LM December 2015

takes the power away from text book companies and makes the teaching and learning construct more authentic, flatter and connected to the world where learning and discourse is happening all the time. And it does so at a fraction of the cost of a traditional school model . ” Of the 51 districts that assessed the fiscal impact of their 1:1 program, 12 saw an increase in cost. Fifteen saw a decrease in cost and 24 found the district’s 1:1 program to be cost neutral. One of the districts reporting increased costs identified the cost increase was due at least in part to continuing to purchase traditional materials in addition to the computers. One could speculate that if the traditional materials could be supplanted by digital materials and potentially Open Educational Resource (OER) materials, costs would have decreased. Another respondent articulated that they were considering moving to BYOD from 1:1 due to the cost, but they didn’t provide any additional detail. Of the 15 districts that saw a reduction in costs, they

The myth of technology cost? As mentioned above, one of the common reasons for not considering 1:1 programming was identified as cost. One district specifically mentioned the lack of state financial support and other fiscal concerns. Project RED’s (2010) findings seem to have shown the opposite: “Substantial evidence shows that technology has a positive financial impact, but for best results, schools need to invest in the re- engineering of schools, not just technology itself.” The math behind North Boone’s 1:1 program at the middle school level showed that would cost less over time to provide students each with an individual device than to continue to provide carts of laptops along with desktop computer labs, printers and other equipment. One key to this was to move towards digital resources instead of traditional print textbooks. Using digital resources to build a curriculum instead of relying on textbooks to determine curriculum is a huge shift for schools, but is important to both improve the ability of faculty to properly

articulated specific decreases in paper consumption, energy consumption, and software costs. Beyond the potential cost savings, 39 of the 54 districts that measured the impact on their 1:1 program on student achievement saw an increase. (See Table2) None of the districts saw a decrease in student

differentiate and to provide each student the best opportunity to learn. Other districts seem to have experienced similar savings. Maine Township High School has

been able to significantly reduce

Table 2

achievement. Eleven of the 49 districts that measured the impact on student attendance saw increased in attendance due to the 1:1 program. No districts saw a decrease in student achievement. Overall, the survey results show that 1:1 programs hold the promise to have a positive impact on both student achievement and the district’s bottom line.

instructional costs by moving to a 1:1 model. Ken Wallace, superintendent of Maine Township HSD states: “ As knowledge changes and information changes in real time, students can be plugged into research sites that live stream discoveries as they happen. The reality is that 1:1 can be far superior instructionally and by far superior economically. It

References November, A. (2015). Why schools must move beyond one-to-one computing. November Learning. Available at http://novemberlearning.com . Project RED (2010). The Research. Available at: http://www.projectred.org/about/research-overview.html . Trucano, M. (2014). Ten observations about 1:1 computing efforts around the world. EduTech Blog. November 25. Available at: http://blogs.worldbank.org/edutech/1-to-1-computing-around-the-world .

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