While reading chapter 10 I felt like Picciano (2011) spoke truth immediately when he said "there frequently has been too much emphasis on the acquisition of hardware alone. A common assumption was that once the hardware was acquired the other components would follow." I feel this has been true more often than not in many local systems including my own. We have over the years installed lots of great technology hardware and devices, such as smartboards, slates, interactive response clickers, and many other things in classrooms. These things have many times, however, gone unused or not used to their full potential due to lack of professional development or lack of technical support. I always found this to be very discouraging as one of the technology support people in my building. I always found myself looking at those things as wasted money when they weren't being used to their full potential. I do see this changing currently though. With the push in most systems being focused on 1:1 initiatives whether it be a bring your own device (BYOD) or system provided technology, our system, too has begun exploring this type of technology with our students. This time, however, we are doing it differently. We have pilot groups using chromebooks with groups of students to find potential problems/issues that may arise in classroom use settings on a small scale before we look at implementing something like that on a system-wide basis. We are also looking at building up the infrastructure within the older buildings to be able to support a 1:1 initiative before it becomes a possibility so that we will be ready before it becomes a reality. Laying the groundwork so to speak.
Being part of this pilot group has been a learning experience for both my students and myself. They also have enjoyed knowing they are part of the decision making process. While working through this pilot program, we have visited most all of the evaluation criteria for evaluating and selecting computer hardware identified as important by Picciano (2011, p.190) performance, compatibility, modularity, ergonomics, vendor, and cost. We have had some issues with performance, but not many, compatibility is one issue we have been waiting on to make sure Aspire/ACT online testing would be compatible with chromebooks. One compatibility issue which is also mentioned in reference to math programs by Weldon(2013) in his article is some issues we have had with programs using Java, but we have found fixes for most of those. Modularity and ergonomics seem to be fine, software availability has been somewhat of an issue transitioning system-wide to Google Apps for Education. The vendor issue, I believe, speaks for itself as Google is a global entity, and cost is the major selling point for chromebooks. The per pupil cost per chromebook is not much more than a text book costs per student. Here is a quick video overview of chromebooks for education.
I feel that this pilot program approach has also met several of the recommendations of Weldon(2013) from his article about implementing chromebooks successfully. We have been phasing in Google apps for education in our system over the past few years as well as providing professional development in that area. We have a technology "think tank" with stakeholders to provide feedback and ideas for technology implementation. We are now working through the pilot program with a few small groups in different grades and schools throughout our county.
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| Thinking About Chromebooks? Here's Everything You Need To Know First. |
References:
Chromebooks for Education Overview. (2012, May 16). Retrieved March 27, 2015, from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mSbZQNJwPuI
Picciano, A. (2011). Educational Leadership and Planning for Technology (5th ed.). Upper Saddle River, New Jersey: Pearson.
Weldon, D. (2013, April 23). Thinking About Chromebooks? Here's Everything You Need to Know First -- THE Journal. Retrieved March 27, 2015, from http://thejournal.com/Articles/2013/04/23/Thinking-About-Chromebooks-Heres-Everything-You-Need-to-Know-First.aspx?Page=2
Hi Farrah. It is great that you are a part of a pilot group to implement Chromebooks. The most effective way to determine if this is the best avenue for the district is allowing teachers and students to try it and provide feedback. Picciano (2011) describes software and hardware as learning to drive a car. Once someone is familiar with driving, they can drive almost any car. However, when the software is changed, the "driver" may have to learn all over again. Ensuring new hardware and software can be integrated with relative ease is imperative before implementing a new technology initiative.
ReplyDeleteFarrah, I feel like you posted this just for me! :) I am obsessed with our new Chromebooks. If you'll remember our earlier sync chat, we used to have Samsungs, and we have just begun phasing in the Dell Chromebooks. They are extremely sturdy and have many other new functions like touch screen and reverse tablet functions. This post is truly after my techie heart! Mentioning that your school is putting more into the infrastructure before fully rolling this program out is a must! Last year, our wireless networks were not strong enough to support all of the devices and we had to add mobile hotspots all over the eighth grade wing. A word of caution/advice that Piccianno (2011) also brings up in his text: be aware of the community at large when planning to implement a 1:1 program (p.236). It is important to take into consideration the access the parents and students will have at home. With the Chromebooks, it is hard to "download" assignments that you work with offline. So if many students don't have internet at home, then they will not be able to do their homework. Good luck with this! I'm excited for your district!
ReplyDeleteThat is exactly why we are looking at possibly doing classroom sets of the chrome books and maybe a blend of that and a BYOD policy, we will have a lot of students without wifi access. But most do have access to a mobile device already so one great thing about Google apps is that simple assignments can be checked that way as well.
DeleteIt sounds like your school is doing some very exciting, and very smart, things with technology. It is nice to have a group of students/teachers who can spend some time getting to know new technologies and understand all of those fixes for compatibility and even offline work, as Kaitlin mentioned. It sounds as though your school is following the recommendations of Picciano (2011) in planning for and integrating hardware, software, and a viable infrastructure (p.188).
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