One-to-One is a Go!!!

[Denise]

Hi friends and colleagues,

Trinity Prep's one-to-one task force after months of consideration, research, surveys, and visits to several schools made the recommendation to the Administration and Board of Trustees that moving to a One-to-One is absolutely the right next step for our academically rigorous, college preparatory school.

Our recommendations were approved by our Board in May 2010.  This year (2010-2011) we are focused on implementation planning.  A key task will be to choose the model program that fits best for our school.

There has been LOTS of talk about a "bring your own" model.  I was wondering whether you have an first or second hand knowledge of an outstanding school who has done an outstanding job implementing and supporting a "bring you own" model program in its school? We have already spoken and Skyped with The Harker School about their program.  

We want to visit at least two of these schools to learn what the model looks like after it is fully implemented. 

Another key question is whether a "netbook" can really meet the needs of a 1-to-1 initiative in the classroom? 

I have attached a copy of the schools Recommendations and Timeline for those of you who too are working through this big decision.

Any direction or suggestions you could offer would be greatly appreciated. 

[Demetri Orlando]

Hi Denise,
Glad to hear that you have a well thought out plan for moving forward with a one-to-one initiative. I think that Jim Heynderickx, the IT Director at the American School in London, has knowledge about the bring your own model, and I think his former school - Oregon Episcopal School followed this model. I'm also interested in it. Regarding the question about netbooks, have you first identified a core set of applications that you would expect all students' computers to be capable of? (e.g. word processing, spreadsheets, presentation, video editing, etc.) The nice thing is that a lot of these are available online, so in that scenario, as long as your computer can go online you have access to those applications. Some other big questions are what type of course management system you may use (e.g. Moodle, Blackboard, Google Sites, etc.), what collaboration suite you'll use (Gmail, Exchange, FirstClass, etc.), will you provide any back-up capability, hot-spot printing, file-sharing space, etc.
Good luck and keep us posted!

[Denise]

Demetri,

Thanks for the response. I know Jim and will reach out to him. We are in the early stages of implementation planning and will begin with several faculty focus groups to learn precisely the information you have asked.

Our faculty use Tablets, we have for the last 4 years, our mobile carts have tablets too. The implementation team is not convinced that the "tablets" are actually being utilized by faculty with students with an emphasis on pen interaction. Our faculty absolutely love them for teaching and would never want to give them up. They are so useful in the classroom, but the jury is still out on whether they have adapted to them with students. We are authentically evaluating whether continuing with a pen-based format for our 1-to-1 is a necessary expense to our families.

This year, we deployed GoogleApps, including Gmail for all of our students and faculty. We have 20 faculty who opted to use Gmail instead of Exchange this year, next year, employees will not have a choice. So far, we are hearing good reports back from our faculty innovators (and students) on its usefulness for collaboration. The jury is still out on whether it will be "widely" adapted as a replacement for Office. Their is a mindset about "bells and whistles" that has to change for this to take hold and I suspect it will take another couple of years for our faculty (students get it quickly) to adapt to the new platform as a viable alternative to the Office suite. Students are really beginning to get the message that GoogleApps is their new "digital locker" and that all of their electronic schoolwork should be stored there. We are giving them VERY limited space on our own servers this year.


I look forward to hearing from others, traveling along the same path....