by jasonmarkey | Dec 5, 2012 | Guest Bloggers, Learning and Teaching, Tech Integration |
This is the fifth and final post in the guest blog series on 1:1 at Leyden High Schools.
By Jason Markey, East Leyden High School Principal
The student perspectives below are from Justyna Chojnowski, Amina Patel, and Joaquin Cardenas at East Leyden High School.
For a greater perspective on our 1:1 initiative please see our past four guest posts:
When Scott McLeod and I first discussed this series, the first four posts seemed obvious. It wasn’t until after the second post that Scott suggested it would be good to hear directly from students. For anyone that knows me, I usually think this way as well, but I know with the topic of 1:1 computing there are some pretty intense feelings among educators. We all want to see transformational practices every time the device is powered up during school hours. I think it’s important to consider – and I think what the following student perspectives demonstrate, – we have to realize that no matter the level of tech saturation in their lives outside of school, that this introduction of ever-present connectedness during school is something very different for students too. So my approach with the following students was to ask them to simply share what some positives and negatives were with their first few months of this newfound access to the Web. Here are their unabridged responses…
Joaquin Cardenas (Junior)
When I found out last year we were going to get chromebooks I didn’t think there was going to be much of a difference in my typical school day. That my classroom atmosphere wasn’t going to change much. That is only partly true so far in the time I have spent with my chromebook. There have been many positive changes with getting a chromebook, but whenever something changes, there tends to be some negatives as well.
Now that we all have chromebooks, I think I have seen more responsibility among the students. Rarely, does someone forget to bring their chromebook to class. It has taught me how to become more responsible and take care of something that is worth more than your pen and pencil. To me, the major and most helpful difference in having a chromebook is Google Docs. The ability to be able to write, save, and share a document all online is remarkable. You can’t lose what you have written because your document is automatically saved. It is easier for teachers to help you with your writing because now they can directly comment on your paper. You can collaborate more with your peers when you share a document with them and can work on it at the same time. It can also benefit teachers because there isn’t the excuse anymore of that “I didn’t print it”, or “my computer wasn’t working”. Teachers can now see exactly what the student did to the document and at what time they made any changes. Because of the addition of the chromebooks, teachers can place everything online, like the agenda, calendar, homework, etc. If a student is absent he can check online to see what he missed. Having chromebooks opens up the classroom to many resources that are online to get a better understanding of what you are learning. With all the good things that come with having chromebooks there are also some negatives.
As I said before, you have to become more responsible when you receive the chromebook, not just by taking care of it but by what you do with it. During class you may be able to get distracted by browsing the web. Also you can’t use the chromebook for certain classes like math because there aren’t many uses for it. The chromebook come with some distractions but it is worth it for the type of learning atmosphere that the student receives to prepare him for the future.
Photo by Adrianne Nix - Art teacher at East Leyden High School
Justyna Chojnowski (Senior)
Upon hearing that we would be getting Chromebooks that would be ours, most of the student body at Leyden was beyond excited. The teachers, on the other hand, not so much. I, personally, have never been much of a computer person and would rather write out my own papers and not rely on a piece of technology that could break or not connect to the Internet. However, over the last couple of years, the Internet and I have become extremely close friends, especially when I needed help with Physics homework. Because of this, I was also very excited to receive the Chromebooks. The prospect of obtaining a Chromebook was very appealing, seeing as we would have access to an unlimited supply of information from all over the world except, of course, the sites that were restricted. This would not only help us further our knowledge, it would also enable us to collaborate with people from all around the world. I think, this reason was one of the major reasons that made getting Chromebooks so exciting.
Nevertheless, we faced, and still sometimes face, a major obstacle: incorporating the Chromebooks into the classroom. This has been a struggle from the beginning. The Chromebooks possess such great power that some teachers are overwhelmed and do not know how to use the Chromebooks to their advantage. Furthermore, sometimes it is impossible to incorporate the Chromebooks into a classroom, for example my Calculus AP class. Sure, we have Math XL, an online program for homework problems, but writing out equations and symbols on the Chromebook takes way longer than writing them out on paper. Or the Chromebook decides that it doesn’t want to work properly, such as when OpenClass does not want to “open.” I understand the incorporation of Chromebooks into the classroom is a work in progress, but it can be stressful on both the teacher and the students when something is not going the way it is supposed to. Teachers not only have to change how they teach, they also have to make sure that students are on task and not roaming the Internet. Sometimes the Chromebook is a major distractor and functions the reverse role of distracting instead of helping the students.
Although the Chromebook possesses some disadvantages, it in turn has a lot of advantages that can be utilized by students and teachers. One of the best things about the Chromebooks is being able to share and simultaneously collaborate, revise, and work on the same document. This allows students to complete an assignment or project without having to meet up outside of school. With busy schedules and a lot of other schoolwork, this feature ensures that students turn in their assignments, especially group projects, for they cannot use the excuse of “I wasn’t able to meet up with my group.” Sharing documents is also favorable to teachers. Teachers can view what a student is doing as they do it and are also able to access who is doing what on each document, thus in turn giving each student the grade they deserve based on the amount of work they completed. In addition, the Chromebooks are light and portable, and, in some cases, replace the back-breaking weight of carrying a stack of books. As I mentioned before, the Chromebooks offer students and teachers access to a huge supply of readily available information. This is turn can be utilized, propelling students and teachers alike into the future of technology. With a head start, students will know how to work different programs on their computers, use the Internet to obtain extra information, and eventually leave an amazing digital footprint that others will be able to view.
We, here at Leyden, have begun the process of leaving a digital footprint. Administrators, as well as teachers, are promoting the use of the Chromebooks in a positive manner, such as starting the Twitter hashtag #leydenpride. Many of our students have participated in using this hashtag. Search #leydenpride on Twitter and the results will portray students talking about our school in a positive manner as well as many different activities going on at our school and in our community. I believe, that the Chromebooks have presented students here at Leyden with many opportunities, and will continue to do so even more effectively once all the kinks are worked out.
Design by the East Leyden Graphic Design class.
Amina Patel (Junior)
Google Chromebook, if you mentioned these two words to me last year I would have stared at you in confusion, but now it has changed my way of thinking. It all started back in January when I was doing a service event for a club, I had to give my opinion on what I thought of these chromebooks and how other teachers can learn, it was some sort of edcamp. I honestly had no idea what I was going to say, but being me I winged it and gave it my best shot. After talking to other teachers from our school I realized that Leyden is a very privileged school, being able to have 1:1 for each and every single student is phenomenal. Having the chromebook has changed my experience here at Leyden in a postive way.
Being a junior here at Leyden has given me two years without the Google Chromebooks. I have been in the place of using simple pencil and paper in every class, I have had a basis of comparison between the classroom environments. I can honestly say the use of the Chromebooks have made my job as a student easier. The hassle of printing, the worry of late assignments, and most importantly the ease of communication with my teachers. In particular I am in an AP English class, the teacher (Mr. Narter) had us watch the political debates, and apply the things we are learning in class to the significance it has in the debate. Well, the problem was that the debate is after school hours, and instead of having the inconvenience of writing an analysis, he send us a link to a website called Today’s Meet. This website lets you log on to a specific group and have a group conversation, this made watching the debate more entertaining because you essentially had your fellow classmates right there. And trust me we had heavy debates going on. But thinking about the difficulty of this tasks without the chromebooks, made it somewhat impossible. The ease of the chromebooks with the students doesn’t go quite well with the teachers.
We live in the age of technology, with such easy access to internet the world is at our fingertips. With the chromebooks learning has becoming easier but in the case of the teachers, teaching has become harder. To implement learning online is a difficult task especially for teachers who have been doing it for years. In my opinion teachers aren’t using the chromebooks to the full extent, there has been quite a gap in the adjustments between paper and digital.
Twitter, many people know what this is and many people do not, simply put, it is a social networking website. I started using Twitter because being a teenager and using social media went hand in hand. At first it was just place to post tweets aimlessly, but has we all received chromebooks it started gaining popularity here at Leyden. Sooner than I thought the hashtag #leydenpride had started trending within our school. Students, including myself, would use it to tweet about amplifying school spirit, and other activities we were taking apart of at school. It has gotten so popular that even our own teachers and administrators were using it. Yes, my principal (Mr. Markey) is a huge twitter fan and was using the hashtag all over the place. Because the hashtag had such great popularity I had an idea, my entrepreneurship class was creating new leyden wear. Why not put #leydenpride on it? So, I got the class to agree and we sold wristbands, and t-shirts with the hashtag #leydenpride. It helped encourage students to not only have pride in their school but pride in themselves and their own self-achievements.
T-shirt design by Amina Patel
I would like to thank our three student contributors to this post for their candor and willingness to write some “extra’ this week. Also, I would like thank Scott McLeod for the work he continues to do to support and promote this type of integration of technology in our education system. We all may have a different vision of where education is headed, but I hope we all understand that the Web is going to be vital part of our world moving forward. Since we never deprived our students of the printed word for the past several centuries, I hope the same holds true regarding the Web.
—–
Note from Scott
Leave the students a comment or question. I bet you’ll hear back!
I greatly appreciate the willingness of Jason and the other Leyden staff and students to contribute to this guest series on Chromebooks in schools. Chromebooks are a new approach to 1:1 computing for most educators. It’s wonderful to have an opportunity to hear lessons learned from a school district that is ahead of the curve on this front. Thanks, Leyden!
If you’re doing something interesting with technology in your school that you think might be of interest to school leaders, I’d love to hear from you. There are many educators and school organizations doing incredible work out there. I try to use my guest posts to publicly honor and share some of that work. Read over my guest blogging guidelines and drop me a note!
by jasonmarkey | Nov 5, 2012 | Guest Bloggers, Leadership and Vision, Learning and Teaching, Planning and Funding, Tech Integration |
Part 4 of a 5-part series on 1:1 with Chromebooks at Leyden High Schools. This post was written collaboratively by the four teachers who work with the Tech Support Internship program: Jason Cartwright, Adam Labriola, Lauren Martire, and Tony Pecucci. More information is available at the East Leyden and West Leyden TSI Websites.
Overview
The Tech Support Internship (TSI) is a year-long course that supports Leyden’s 1:1 technology initiative. Students in the Tech Support Internship get experience working in a real life tech support environment.
The Tech Support Interns have three main objectives:
- To support students’ Chromebooks
- To support the faculty and staff with technology needs
- To pursue independent learning pathways
When students are not supporting students’ and/or faculty/staff technology needs, students work on a variety of independent pathways. These pathways allow students to explore and develop skills in a variety of technology subjects including computer programming, networking, app development, web design, etc. The students also are given the opportunity to become certified in multiple industry recognized certifications.
Pathways and Why Students Chose Them
Certification
Students in this pathway pursue industry certifications. Students may choose one or more of the following certifications: Internet and Computing Core Certification (IC3), Microsoft Office Specialist, Google Apps, and/or CompTia A+ Certification.
“I chose certification as my pathway because I wanted to learn more about computers. There will be many benefits gained from completing this pathway. If I get my A+ certification next semester, I can have more job and internship opportunities in college. I want to get as many certifications as I can this year.” – Karolina Moniuszko
Computer Programming or Networking
Students in this pathway gain hands on experience in computer programming or networking. For computer programming, students may choose between two programming languages: C++ or JavaScript.
“The reason why I chose programming was because the whole entire concept of it was so cool. Studying programming is like studying a whole new language, it’s hard but when you finally understand you feel a sense of accomplishment. In programming you will learn the fundamentals of where all the current apps and programs you use come from and how they were made, while at the same time interacting with developing codes yourself. Other than that it’s a high demand job in the real world that pays a lot of money.” – Clint De Leon
Communications
Students in this pathway implement new communication technologies for Leyden students and staff. Students create websites, podcasts, blogs, tutorials, and workshops related to Leyden’s technology initiative.
“I chose the Communications pathway because I liked the idea of being able to inform teachers and students about different technologies in a creative way. I also get to learn about and use a variety of multimedia tools that will benefit me in my school work and my future jobs.” – Dulce Lopez
App Development
Students in this pathway build and develop apps for the Chrome Browser, iOS, and Android devices. Students will gain experience developing applications using a web browser and either a connected phone or emulator.
“Through curiosity of viewing the app store and the unlimited apps provided for download, I thought more and more on how to do certain apps and the difficulty involved. I chose this Pathway so I can make apps that people my age can use and find to be important or entertaining in their everyday lives. To have a well known app would give me the confidence to build more and to do that, my first step was to join this class and follow this Pathway.” – Zaid Alaraj
Interaction Between Students and Tech Department
Level 1: Students
In TSI, students are the initial point of contact on any and all technical issues. Students work with students, faculty and staff to determine exactly what their issue is and determine how to address it. These requests all come through a work ticketing system (Spiceworks) and are handled by the students on a rotating basis. Most commonly, students work on Chromebook issues/repairs, projection screens, Google Application support, and many other common issues. If an issue can be handled completely by a student, these tickets are considered Level 1.
Level 2: Students Working with Tech Department
When students are addressing issues, they may derive that the issue is in need of administrative access. For these types of cases, they would need to bring in a member of the Tech Department to assist. These issues would then be considered Level 2. Typically, these issues would involve the wireless network password, accessing network printers or handling software downloads for computers labs. The students have a close relationship with the Tech Department and often come along to see how Level 2 tickets are handled for learning purposes. Again, all tickets are filtered through our work ticketing program to ensure they are being addressed in a timely manner.
Benefits
We believe the benefits of TSI are many. Throughout our conversations with computer professionals, they would continually stress the need for students to not only have certifications in various areas – but also to have the soft skills and hands on experience to work in a job environment. This is where TSI is an extremely good fit as it provides all of those skills … and more.
TSI students at Leyden interact with students, faculty and staff on a daily basis. They sharpen their communication skills by answering phones, handling incoming issues and going out in the “field” on various tickets. TSI students never know what they will be working on next and no day is like the day before! We feel this is a replication of what they will be facing once they leave Leyden and prepares them in a way no other class does.
In addition, students can choose the various pathways to work on when not assisting our school. Particularly, the certifications they can attain will increase their ability to secure a position directly out of high school. Leyden TSI students will be more qualified than many others in the workforce for entry level positions in computing.
Overall, Leyden TSI students are getting much of the “real world” experience they need to succeed post high school. TSI provides enormous benefits for students and can give them the edge they need to start their careers, wherever they may start!
Previous posts in the series
by jasonmarkey | Oct 26, 2012 | Guest Bloggers, Leadership and Vision, Learning and Teaching, Planning and Funding, Tech Integration |
The third post of a 5-part series on 1:1 at Leyden High Schools. This post is from Mikkel Storaasli, Assistant Superintendent for Curriculum & Instruction for the Leyden High School District. This post is also cross-posted on Mikke’s blog, Surely You Can’t Be Serious.
Leyden High School District 212, right next door to Chicago’s O’Hare International Airport, has just gone 1-1 with the (mostly) web-only Chromebook. So that means that every student in our two high school district has a laptop with a full keyboard. However, native programs cannot be installed as on a a Win/Mac laptop; all applications that students have access to must come from the web. In other words, there is no MS Office for students, just Google Apps. Thus, we characterize our 1-1 model as “moving learning to the Web.”
There is power when you shift learning to the Web. For us, there have been two critical pieces to making this shift.
1. A Common Platform: A Learning Management System (LMS) such as Blackboard, Moodle, or OpenClass (which is what we use) to provide a common electronic platform is an immediate shift in how school is done.
Look, I realize that this may seem like an obvious use of web-based tools to some, but providing a digital organizing structure for students is crucial. I cannot stress this enough: The LMS is HUGE. It’s the glue that holds together our digital work.
The immediate access to tools for posting materials, syllabi, calendars, assessments, facilitating discussions, and communicating with students immediately changes the educational landscape. Furthermore, the fact that it’s a common platform for students helps them keep it all organized and coherent.
For example, one teacher posted a lesson with an online presentation tool called SlideRocket Complete with audio narration, students can view the material anytime anywhere. What’s even better is that the teacher sent the link to the presentation to his students’ parents. Having that lesson available online helps students who were absent, students who need to hear it (or just part of it) a second or third time, and effectively brings parents into the class with their students.
2. An Ethos of Sharing (rather than “turning it in”): Along with the LMS, the use of Google Apps has provided the foundation for communication and collaboration among our staff and students.
Again, in our district we are utilizing the (mostly) web-only Chromebook, which means that native apps such as the MS Office Suite are off the table. Thus, Google Apps for education provides the platform for most of our productivity tools.
Think about this: The move to Google docs and the ethos of sharing files, of working with products that are constantly being revised by a team, is not a small one. Some of have been doing this for years and take it as second nature. Personally, it’s totally changed how I work and collaborate with others. However, it’s taken me years to build this capacity.
In this model, students and teachers are working together, constantly revising and sharing feedback on living documents. We sometimes forget how alien this may seem to many students, who have been largely trained to “turn it in” (or to “attach it”), and that’s the end of the assignment. Short of receiving an assignment back with a few red marks scrawled (or typed) on it, the work was done. Dead and abandoned. Static. Time to move on to the next thing.
“Just” introducing Google Apps (or other tools which allow for cloud-based collaboration) is a big shift for teachers, students, and parents. It may not seem all that big of a deal to seasoned Google Apps users, but introducing these tools on a mass scale can be challenging.
Yet, it’s also critically important to our model. Institutionalizing a cycle of sharing and providing meaningful feedback between teachers and students has positive implications based on decades of research. Here’s why: according to John Hattie’s table of effect sizes, a vast body of educational research indicates that “Feedback” is the instructional technique that has the #1 biggest impact on student learning.
Never heard of Hattie? Perhaps you’re a fan of Robert Marzano’s “Classroom Instruction That Works.” You will of course know that “Setting objectives and providing feedback” is one of the nine high impact, research-based instructional strategies advocated by that Dr. Marzano. Incidentally, Marzano’s work is linked to Hattie’s research, so they’re singing from the same hymnal.
If you have a handle on Google Apps and a Learning Management System, you will have built the foundation for learning to be collaborative and dynamic in nature as well as available anytime or anywhere. As one of our teachers said, “Class doesn’t end at the period, it ends in the cloud.”
So, aside from these two foundational pieces, what else can you expect when you move learning to the web? Certainly, our teachers are using a multitude of other web-based techniques such as
Remember “Feedback” and Hattie’s effect sizes? How about this for increasing the amount and quality of feedback for students:
These are a few things off the top of my head. Now, I realize that what I’ve been discussing isn’t full-blown Problem Based Learning across the curriculum or anything. I worry that teachers see presentations like the one given by Seth Godin here, and feel as though they have to immediately meet that standard. Don’t get me wrong, I love what Seth is saying but what he’s talking about takes deep learning on the part of everyone in the institution over a long period of time.
We are just scratching the surface of the pedagogical implications of the tools we have available and building the structure of our digital courses. However, that doesn’t mean what’s going on isn’t not effective and potentially transformative.
What is the unintended curriculum for students and teachers?
However, you should also consider the challenges this poses for students. For students, learning to learn in a 1-1 setting is HARD. Let’s not pretend it isn’t. It’s a totally new paradigm for interacting with a course and a teacher, for accessing materials, not to mention the inevitable technical issues that arise.
Moving learning to the web immediately introduces a different prototype for student learning, and learning to navigate this takes time for everyone. Although we sometimes perpetuate the myth that students are “digital natives” and they innately gravitate toward electronic documents, presentations, syllabi, calendars, and to-do lists, this is certainly not always the case. In fact, some students have a very hard time in this new paradigm, and often it’s those who have succeeded in a traditional paper-based system.
Think of the student binders you’ve seen in years past, those that look like unstable nuclear paper bombs ready to detonate at the slightest nudge. Is it any wonder that students might have the same trouble organizing materials electronically?
Students need to learn HOW to learn in an electronic environment. Students have to learn how to deal with materials (previously tree-based) that are suddenly available electronically via a website or learning management system. Furthermore, they have to deal with a new expectation of responsibility: Your class materials are out there and available at any time, and you need to access them as you need them.
Although it’s fantastic that students no longer have to rely on the teacher to access class materials, that’s a double edged sword: with these tools, there is an expectation of personal responsibility on the part of the student. You cannot understate that this can be uncomfortable for them.
Similarly, learning to teach in a 1-1 setting is also HARD. Again, let’s not pretend it isn’t. It’s a totally new paradigm for organizing a course, for presenting materials, for interacting with students, and it presents a host of new classroom management issues, not to mention the inevitable technical issues that arise.
Teachers will try some things that work, and they’ll try some things that crash and burn. It’s all part of the learning process, and that needs to be OK. I certainly hope that our teachers will make the connection that this is how learning happens for students, too. We all need the space to be able to try things and fail.
But as one our teachers said to me, although this is tough starting out, this is all an investment in time and learning. Next year we will have built it a cache of digital materials and experiences, and this will get easier. As that same teacher said, “Come and see us next year.”
And there it is. I’ve always thought of education as a process of iteration, the repetition of a process creating an increasingly complex and beautiful result. In my brain, damaged slightly by several years as a math teacher, our experience teaching and learning in a 1-1, cloud-based environment like a fractal: beautiful images created by an iterative process.
Right now, we’re in the midst of moving learning to the web, our first iteration. We have just started 1-1, and as we repeat and refine our techniques, over the course of many class periods, days, weeks, months, and years, the investment of time and learning will produce an increasingly beautiful result.
Our next post in this series will discuss our Tech Support Internship Class, which serves as our level one tech support for the entire district.
Previous posts in the series
by jasonmarkey | Sep 24, 2012 | Guest Bloggers, Leadership and Vision, Learning and Teaching, Management and Operations, Planning and Funding, Tech Integration |
The second post in a series about 1:1 at Leyden
by Bryan Weinert, Director of Technology for Leyden CHSD 212
@LeydenTechies – Author of the Leyden Techies Blog
The wonderful thing about Chromebooks, is Chromebooks are wonderful things.
Their tops are made out of rubber, their bottoms are made out of springs.
They’re bouncy, flouncy, pouncy, trouncy, fun, fun, fun, fun, FUN!
The most wonderful thing about Chromebooks, is they’re the only one!
Okay, so maybe I shouldn’t be trying to write a blog post at the same time while watching my 15 month old daughter, but hopefully I got you started reading this with a smile. This is the second post in the four-part series on going 1:1 with Chromebooks in our district that a few of my colleagues and I were asked to write for Scott McLeod’s amazing Dangerously Irrelevant blog. Be sure to check out the first post in the series, Why 1:1? Why Chromebooks? written by Jason Markey, our principal at East Leyden High School.
Let me start by suggesting that one of the really wonderful things about Chromebooks is that they actually eliminate or simplify a number of logistics. While researching and planning to go 1:1 in our district, this made the Chromebook an extremely attractive choice for us. Far too often over the past 12 years that I’ve been the Director of Technology for our district did technology initiatives run into problems because of logistics. The following are some of the key highlights that we’ve experienced so far.
SETUP
None. Really, none. We purchased enough devices that they came pre-setup with our wireless network configured and enrolled into our Google Apps domain. We were able to take them out of the box and give them directly to students.
MANAGEMENT
We purchased our Chromebooks directly from Google so the management tools were included. If you purchase them from a different vendor, you can contract with Google to add the management capabilities. Basically, this adds a ChomeOS section to the Settings tab in your Google Apps for Education control panel.
Being web-based, I can quickly and easily manage our entire fleet from just about any web-based device I may be working on. Some of the management features we have implemented through the control panel are as follows:
- Proxy Server – We force all of our Chromebooks to communicate through a proxy server so that our students will always be working behind our firewall and content filter. This was critical for us since our students take their devices home.
- Screen Lock – We force all of our Chromebooks to be locked after a set amount of idle time or upon closing the lid. The students can easily re-enter their passwords to pick up working where they left off.
- Default Homepage – We control not only what the default homepage is for all of our students, but also define multiple different tabs to open each time they log into their device. That has proved beneficial when we want to get particular information delivered to or highlighted for all of our students. For example, we created a webpage about digital footprints that was the first page students saw for a week.
- Account Access – We do not allow “guest mode” on our devices and only allow users within our domain to log in.
- ChromeOS Updates – We have the ability to allow or prevent our Chromebooks to auto update and can restrict the version of ChromeOS our students are using.
- Chrome Web Store – We currently allow our students full access to the Chrome web store, however, we can easily turn it off or restrict which resources our students have access to in the web store if necessary.
- Apps & Extensions – We push out a base package of apps and extensions to all of our students to help standardize some of the tools and practices used in our district. A few of the tools in our base package include the Google Tasks, Google Dictionary, and Readability extensions and the GeoGebra, Desmos Graphing Calculator, WeVideo for Drive, and Kindle Cloud Reader apps.
That’s about it. It doesn’t seem like a lot and that’s really the beauty of it. There just isn’t much to manage for a Chromebook environment. I’d also like to note that if you have your Google Apps domain grouped into organizational units (OU), you can configure your management settings differently for each OU.
SOFTWARE
Once again, none. There is no software to install and manage on the Chromebooks. With our initiative to move teaching and learning to the Web, our teachers and students have the freedom and power to use just about any free tool or resource they choose. In my opinion this can foster more student choice which could lead to more student engagement and creativity. Check out one of my previous blog posts on this topic.
CHECK OUT
Because all of our Chromebooks are exactly the same and any user will have the same exact experience regardless of which device they use, we were able to randomly assign the Chromebooks to the students. We built a system that was used during our registration/book pick-up day the week before school started that had a staff member scan a student’s ID badge, scan the Chromebook’s serial number, scan the Chromebook’s asset tag (self created), and then scan the power cord’s serial number to create a record in a database and officially assign the device to the student.
SUPPORT
One of the most exciting things we’ve done in conjunction with going 1:1 this year was to develop a new Tech Support Intern (TSI) class. This is an elective course in our Business Education department that runs every period of the day and serves as the starting point for all of our teachers’ and students’ tech support needs. More detailed information about this class will be featured in the fourth post of this series, so stay tuned. For the purposes of this blog post, it’s important to note that we purchased 60 extra Chromebooks per school to serve as loaner devices that can be issued to students through the TSI class when they have a device in need of service. Our goal was to never have a time when a student did not have a Chromebook.
POWER
This is one of the logistics that choosing Chromebooks completely eliminated for us. With the Samsung Series 5 Chromebook battery lasting 8+ hours, we were able to require our students to bring a fully charged Chromebook to school every day and be assured that they’d be able to use it in every one of their classes. Since this is a requirement, there are consequences for not bringing a Chromebook to school and for not having a charged device. If students find themselves in either situation and need a device to participate in class, they can check out a loaner from the TSI class. The TSI class keeps statistics on how many times a student checkouts out a loaner because they did not have their own to use and sends reports to our deans to assign the consequences.
DEVICE SAFETY AND SECURITY
We issued a protective case to all of our students and require them to carry their devices in those cases when not in class. They are small enough to even fit in a backpack. We’re hopeful this will cut down on the breakages. To help prevent any mysterious disappearances, either on accident or on purpose, we had all of our Chromebooks laser engraved with the following text:
Property of Leyden High School District 212
If found or presented for sale,
please call 847-451-3017.
ID# 2012-2xxxx
In addition, we added a barcoded asset tag to each device with the number matching the engraved ID number on the device. We outsourced the engraving and asset tagging work which was completed before we even took delivery of our Chromebooks.
INFRASTRUCTURE & BANDWIDTH
We currently have sufficient building-wide wireless coverage to ensure that our students can use their Chromebooks everywhere they need to. In addition, we currently have a 250 MB Internet pipe for each of our two campuses. So far, both the wireless infrastructure and our bandwidth are holding up.
CONCLUSION
I may have missed a few logistics topics, but am more than willing to field your questions, so feel free to contact me at , via Twitter @LeydenTechies, or through my blog at http://leydentechies.blogspot.com/.
I’ll wrap up by mentioning that we have been thrilled with the digital evolution of our district into a fully 1:1 environment and many of our success are a result of choosing to go with the Google Chromebook. The most important factor to our success so far, of course, is our teachers. We have incredibly talented teachers that have risen to the challenge of moving teaching and learning to the Web. Because we didn’t have to hire any additional tech support or dedicate as much time, money, and resources to going 1:1 with Chromebooks as we may have needed to do with other devices, we were able to hire two full-time instructional tech coaches to support our teachers. Please check back for the next post in this series, From the Classroom – How Learning is Evolving with Access for All, to learn more about the professional development we’ve done and the amazing things our teachers and students are now doing.
Thanks for taking the time to read through this post. “When you are a Bear of Very Little Brain, and you Think of Things, you find sometimes that a Thing which seemed very Thingish inside you is quite different when it gets out into the open and has other people looking at it.” Uh oh, guess it’s time to get back to my kids 😉
by jasonmarkey | Sep 17, 2012 | Guest Bloggers, Leadership and Vision, Learning and Teaching, Planning and Funding, Tech Integration |
The first post of a 4-part series on 1:1 at Leyden High Schools.
Jason Markey, principal of East Leyden High School
Leyden High School District, located just outside of Chicago, serves the communities of Franklin Park, Schiller Park, River Grove, Rosemont, and parts of Northlake and Melrose Park. Our two high schools serve just over 3,500 students.
I’m excited about Leyden sharing our 1:1 journey in hopes that we can help schools realize the potential of access for all students and to allow all of us to learn from others along the way. One of the most important parts of our digital evolution has been the conversations, visits, and meetings that we have been fortunate to have with districts from Iowa, South Carolina, Massachusetts and many others. But the most important part of any school’s development of vision is to understand “the why.” So that’s where we started.
A few months ago, the importance of starting with the why was made even more clear to me when I read a blog post by Carmela Ianni highlighting Simon Sinek’s TEDx Talk. So the center of our “golden circle,” the answer to the question why 1:1, has always been because it will provide opportunities for our students that are simply not possible without anytime, anywhere access to the web.
So what opportunities specifically?
- The opportunity to ensure that great teaching and learning can happen in all classrooms and not be dependent upon access.
- The opportunity to collaborate both synchronously and asynchronously with other students seamlessly.
- The opportunity for students to receive more timely and specific feedback from teachers.
- The opportunity for students to create a positive digital footprint with learning being public on the web.
- The opportunity for students to generate more writing and create more authentic representations of their learning than ever before.
- The opportunity for students to choose how they present their learning.
- Leveling the playing field for access for all our students.
- The opportunity to remove the ceiling on what they can learn and share. We purposely did not set a finite goal on what outcome we want to see as “results” of 1:1 because what we truly want is for each student to be able to follow their passion in learning and allow that to take them to new possibilities.
Equally important as considering the why, is considering the why not. I recently wrote a brief blog post on considering the opportunity cost of not choosing 1:1. I strongly believe if 1:1 is honestly considered, the only roadblock for districts considering 1:1 is the fear of managing the logistics. Our next blog post in this series will cover how we have addressed the many logistical concerns of a 1:1 initiative. One of the most important decisions that made our logistical concerns much easier to address was our device selection, the Chromebook.
So the question we have answered the most since last December when we publicly made our decision is “why the Chromebook?” Often the question is phrased something like this, “so why didn’t you choose iPads, and aren’t Chromebooks just the web?” As I wrote here in my blog, yes they are a web-based and web-managed device, and that is actually an incredible advantage over many other potential devices. Ryan Bretag wrote a great blog post on this topic, “The Internet as a Belief System”. Again, many more technical specifics will be discussed in our next post, but when we considered a device we looked for something that could ensure our resources, both time and money, were focused more on student learning rather than supporting the technology. I am so excited to report that we launched 3,500 devices in our two high schools this year and we have not hired one additional person in our tech department. We have put into place two instructional coaches specializing in integrating technology and a new course called Tech Support Internship (TSI). TSI is our “frontline” tech support now for students and teachers in addition to being so much more for our students. Again resources supporting learning, not technology. In the final post of this series we will highlight our TSI class.
I hope this has been a good introduction as to the “why” we chose 1:1 and Chromebooks for our students. Please do not hesitate to follow up with me here. Also, we are opening our doors at Leyden for two school visit dates this fall and a conference in the summer. If you are interested, please see more information here.
Coming soon….
Post #2 – The Logistics of 1:1 at Leyden
Post #3 – From the Classroom – How Learning is Evolving with Access for All
Post #4 – Student Tech Support – Student Ownership of 1:1
