One to One Initiative

What is a reasonable expectation for initiating a one-to-one program at your school? First, is it possible and if no then why? Second, what device would work best for your school, and if you answered no to the previous, what device do YOU think would be ideal for your school? Is BYOT an option? Third, what kind of feedback would you expect from teachers? Last, how would YOU best use one-to-one devices in your classroom?

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ISTE Wiki One to One

Launching an iPad 1-to-1 Program

Is BYOT Just a Bridge to 1-to-1?

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Permalink Reply by Rachel Bloemer on February 17, 2013 at 7:31pm

Hi Kristin

The students in my district are in the same boat as yours, they hardly ever come to school with supplies and have trouble getting food at home I can't ever imagine my school requiring students to have a device. That is awesome that you have iPads you can use in your classroom so that your students are exposed to this technology because it sounds like they don't get much exposure to it outside of school. You make a great point though about how difficult it is to keep up with technology and staying up to date because it changes so quickly! Hopefully you will get your classroom iPad set before the iPads are old news!

Permalink Reply by Robin McCarter on February 17, 2013 at 10:25pm

I agree money is the biggest issue. I think if there were a lot of planning and work a one-to-one could happen though, even in poorer districts. There are many federal grant opportunities as well as grants from private organizations. It may take a long time to raise funds but it would be worth it in the long run. Another possible funding avenue could be the use of digital textbooks. Schools could possibly offset some of the expense of iPad purchases by transitioning to digital texts instead of purchasing new traditional texts. Digital textbooks can be kept up to date better and can be accessed on the iPad. Students would only need the iPad instead of a stack of books. I have seen school districts that say they cannot afford new text books or supplies for students, yet they are getting funds to install flat screen TVs and other "luxuries" around the school. I believe if budgeting and priorities are reevaluated, a technology initiative can be started in any school district.

Permalink Reply by Andrea Bonacasa on February 13, 2013 at 8:37pm

I love the idea of a one-to-one classroom. I believe that schools will eventually get to this type of program but it will take some time and convincing the right people that this could be a very useful tool in the classroom. Students can work at their own pace and make it easier for parents and teachers to see what the children are working on and how they are doing. I believe that a one-to-one program could be possible. I can see something like this happening in my school, but not right away. This would take a lot of money that the school district and the families in the district really do not have. I am trying to write a grant to get a class set of iPads, but there are no guarantees. Even if I am able to obtain iPads there is also the potential of some of them breaking or being misplaced by students. Like many of the others, I also think iPads would be a great tool for this idea. Most students know how to navigate them and if they do not, it is easy to learn. If I had the option of using this program in my classroom I would jump at the chance. I really try to differentiate my instruction to reach all the different leveled learners in my classroom and believe this could be a great way to do that. There are endless amounts of games and learning programs that can be uploaded for the students to use. I would also use them during instructional time and for the students to keep notes. I would love a world without binders. I always have student misplacing their notes or lousing homework because their binder broke. It would be great to store all of these things in one place. I believe that most of the teachers in my building would love this tool and would be willing to work together and collaborate in building a one-to-one program for our school. On the other hand there are some teachers that do not like change and would probably not want to partake in something like this, but the majority would.

Andrea

Permalink Reply by Janine Conley on February 19, 2013 at 2:39pm

Hi Andrea... I never thought of a world without binders... sounds amazing! I teach 7th grade science, and organizing their lockers, binders, etc. is never ending. I think the use of iPads or other devices in class would help them organize their classes and assignments. I would take advantage of having students submit their assignments electronically! I too see the one-to-one initiative eventually happening within the next five to seven years in my school. I know there are teachers that would not be open to this idea, and there would definitely need to be some kind of training for teachers to operate the devices the students would be using. Many teachers are "stuck in their ways" and I know it would be difficult to get everyone on board!

Permalink Reply by Diana North on February 22, 2013 at 6:28pm

Yes...a world without binders would be nice - but very challenging.

Permalink Reply by Brian Gillespie on February 13, 2013 at 9:20pm

As someone looking from the outside, I don't think this is even an option. This is a necessity. I don't see BYOT as a long term solution. It's going to exclude lower income students. Often they are the students most in need of technology in the classroom because they don't have it at home. I think the best use is to make a laptop or tablet (preferably a tablet, for cost and control reasons) the all-encompassing portable education center for each student. Your tablet isn't a tool for your education, it IS your education.

The concept is outstanding. There are a lot of cost features that people don't take into consideration that would help push the argument. Speaking from my outside perspective, I find that schools are often too close to our government: too many people have been around too long and refuse to change. Quite frankly, many of the concerns that are raised are based in myth more than fact. According to the US Department of Education, California estimated that the average high school textbook costs $100 ("Open textbooks in"). Apple offers electronic versions for less than $15 ("Apple's e-textbooks cost," 2012). Everyone likes to talk iPads, but there are a ton of open source tablets out there for $200-$300. iPads are hip, but they aren't really the best priced option. I know in high school I was lugging around 4 or 5 textbooks a year. Even if a few tablets go missing, if assignments are there too, the money saved on books and copies alone would be more than worth it.
How about this? When a student starts in the school, instead of giving them textbooks, the school should GIVE them a tablet. Why a tablet? Apps are cheaper than standard software, they're more portable, they're significantly less expensive, and they're more intuitive. Think about it. What happens when a kid loses or destroys a textbook? When I was in school, the parents got a bill for it. Why charge a parent for an old book that's lost and out-of-date? Give the kid a tablet that follows them through their career. If it gets lost or broken, send them the bill. You'll probably get the same level of recovery that you got on books when I was a kid. Kid takes care of tablet, tablet is free. Kid loses or breaks tablet, parents buy tablet. Even better, offer upgrade options every few years and recycle the older ones down to the younger kids.

As for controlling access, that's much simpler than it seems. There are plenty of apps out there that are designed for parental control. All it would take is one IT specialist to configure it and the kids are locked out of anything other than what's allowed. And if they lose it, tracking apps are all over the place now. If my Samsung Galaxy goes missing, I go online and a GPS tracker app locates it for me. And locks it down so it's useless to anyone who finds it. (I like to imagine that it's like Mission Impossible. "This Samsung product will self destruct in 5 seconds.")

Speaking from a business perspective, I've been driving this same initiative for training. Give me tablets and let me get rid of my training guidebook. As a few people have mentioned, it would make grading assignments easier, too.

I just don't see how you lose on this one. I have a student in class now and he struggles tremendously with the technology. It's unfortunate, but it will eventually cost him his job. We can't send kids out there without this experience. When I was growing up, it was college, college, college. Get that college education and you'll be more successful and make more money and be just generally more awesome. Now, it's technology. Your education is important, but if you can navigate the groundbreaking technology and problem solve and innovate, you're priceless.

References

Apple's e-textbooks cost $14.99 or less, major publishers already on board. (2012, January 19). Retrieved from http://appleinsider.com/articles/12/01/19/apples_e_textbooks_cost_1...

Open textbooks in california. (n.d.). Retrieved from http://www.ed.gov/technology/netp-2010/open-textbooks-california

Permalink Reply by Andrea Bonacasa on February 14, 2013 at 7:34pm

I agree with you Brian about sending students out into the world without being prepared. It is our jobs to not only teach our students content, but to teach them skills that will help them to be successful in life. It is almost a guarantee that the students that are in our classes today are going to have future jobs that are going to have some sort of technology that they must use and be familiar with. I cannot imagine what an interviewer today would say if the person they were interviewing did not have experience with computers or technology. As teachers, we need to expose our students to the latest pieces of technology as much as possible in order to help them be a member of society later on in their lives.

Permalink Reply by Brian Gillespie on February 14, 2013 at 8:18pm

A lot of employers are starting to go beyond asking questions about technology skills. They are creating skills assessments. When you go for the interview, you have to complete some sort of task. If you can't, you don't get any further in the interview.
We actually tell applicants that they have to come prepared to teach us something. The last two people who got jobs taught us how to ballroom dance and how to adjust a spine. (One was a chiropractor.) If you just stand up there and give a presentation, I'm not going to recommend hiring. Teach me a skill and you're almost there.

I've proposed giving people a laptop and a variety of tools and saying, "pick a topic to teach. You have 1 hour." Some of my interviewing colleagues think I'm crazy, but I took a class that did just that. We sat down and they said, "here are some supplies. You have an hour. BTW, it's also your lunch. Learn to multitask." It was intense, but you learned really fast which people had it and which didn't.

Permalink Reply by Brooks Twilley on February 15, 2013 at 8:05pm

I think your idea of holding students and their families responsible for the longevity of a device is novel. The unfortunate reality is that schools like mine, which are the focus of gap closing endeavors like technology blanketing, often times have students/families who do not appreciate anything that is given them. Many can't be bothered to remember a pencil. How can we expect them to remember to charge their device, or not to sell it. We have holds on records for library books and such, and it doesn't phase some families.

Permalink Reply by Brian Gillespie on February 15, 2013 at 8:45pm

I understand that concern, but I think we often worry too much about the negative minority in these situations. The majority of people go about their day and appreciate what they have. Unfortunately, it's the loud minority that draw attention.

You don't know until you try. And when it comes to cost, I really don't see the difference between giving someone a tablet with 5 e-books versus giving them 5 textbooks. We focus far too much on the commercial successes like Apple iPad and Samsung Galaxy products. There are a lot of tablet options that are significantly cheaper than the societal standards. Some would recover cost by replacing two textbooks. When you get down to those products, they are a lot cheaper than textbooks.

As for charging, you can easily order an extra set of chargers and keep them in the classroom. It wouldn't take much to mount a charging station to a desk. The science labs I taught in, and most science labs I sat in during middle school and high school had plugs. (In fact, I remember one kid accidentally sticking a set of tweezers in an outlet during a dissection in biology.) And for the little ones, you could have a single cutoff switch that the teacher can turn on and off for safety.

Permalink Reply by Brooks Twilley on February 15, 2013 at 8:09pm

To your point regarding tablets and the relative costs of apps, I think we are seeing a convergence of all devices towards mobility and web based sollutions. Apple's Mac OS is looking and behaving more like its iOS, and with the emergence of Google's Chrome, Web 2.0 - web based computing is another powerful option for classroom technology. I am field testing a Google Chrome Book from Samsung ($249 retail) that basically is a dumb access terminal for Google Web Apps. Now that Google Drive supports offline content creation, it will be interesting to see how the device wars shake out, at least in the K-12 arena.

Permalink Reply by Diane O'Connor on February 18, 2013 at 7:01am

I agree with your statement that one-to-one is a necessity. On the cost, though, I know that in my district, textbooks are purchased maybe once every five years, If then. So if they are getting funding for new textbooks every year, the money is either not a lot, or being utilized for other things. Depending on what those things are, you can see why they would be unwilling to acknowledge the savings.