer this challenge by establishing expectations and best practices for tech providers and any other organisations that either develop, sell or buy software products. It covers aspects such as secure design and development, the security of build environments, deployment and ongoing upkeep, and transparent communication with customers and users.
As part of its role as an ambassador, ISC2 will assist in developing and improving the Code of Practice, while championing it by embedding its guiding principles into its own cyber education and professional development services – the organisation boasts 10,000 UK members and associates.
It will also help to drive adoption of the Code of Practice through various awareness campaigns, incorporating it into its certifications, training and guidance, engaging with industry stakeholders and members to encourage implementation, and incorporating its provisions into its work with its own commercial suppliers.
The wheel on the left side has options to adjust actuation distance, rapid-trigger sensitivity, and RGB brightness. You can also adjust volume and media playback, and turn it into a scroll wheel. The LED matrix below it is designed to display adjustments to actuation distance but feels a bit awkward: Each 0.1 mm of adjustment fills its own bar, and it only uses the bottom nine bars, so the screen will roll over four times when adjusting (the top three bars, with dots next to them, illuminate to show how many times the screen has rolled over during the adjustment). The saving grace of this is that, when adjusting the actuation distance, you can press down any switch to see a visualization of how far you’re pressing it, then tweak the actuation distance to match.
Alongside all of this, the Falcata (and, by extension, the Falchion) now has an aftermarket switch option: TTC Gold magnetic switches. While this is still only two switches, it’s an improvement over the singular switch option of most Hall effect keyboards.
Split Apart
Photograph: Henri Robbins
The internal assembly of this keyboard is straightforward yet interesting. Instead of a standard tray mount, where the PCB and plate bolt directly into the bottom half of the shell, the Falcata is more comparable to a bottom-mount. The PCB screws into the plate from underneath, and the plate is screwed onto the bottom half of the case along the edges. While the difference between the two mounting methods is minimal, it does improve typing experience by eliminating the “dead zones” caused by a post in the middle of the keyboard, along with slightly isolating typing from the case (which creates fewer vibrations when typing).
The top and bottom halves can easily be split apart by removing the screws on the plate (no breakable plastic clips here!), but on the left half, four cables connect the top and bottom halves of the keyboard, all of which need to be disconnected before fully separating the two sections. Once this is done, the internal silicone sound-dampening can easily be removed. The foam dampening, however, was adhered strongly enough that removing it left chunks of foam stuck to the PCB, making it impossible to readhere without using new adhesive. This wasn’t a huge issue, since the foam could simply be placed into the keyboard, but it is still frustrating to see when most manufacturers have figured this out.
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