I visited Moorseville Graded School District and Richland School District 2 this spring. The purpose of both visits was to visit schools and view 1:1 programs in action. As an ed tech enthusiast the idea of providing every student with a device is an incredibly exciting prospect and I was green with envy as I peeked into classrooms and watched the teaching and learning taking place. The two districts I visited were not identical. They had different demographics and deployed different devices (Moorseville provides students with MacBooks and Richland 2 provides students with Chromebooks at the schools visited). Regardless of the differences Moorseville and Richland 2 did have some essentials in common that may point to the success these districts have experienced with their 1:1 initiatives that are perhaps missing in criticized attempts such as the recent iPad rollout in California and alluded to in Alan November's blog post, Why schools must move beyond one-to-one computing.Essentials:
- Planning & preparation (committees with membership representative of all stakeholders, efforts to build community support, a multi-year rollout)
- Procedures & guidelines that undergo annual revision (responsible/acceptable use policy, annual insurance premium/usage fee and agreement, procedures for repair and theft, digital citizenship implementation plan, guidelines for modifying assignments for students without a device)
- Infrastructure (wireless and bandwidth to exceed the predicted number of devices, site based instructional technology coaches, site based tech support, ongoing PD, a standard learning management system, Google Apps for Education)
- A firm belief that technology is a tool for teaching and learning as well as an understanding that there are times when paper and pencil may be best.
Interesting tidbits:
- Damage rates vary more by the school level and/or device NOT by whether or not students are allowed to take devices home.
- Middle schools have the highest damage rate.
What this means for school libraries in Mooresville & Richland 2:
Media specialists are not the tech people in either district. They are responsible for reading promotion and collaborating with teachers to provide information literacy skills related instruction. The school libraries function as a learning commons and are arranged to allow whole class instruction, small group instruction, and individual exploration. The school library collections are a mix of print books and ebooks.
