PCs vs Macs in 1:1 programs

Pitched the 1:1 to administration on Tuesday. Went well (Hooray). I detected “device obsession” in the air. “We can’t tell students they can’t have their Macs!” Two things I've learned from research: 1) Pick the device (nearly) last and 2) the device is NOT the focus.

Is there any research I can share on this before it gets out of hand? We are a PC environment and allow private laptops on campus (including Macs, which we are not set up to handle in a deep and meaningful way). I tried explaining that we need to communicate early on that we are going in this direction and should encourage parents to be patient while we prepare and choose the school device. I believe that making this decision will A) eventually take the guesswork out of it for parents and B) give them the choice of providing a second device at home that’s IF they really want to go in that direction.

Tags: 1:1, laptops, mac, pc

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Permalink Reply by Cat White on March 31, 2011 at 11:20am

Christopher suggested "device agnostic" but is in a Mac 1:1 environment.

How about the rest of you? PC? Mac? BYOT (Bring Your Own Tech)?

Are you one platform or open to all devices? How is that working?

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Permalink Reply by Christopher Casal on March 31, 2011 at 12:03pm

My apologies if I mislead, we are not a specific 1:1 school. We are an elementary school of 800. Every student has access to a system of some kind (mostly Mac, but a fair number of Windows systems too, all with access to a file server with individual student accounts) and work, especially in the upper grades is, in large part, done digitally.

When we plan instruction we plan without platform in mind. As I mentioned Google Apps, Blogspot, and Wikispaces are the main platforms we use to allow for access for all even if there aren't 800 systems in the building. We plan with school, home, library, etc in mind. As we scale up, as we are doing, we want to have a system in place so when we get to "1:1" it's not a big deal to make the "transition"