1. Will these be school or family owned? =20
If family owned, you cannot legally install software purchased for the =
school (e.g. site licenses, lab packs, etc.). This means you either =
need to do everything in the cloud and/or use Open Source, or deal with =
having families buy and install software
If school owned, do you want to deal with taking "orders" for a dozen or =
more different models / brands?
2. Imaging - Will the school be doing any imaging of laptops? If so, =
you will have to create an image for each brand with a given =
configuration. Do you have the time and tech support for this?
3. Do you have the tech support (time and expertise) to support =
multiple models, platforms, brands? Even if they are family owned, and =
you are asking families to do the majority of the support, you still =
have the day to day issues you have to deal with.
4. Teacher training / support - Teachers need to feel comfortable =
enough to truly integrate the use of laptops into their classroom. This =
requires ongoing training as well as daily support. If you have =
students in the classroom with computers that are all different, this =
might slow down this integration process.
Although, almost every school I talked to or worked at has a single =
platform and single brand, I do know that the Harker School in San Jose, =
CA allows students to select Mac or PC. They might be a good school to =
ask about how well this works for them.
Renee Ramig
Seven Hills School
-----Original Message-----
From: A forum for independent school educators on behalf of Christina =
Devitt
Sent: Fri 10/9/2009 11:53 PM
To: ISED-L@LISTSERV.SYR.EDU
Subject: Approaches to 1:1
=20
Dear ISED folks,
I am writing from Jakarta International School where I am the new =
Director
of Technology this year. Here at JIS we are the process of developing a
plan for 1:1 implementation in our Middle and High Schools over the next =
two
years. One of the biggest questions we are grappling with right now is
whether to go with an approach where all students buy the same machine =
(or
perhaps at most 2 different kinds, one being Mac and one Windows to =
defuse
platform wars) in order to provide some consistency and equity in the
classroom, or whether to allow "open-choice with minimal software
expectations," meaning students can bring pretty much whatever they want =
as
long as it can perform certain functions we define. The latter approach =
is
definitely more appealing to folks with strong platform/brand/model
preferences and to those who have already purchased mobile computing
devices. The move of more and more applications to the cloud gives =
further
weight to the "open choice" approach, but unfortunately, our access to =
the
cloud is much more limited than in developed countries.
I realize there is no one-size-fits-all approach to 1:1 and that each =
school
is different, but I'd value insight from members of this group as we =
wrestle
with this decision. I'm especially interested to know if any of you
currently have an "open choice" 1:1 model. Hope to hear from some of =
you.
Best,
Christina Devitt
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