We are a 1:1 tablet school. Our students own the tablets but they are
purchased through the school. As a tablet school we do not worry about
"platform wars" since Microsoft is the currently the only widely
accepted tablet OS. There are few tablet options available in retail
stores so our parents do not have issues with our tablet selection.
We operate in a semi-cloud environment by streaming our applications and
eBooks to the tablet computers. This allows us to provide more
applications (Adobe CS3, Accounting etc...) while maintaining license
compliance. Many of our school board and tech committee members are
business owners and use MS Office applications in their businesses and
recommended the same for our students so we do not use open source or
Google apps. If you are looking to hold down cost I would recommend
Google apps.
I do not recommend allowing students to provide their own computer
unless you have plenty of loaner computers available. Local computer
service centers will not provide loaners for free and your students will
need a computer while the computer is out. As a Lenovo and Fujitsu self
maintainer we can track the repair process and make sure the machine is
getting repaired and not sitting at home while the student uses a school
loaner.
Good Luck with your 1:1 program!
Thank you,
Jason Hyams
Director of Technology
St. Agnes Academy
-----Original Message-----
From: A forum for independent school educators
[mailto:ISED-L@LISTSERV.SYR.EDU] On Behalf Of Christina Devitt
Sent: Saturday, October 10, 2009 1:54 AM
To: ISED-L@LISTSERV.SYR.EDU
Subject: Approaches to 1:1
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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