Smaller districts keep up with 1-to-1 technology at home, in classrooms

COLFAX — In the past five years, Iowa schools have begun to embrace technology as part of classroom and at-home learning. Larger and mid-sized school districts such as Newton have been issuing personal computers to students to help enrich education in a way that will keep modern youth engaged.

But this trend is not limited to the urban or larger districts. Three districts in the more rural, western portion of Jasper County have also embraced this trend in classroom technology and implemented their own 1-to-1 programs in the past year.

The Colfax-Mingo Board of Education approved the purchase of 200 Dell Chromebooks and 60 LearnPad devices for the district’s taking its district 1-to-1 at a special session, June 30.

The computers are issued for students’ use in the classroom, and in some cases off campus, allowing the district to modernize its educational curriculum. The vote was held in the district superintendent’s office.

James Grife, C-M science/technology teacher and specialist said in November many teachers were already integrating the devices into their curriculums. Teachers at C-M and other area school districts are using Google accounts to communicate and assist students with their assignments outside of school walls. Grife also said the computers give students access to supplemental materials in class previously unavailable at their desks.

Each student that is issued a computer will be given a product key and will be charged a $50 deposit for breakage or damages endured. The fee will be included in the annual student fees.

The total project will cost C-M schools $109,628.08. The district approved the purchase of 200 Dell Chromebooks, 92 for 11-12 grade classes and 54 each for fourth-sixth and seventh-eighth grade classes. The low bid was from Trinity 3, a technology company out of Minneapolis. In the bid report prepared by Grife, CDW-G came in lower at $56,960, but their Samsung Chromebooks did not meet the districts specifications for the 1-to-1 program.

The board also purchased 60 LearnPads from Tierney Brothers Inc., a company specializing in education technology. These devices are for K-3 grade levels and will remain in the elementary school. The total cost of the LearnPads is $27,787.

Funding for the equipment has been allotted from several sources. The district’s local option sales tax will provide $51,684. The Colfax-Mingo Educational Foundation has agreed to provide $24,086.58 to 1-to-1. The C-M/Microsoft settlement account will pay for $19,116.00, and the C-M Parent/Teacher Association will contribute $12,143.50.

Grife told board members at passage there would be additional, yet nominal costs in upgrading existing firewall and bandwidth infrastructure for better and safer Internet connectivity. He estimates the district will have to install six more broadband access points at $426 a piece and $156 per Cat-6 line. The firewall upgrade will cost between $9,000-$11,000. The district will put out three bids, and those purchases will be decided at the coming board meetings.

The final equipment costs does not include repair and upkeep of the machines, but Grife told board members he is confident any repairs can be done in house with assistance with Dell technical support.

Prairie City-Monroe School District took a different route in implementing 1-to-1 computer learning since 2014. Mustang students were issued Apple-brand laptop computers which allow the students a more complete operating system. When the board approved the purchase in April 2014, members set specific parameters for the devices:

• The devices must have an 11-inch screen.

• Battery life must be nine hours or more.

• A three year warranty was included.

• The bid included an application suite that is equal to the district’s current MacBooks application’s at no additional cost.

• The device must have at least have 128 gigabyte hard drive and four gigabytes of RAM.

The district’s IT Team strongly pushed for Apple devices during the bidding process. As PCM students and teachers were already using the devices in the classroom, technology leaders argued there would be little to no additional training if the board went with MacBooks.

With any new educational component comes challenges, and integrating social media as part of the 1-to-1 initiatives has been a mixed bag.

In line with many other districts throughout the state, Facebook, Twitter, Snapchat, etc. are all blocked while on campus Wi-Fi systems. Grife said he does not monitor social media feeds of students unlike PCM, but like the Mustangs, Grife has requested geofences around C-M high school, elementary school and the alternative school.

Baxter Community Schools takes a different approach to social media on campus than other districts in Western Jasper County. High school principal Rob Luther said in November after the district distributed person laptops to students, staff didn’t block access to social media through Wi-Fi filters. The administrator said this would go against current communication trends.

“When we went 1-to-1, we opened our filter up,” he said. “We’re not going to stop kids from being on social media because we think it’s a positive learning tool.”

Luther said the certain classes are using Twitter and Facebook to communicate with students, and Baxter administrators believe it’s a vehicle to learning when used correctly.

Contact Mike Mendenhall at
mmendenhall@jaspercountytribune.com