1:1 Technology Devices for All: A Timely Idea
2020, like in many other fields, was a really tough year for education. Once the pandemic recedes and things get back to normal, I think most of us will look back to 2020 as a year that we simply survived, despite the Herculean efforts of so many to convert brick and mortar schools into remote learning hubs. While all of us want the way we do school to return to the old way, it’s worth taking a moment to consider whether there are any lessons to be gleaned from the pandemic that will improve education in general. To me, one of the biggest lessons to be learned from 2020 is that it would be really worthwhile for the state to pursue a policy of getting a device that can be taken home into the hands of every 7-12 grade level student. In the educational world, a device for every student is called one-to-one (1:1) technology.
Throughout our state, districts had varying levels of success in converting their schools and trying to ensure education happened even when the building was removed. Philosophy and leadership played a role, but so did technological and internet access. Because of Google Classroom (which operates as a rudimentary learning management system), you were blessed if your school was a Google organization and cursed if it was a Microsoft organization. An even bigger element to success was student access to technological devices. Some districts for years have been operating or working towards a 1:1 device goal, and that made a huge difference in whether their students could access school remotely. Having devices became the most important component of student engagement during the pandemic, and right now, more ID students have devices than any other time in our history.
Based on the fact that we just rolled out devices to more students than we ever have before, and that we even used federal money to purchase many devices, it’s a perfect time to shoot for a goal of 1:1 devices for all secondary students throughout our state because even once this pandemic is over, it will increase student engagement. The cost of 13” Chromebooks in particular, weighed against the benefits for students, make this a worthwhile goal.
The Price Tag
Right now, the cost of a student-sized Chromebook is between around $160 to $250. This price is high; it used to be cheaper and probably will drop once the pandemic is over. Google apps (including Admin, which allows you to easily keep track of your Chromebooks) is free for schools. It would be prudent to put guardian software on these, and that usually costs around $5-10 per device per year. Since most of our districts have been missing textbooks for decades now, I propose to throw in a digital reader as well. Right now, a 7” Kindle Fire HD costs about $36 on Amazon. Add a cover, and we’re probably up to $50. So if we purchased a Chromebook and a 7” Fire for every student, at current prices, we’re probably talking $250 a student. Of course, the bigger the orders, the lower the prices.
The Benefits
I’ll start with the Fire here: many classic novels (the kind assigned in English courses) are free on Kindle, and most of the other novels required in high school are priced reasonably. (Example: The Great Gatsby, required in most 11th grade English courses, is $1.99 vs $16.99 for the hardcover version schools use.) I believe that we desperately need to bring textbooks back to our classrooms, but not necessarily the paper kind. It would be smart to use teams of college professors and secondary teachers to write our own digital textbooks if we couldn’t find good prices for digital ones. Either way, a Kindle Fire or another similar device is an economical way to bring back badly needed textbooks that can actually leave the classrooms. If you’ve ever owned a Kindle, another benefit is that they are well built and last for years. Also, when it comes to books, you download them to devices when you have internet connection so you have access to the books whether connected to the internet or not.
The biggest benefit of the Chromebook is that it puts so much of the classroom into the hands of students. If the school uses G Suite for Education, it’s tied to all the school calendars, the Drive (where student and teacher files live), all the teacher docs, etc. It can also link to all digitized textbook material, like textbook PDFs. It gives students a powerful tool to do schoolwork that provides them with free office products like Google Docs, Presentation, etc. It can both upload their worksheets and connect to any material they need to use to do their schoolwork. Important: this device, like the Fire, is actually even more valuable to schools and students at home than at school.
In short, the Chromebook is an excellent and compact tool at bringing home what is happening at school. A student-sized Chromebook and 7” Fire fit much better in school backpacks than a host of paper books and binders, which is one of the reasons 1:1 devices are already pushed in many districts. The biggest drawback is that a Chromebook needs the internet to work. Still, right now, the majority of students have internet service, and when you add public places like libraries and coffee shops, that goes up. Not to mention that the amount of people with internet access in general continues to rise.
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