Going One-to-One: iPads and Mobile Computing in Education

Going One-to-One: iPads and Mobile Devices in Education

by Patrick Fogarty and Brendan Fitzpatrick

Copyright 2013 Patrick Fogarty and Brendan Fitzpatrick

Cover art by James Flames (jamesflames.com)

Smashwords Edition

All rights reserved, world rights reserved. No portion of this book may be reproduced in any form by any electronic or mechanical means including information storage and retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the authors. The only exception is a reviewer, who may quote short excerpts in a review.

Every precaution has been taken in the preparation of this book, but mistakes still happen. The authors assume no responsibility for errors or omissions, or for damages resulting from the use of the information contained herein.

goingonetoone.com

Table of Contents

Introduction

Section 1: The Big Idea

Chapter 1: Introduction

Chapter 2: A Brief History

Chapter 3: One-to-One Inspiration

Chapter 4: Supporting Research

Chapter 5: Stakeholder Concerns

Chapter 6: Bumps in the Road

Chapter 7: Conclusions

Section 2: Leadership and Vision

Chapter 8: Objectives

Chapter 9: Making a Plan

Chapter 10: Pilot Programs

Chapter 11: Financing

Chapter 12: Leasing vs. Buying

Chapter 13: Expense Breakdown

Chapter 14: Professional Development

Chapter 15: Education Conferences

Chapter 16: Technology Leadership

Chapter 17: Organizational Philosophy

Chapter 18: Assessing the Deployment

Chapter 19: Conclusions

Section 3: Technology and Infrastructure

Chapter 20: Building an IT Department

Chapter 21: Creating a Network

Chapter 22: WiFi

Chapter 23: Network Security

Chapter 24: Firewalls and Filters

Chapter 25: Choosing a Device

Chapter 26: Deployment Comparisons

Chapter 27: Technical Specifications

Chapter 28: Mobile Device Management

Chapter 29: Other Hardware

Chapter 30: Conclusions

Section 4: Instruction and Design

Chapter 31: Common Teacher Concerns

Chapter 32: Protecting Yourself

Chapter 33: Digital Rights

Chapter 34: Personal Learning Networks

Chapter 35: Adapting and Updating Lessons

Chapter 36: Changing the Classroom

Chapter 37: Creating e-texts

Chapter 38: Using Social Media

Chapter 39: School-wide Apps

Chapter 40: Apps by Subject

Chapter 41: Conclusions

Afterword

Endnotes

About the Authors

Acknowledgements

Introduction

If you’re a parent, teacher, administrator, or IT specialist in a school or district considering or launching a one-to-one computing program, we think this is the only book you’ll need. We’ve covered everything, from designing lesson plans to convincing board members to buy a few thousand iPads or laptops. We’ve already successfully integrated iPads and other mobile devices into our school and several others, and we know the tragedies and triumphs that await you. Now we’ve distilled our experiences into a book that covers most any concern stakeholders in one-to-one schools might have. There’s no reason to fly blind; we want to make the process of integrating mobile devices into your school as easy as possible.

We’ve written this book to be accessible to all. If you’ve been intimidated by the sea of acronyms and jargon, you won’t be for long. Some readers still print out their emails while others know how to reboot Linux servers through PHP. For our purposes, your level of computer skill really isn’t important. The only thing we hope all our readers have in common is an open mind to new and interesting uses of technology in their classrooms.

You should read this book in whatever way works for you. Some people will read it from cover to cover, but many others will skip around, or search the index to find help for their problems of the day. We want you to get the most out of your reading experience and we definitely don’t want you to feel overwhelmed. A non-linear approach to the text might be best if you feel like the tech terminology or lesson-planning advice might be too intense for those in the earliest stages of a deployment. No matter the depth of your integration, you should approach this book like a manual, not a novel. Read what you need when you need it. While each section focuses on a different aspect of one-to-one integration, they have been written with the average reader in mind.

The book is divided into four sections:

The Big Idea

- A brief history of one-to-one computing

- The world’s first iPad one-to-one school

- The research that supports this not-so-new education model

- Questions students, parents, teachers, and administrators will ask

- An example of how students respond to tech-forward unit planning

Leadership and Vision

- Explaining why your school is going one-to-one

- Planning and piloting your deployment

- Finding the money to support ubiquitous classroom computing

- Determining how to spend that money

- A complete overview of sample deployment costs for twelve different schools

- Providing teachers and school building leaders with support

- Defining your philosophy and providing technology leadership

- Using quantitative and qualitative research to assess your deployment

Technology and Infrastructure

- Building or enhancing the IT department

- Setting up a network and understanding wireless Internet

- Firewalls, filters, and protecting your network from threats inside and out

- Picking a device for your school (and knowing the right things to look for in a device)

- How to manage wireless devices without breaking the budget or the staff

- Choosing the right TV or Smart Board for your institution

Instruction and Design

- Allaying the fears of the faculty during the deployment

- Legal concerns for teachers creating digital course resources

- Developing a Personal Learning Network that can support your lesson and unit planning

- Adapting your lessons, units, and physical spaces to a one-to-one computing program

- Creating e-texts, iBooks, and other interactive media for your students

- Using social media in the classroom safely and effectively

- Best apps by subject and category

Section 1: The Big Idea

"An idea is salvation by imagination." Frank Lloyd Wright

Millions of American parents, teachers, administrators, and students agree that today's classrooms aren't producing college- and career-ready 21st century learners. Integrating technology into every fiber of the student experience is one way to address the evolutionary changes we've seen in our classrooms and students. This book is about realizing the educational potential of a one-to-one computing environment, and trying to assuage the fears many educators and administrators have when facing change of such epic proportions. Our intention is to guide the interested reader through all the different elements of a 1:1 deployment, from getting school stakeholders excited to creating a network that can support hundreds (or in some cases thousands) of mobile devices. Along the way, detours will take us into different classrooms to see how teachers across the country have utilized mobile computing in their classrooms. We hope that, once you complete it, you’ll feel ready to help launch your school’s own mobile computing program.

Chapter 1: An Introduction

Xaverian High School is not an institution one would necessarily expect to be at the forefront of a radical shift in educational paradigms. Our school is located in Bay Ridge, Brooklyn, a quiet bedroom community forty-five minutes away from Manhattan by train best known as Tony Manero’s stomping grounds in Saturday Night Fever. Yet something big happened in our school of about twelve hundred students, something transformative, something we think might help shape the future of education: we went one-to-one.

One-to-one computing is more than another educational buzzphrase; it’s a movement whose proponents aim to make our classrooms resemble the workplace of today and tomorrow rather than the factories of the 19th century. It’s an idea developed through thirty years of trial and error by some of the most brilliant minds in technology and education, and luminaries ranging from Steve Jobs and Bill Gates to Harold Gardner and Salman Khan have contributed elements small and large to its conceptual framework. It also creates for us the opportunity to engage our students on their level, as digital natives rather than classroom outsiders.

There are a number of ways to define the concept, but at its core, it involves pairing each student in a classroom with one device, and involving those devices in everything from creating student projects to flipping a classroom (more on that later). The idea is to begin shifting students from consumers to curators and ultimately creators. Some schools have found success with other styles of technology deployments (1:2 computing [1], for example [2]), but this book focuses on one device per learner. The device can be virtually any computing device, but most schools have narrowed down their choices to a handful: netbooks, laptops, iPads, and smartphones. Our school utilized iPads, but most of the information offered here will work across all platforms.

Equitable access to technology is one of the core tenets of one-to-one computing programs. We can’t guarantee that every student will have a computer at home, regular Internet access, or a working printer. Many don’t even have the ability to sit down in a quiet room to do homework for two hours a night. But we can address this by providing devices that expand the reach of the classroom and make mobile classwork a reality. We can offer every student equal access, and we can promise them that their personal circumstances won’t dictate their educational outcomes.

Almost thirty years have passed since the development of the earliest wired classrooms, yet there are still teachers, administrators, and school board leaders concerned that it could be too soon to consider implementing a one-to-one computing model. We would argue that the more serious concern is that if you keep waiting, it might soon be too late. We are past the point where going 1:1 is considered cutting edge, and many believe it will be the dominant educational model in the Western world in a few short years. So while it sounds revolutionary now, it won’t be long before our grandkids are asking us, How did you watch movies on an iPad? IT DIDN’T EVEN SUPPORT 4-D! while we reflect wistfully on a time before smartphones. The sooner you act, the faster staff, teachers, and administrators can master the tools of this new environment.

Chapter 2: A Brief History

Xaverian is certainly not the first school to have these lofty technological aspirations. Long before the iPad was a twinkle in Steve Jobs’ eye, Apple’s Classroom of Tomorrow represented the first serious attempt to introduce ubiquitous computing into an educational setting, and that began all the way back in 1985. Teachers and students were given CD-ROM drives, modems, laserdiscs, and a host of other devices that were used extensively in formal instruction and student work [3]. By the late 80s, elements of the ACOT project had trickled into the mainstream, and pockets of teachers were sharing their work through chats and bulletin boards on Prodigy and America Online.

In the 1990s, a number of schools attempted to integrate technology into the classroom through one-to-one computing. William Penuel writes that, "The earliest initiatives in the U.S. [to provide each student with a computer] began appearing in the mid-1990s, and the most visible sponsored initiative at that time