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So with schools looking to be online and worth my work also still being remote, I'm looking into buying a computer. Now, we have various computers, a couple cheap laptops and an array of tablets. But it's been a while since I looked at a desktop computer. I've been looking closely at an IMac, but not married to it. 

Thoughts, experiences, tips?

I don't disagree, and if it was just for me a Mac wouldn't be my preference. But it is also something I want the kids to be able to use with minimal hassles and be able to use some of the tools like the movie editing. While Windows has supposedly made some moves that way based on what I've read it's still substandard. My dad has a mac and I've noticed it's a lot easier for them to use that stuff compared to others.

I think Apple is overpriced for what you get. And a lot of their design elements make more sense in a thin & light laptop than a desktop.

Truth is that for most daily PC users, the computing power has grown FAR beyond what most of us "need". Granted, movie editing is one of those applications that takes a lot of resources. But if you're talking about once a month they're stitching together 2-3 minute videos from their phone, that's not exactly "movie editing". 

Two keys:

• Get something that is SSD-based. For a desktop it's okay if you have a moderate-sized SSD for doing work and a larger HDD for bulk storage/archive, but you NEED to boot from an SSD. Booting from an HDD makes a very slow mechanical device the bottleneck in your system; an SSD is no longer the bottleneck.
• Get more DRAM than you think you need. Much like SSD, this is one of the areas where paying a little more up front is worth it.

But beyond that, you don't need anything fancy unless you're a hardcore gamer, or if you're doing really intensive work that requires a lot of computing resources. For most of us, the computer is 98% browser-based and office applications at this point. Those don't take a lot of horsepower. 

I think Apple is overpriced for what you get. And a lot of their design elements make more sense in a thin & light laptop than a desktop.

Truth is that for most daily PC users, the computing power has grown FAR beyond what most of us "need". Granted, movie editing is one of those applications that takes a lot of resources. But if you're talking about once a month they're stitching together 2-3 minute videos from their phone, that's not exactly "movie editing".

Two keys:

• Get something that is SSD-based. For a desktop it's okay if you have a moderate-sized SSD for doing work and a larger HDD for bulk storage/archive, but you NEED to boot from an SSD. Booting from an HDD makes a very slow mechanical device the bottleneck in your system; an SSD is no longer the bottleneck.
• Get more DRAM than you think you need. Much like SSD, this is one of the areas where paying a little more up front is worth it.

But beyond that, you don't need anything fancy unless you're a hardcore gamer, or if you're doing really intensive work that requires a lot of computing resources. For most of us, the computer is 98% browser-based and office applications at this point. Those don't take a lot of horsepower.

What would you consider a good size for SSD and DRAM?

Re: video editing I'm not envisioning them making Jurassic Park but I do think being able to make videos is a direction schools (and eventually jobs) will be going so it seems like something they should be familiar with.

What would you consider a good size for SSD and DRAM?

I doubt you need anything more than a 500GB SSD. It should be an NVMe SSD though, not SATA. For any modern PC, it should support NVMe and the cost adder for the SSD is minimal for a large improvement in performance.

If you think you need more than 500GB storage, that's mostly going to be for large archival things which you can buy a multi-TB HDD pretty inexpensively to add later.

For DRAM, no less than 8GB under any circumstances. 16GB would be nice, but not if it comes at a huge premium. If you do only get 8GB, though, I would make sure that you can add another 8GB down the road IF you find that it's too little for you. 

I put my home office emphasis on a quality dual monitor stand and tidy cord management.  The Dell laptop works great for all of my office related needs.

Docking station for the surface is really handy.