The one to one computing issues has been around a while but until recently has not captured my full attention. Now it has.
I am realizing more and more that we must do as the great one says, “I skate to where the puck is going, everyone else skates to where it is.” Thanks to Governor King for resurrecting that gem. But it’s true. Although many see the value in a one to one initiative, few are convinced or determined enough to see this to fruition. However, you can add another state to the list. This means the idea is not as radical as it used to be. I’m more hopeful the students in my new division may be part of a new revolution.
After reading Mark Prensky’s Adapt and Adopt article, I sent it out to all our technology people and our superintendents and prefaced it with it as “my technology vision” I received some interesting comments. I’ll include them here without names just because I didn’t ask permission but want the ideas to be part of the dialogue.
Customization of every computer would create many, many more systems that simply stopped working and were no longer functional. Who would maintain these systems? IT resources (human resources) are extremely limited as it is, the costs for this model would be much higher than it currently is. The initial cost of a computer is very small when compared to the TCO (Total Cost of Ownership) over time. Here is a link to a case study of TCO at the Texas School District, http://classroomtco.cosn.org/texas.pdf. It is true that TCO will continue to decrease, but at this time one-to-one computing is still a VERY expensive model. MIT is currently developing a sub $100 notebook ($100 Laptop Initiative)
By definition, the kids would have notebook computers as opposed to desktops. Notebook computers as a shorter life span are VERY limited in capacity and are not readily upgradeable or expandable (i.e. if new, innovative technology comes out you may end up in a situation where none of the notebooks can take advantage of it. TCO of a Wi-Fi enabled notebook alone is pegged at 3 to 4 percent per year higher than non-enabled notebooks which equates to $197 - $325 annually (Gartner Group).
These are challenging issues. Can someone address these? I can’t. But I still think there’s a way. There is no doubt that cost is a huge stumbling block. But are we still able to provide students with the same education with a lab setup or even pods? What is reasonable access?
- Once a week?
- Once a day?
- Anytime?
Here’s another response to the Pensky article.
I agree that we need to do new things in new ways in education and technology is one force of change which should be used to its advantage. I’ve learned not to get too uptight about not knowing everything about working technology because the kids help me. What I try to do is get them to think about what they are doing. We have gotten kind of lazy about thinking and problem-solving independently. We are creating a non-thinking generation and a lot of that has to do with the power consumerism has in/over our lives. We are all considered items that can be bought and sold and the marketplace would have us believe our minds should be consumed by thinking about how we are going to “get” things or decorate our bodies. Unfortunately this takes up a lot of our time. And a lot of people like to be told what and how to think whether it is through media, religion or politics. We are seldom open to true debate or thought anymore. We are all supposed to be the same. This is something I think we need to address in education and if technology can do this that is great.
Some kids will be more engaged learning through technology; others are engaged by art or music or words or other people. Don’t you think? I know all children need to have access to technology and know how to use it to their benefit. I don’t think it is acceptable that some people of my generation don’t even try to enter the computer age, but I suppose as with everything, one has to have patience. My generation does seem to be becoming more computer literate.
There are a couple ideas here. One being the need to emphasis literacy in varying levels. If indeed students are developing literacy in an online environment, as educators, we are compelled to be involved in their understanding. The ideas mentioned here have little to do with technology but a great deal about learning in general.
One to one computing is simply about recognizing this is where so much of learning occurs. Like it or not, this is the world we live in. Tim Wilson mentioned in his podcast that he talked to a group of 6th graders and mentioned that 10 years ago when those students were still in diapers, the internet was brand new. Consider the changes in technology in the past 10 years. Now consider the changes that will occur in the next 10 years. Is your head spinning?
To paraphrase Governor King, “Michael Jordan didn’t become the greatest basketball player by going to the basketball lab for 45 minutes a week”.
I’m lucky. I have 4 computers in my classroom and a small lab of 12 new Dells next door. I have been for some time seriously considering hunting down the money I need for a classroom of laptops. I have seen the difference already that even this many machines makes and I also know the difference it made for me personally having my laptop on my desk. The quote from Gretzky is correct. I wrote yesterday about incremental vs. evolutionary change. We need to begin thinking as a community of bloggers about where we want to be.
Do I smell a summer conference in the wind?
Some interesting food for thought, Dean. I don’t think of this issue in terms of 1 to 1 student/computer ratios, but more in terms of an accessability issue. We need to provide students with access whenever they need it. The stockpiling of computer resources into computer ghettoes in the business education labs, libraries, etc. is definitely not going to get us to the goal of “anytime anywhere” computing. I don’t know if laptops for all students will either, because as soon as a student’s laptop has technical problems, that student has lost access to their resources. I think a pervasive thin client model would work best, so that everyone can access all their data from any terminal, but that is something that is certainly up for discussion.
It seems to me that part of the problem is that we are dealing with education as a clash of two ideals. We certainly accept fads – open classrooms w/o walls, “Social Studies” and the like. Some of these stick because they fit well and are assimilated into the other ideal of the “classic classroom” that is based in IR England and that has as much to do with enhancing learning as Sony knows about respect and DRM. I see in schools now that the open concept is being abandoned for more walls and more fixed desks because “the kids are out of control” and “they need order”. Of course this isn’t everywhere, but there are schools like that – heck even post-secondary is like that. But in a world without order, what are we doing trying to recreate history every time we teach – I agree with Prensky, we should go out on a limb every time, but that of course is not the IR way of doing things.
What has succeeded are ideas like Social Studies that find enough commonality to change some of the educational world while “still playing the game”.
If we want to move toward ubiquity in computing, we need to find a way to play the game so that what happens is palatable to culture that still pervades majority of the school system. Simulations are certainly a start, but they are about as far as we can go without rocking the boat.
To go beyond things that “look like better teaching” we need to change the way that we think about learning in schools – from gathering and storing information to managing it.
I am fortunate enough to work in a middle school in the state of Maine that has been part of the 1:1 program Angus King discussed in David Warlick’s podcast, Connect Learning. He is a tremendous speaker and visionary.
I’d like to comment to the assertions you placed from people in your district about the idea of going 1:1. In Maine, we have a single image that is provided for all of the laptops with a standard configuration. Each district has the option of customizing that image. It does create more work for the IT department. But isn’t that what we’re here for? My school has approximately 400 students and 35 teachers with laptops. We take care of all of these machines with one full-time technician and I support the teachers as an integration specialist.
The MIT $100 laptop project may provide some lower cost options for schools in the US that wish to implement similar programs. The one thing to keep in mind with the MIT project is that the only way to get the cost that low is to have a minimum purchase of 1 million laptops. These laptops have minimal functionality in comparison to the iBooks we use in Maine or any other laptop initiative out there. The Wayne Gretzky quote ought to give your IT guys some idea of where we are headed. If we are looking to the future, we will not be working on desktop computers. Mobile is the only way to go.
The main thing you must keep in mind about 1:1, that Angus King really understands and presents well, is the importance of keeping the focus of these iniatives about student learning. It really isn’t about the technology. Keep in mind what you wish students to be able to do with a “digital device” and you’ll be headed in the correct direction.
Thanks Michael for your input and perspective.
Here’s another perspective from our IT dept….
If we were to project the costs associated with this project, we would come out with the following:
Given:
435 laptops per technician
1:1 ration of notebooks to students
~ $37,500 per technician per year
~ 9,200 student/staff in our division
Therefore:
9,200 (student/staff) / 435 (notebooks per technician) = 21.15 (technicians required for this support model)
21 technicians X $37,500 per year = $787,500 per year in technician costs
This does NOT include:
initial capital cost for the notebooks
notebook replacement costs (i.e. do these units get replaced every 3 years… 4 years??)
travel time/costs (we are not in a single school in Maine)
office space for the technicians (one could argue that the techs could be housed in the schools)
technician PD
management overhead
employee benefits
annual software license costs
any hardware maintenance
Also:
I don’t think our students/staff would be happy about a limited set of software tools?
is it Mr. Arsenault’s full-time job to support IT in this school? If so, we would also need to add in the cost to employee a professional in this capacity for every 435
student/staff (~ $1,000,000 +/year)
I’m not sure the public would support the mil rate increase required for such a project. As far as our IT Department is concerned, we would have no problem supporting this model given adequate resources. Interesting thoughts though.