I am reminded of the little girl from Poltergeist when she says "They're here!" or the old Girl Scout Commercial "The cookies are here! The cookies are here!" And the reason that these blasts from the past are occupying valuable space in my head is because Eagle Grove has put in place a 1:1 laptop initiative for grades 5 to 12. The journey has been long, but well worth it.
the journey started with a vision and soon moved into action. The first step was determining whether the administration was on board. The success and failure of many school initiatives rests with administrative support. If there is not support at the top, then it is highly likely that an initiative will fail, but if the support is there, success stands a much better chance. The administration at the Eagle Grove Community School District was most definitely ready to support such a plan.
The next step was to establish exploratory committees at the high school and middle school levels to look into the viability of a 1:1 initiative. After many meetings, site visits, more meetings, a small pilot group, more meetings, and attending conferences, it was determined that the time was right for Eagle Grove to go 1:1.
There were two obstacles left to overcome, one was what device to go with, the other was how to pay for them. The first hurdle was easily jumped. Given our use of Google Apps for Education, and the number of other web based tools that in use within the district, ChromeBooks were a logical choice. The price point of the devices were an added bonus.
How to pay for the devices was not as easy a barrier to overcome. The district's Instructional Support Levy (monies raised by to fund man of the technology advances in the district) was sunsetting and a new vote had to be passed to keep the levy in place. It was up to the public to determine which route EGCSD would be taking into the future. The public overwhelmingly voted to support the 1:1 initiative and to renew the ISL for another ten years.
Part of the money was spent on infrastructure. A 1:1 implementation is useless without proper wireless connectivity. We went with a company called Aerohive and installed enterprise wireless at all schools with the option to expand to the football field. One added benefit of going. with an enterprise wireless, we have a guest network set up in our buildings. Any user with any device can come in and get internet access. Students can attach their smart phones, iPods, personal computing devices, or any other wifi enabled device.
Teachers now needed to know how to integrate this new technology into the curriculum. Many hours of professional development were dedicated to the concepts of TPACK and SAMR. (Both of which I have blogged about before.)
Jan 2, 2014 was our D-Day, our high school roll out. We brought the kids in by grade in 30 minute rotations. Seniors and their parents or guardians were given "the speech" first and then they went to the commons and received their ChromeBooks. The process was completed with the middle school students on January 7. Both roll outs went exceptionally well and that is a tribute to the planning and willingness of the staff to assist each evening.
This process has been scary, rewarding, tiresome, and exciting. But it has all been worth it to get technology in the hands of the students to help prepare them for the world in which they will live.
I wish to extend a huge thank you to the community for their support, the staff for all their hard work and preparation, the administration for their support, and the students for their desire and willingness to go through change.
Snowmageddon is upon us and I have two reasons to be in Des Moines for the next two days.