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1:1 With Chromebooks ~ VT-Fest 2015



The school I work for is now on year 2 of their take-home 1:1 program.  We have over 500 Chromebooks in the hands of all the students and staff.   Here are some things I learned along the way.
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Preparation

The year before:



Purchasing and replacement schedule


  • I suggest: Take-home ~ 2 years, In-School ~ 3-4 years
  • Leasing
    • Buyout lease (Total Cost X .53)
    • Fair Market Value (FMV) lease (Total Cost X .45)
      • Pay a portion of the entire cost of the device.  
      • Estimate 15-20% for the ones you want to keep or unable to return.
      • We have no need to keep devices after the new ones arrive so why pay more.
  • What else is needed ~ Bag, management, Spares, Classroom management Software

Insurance:


  • Worth Ave Group (or similar)  vs. Self-insure
    • After 1 year we found that the Worth Ave Group was not worth the cost, and chose to self-insure.
  • What to charge students
    • Pre-charge everyone
      • Found that students did not feel as accountable for the care of the device.
    • Per-incident charge
      • Cost should be a deterrent, not actual cost.   (We did a $25 incident fee)
      • Sense of ownership and need for responsibility.
      • Rewards responsible students, and holds non-responsible students accountable.
      • Lost Chromebooks, or purposely damaged chromebooks, are handled by the administration, and the family could be responsible for the full initial cost of the device.
  • Expect about 15-20% screen breakage

Unboxing:



Year 1 & 2

Distribution


  • Challenge: Get them in the hands of the student in the morning of Day 1.
  • Year 1: Gave them out to 8th period class
  • Year 2: Gave them out during TA
  • Stafford students, were optional
  • Paperwork vs getting them to students is still an issue.

Classroom Management


  • Digital tools
    • Google Classroom (previously Hapara), Omnito, GoGuardian, GAT,
  • Physical change
    • Move desks around so that teachers can see the screens
    • Common terminology: Screens down, Screens up
  • Unprepared students
    • 15 Spares in the library that can be signed out.

Google-Classroom.jpg

Classroom Tools



All School Workflow


  • Administration needs to lead the pack.
    • No paper Faculty meetings
    • Admins need to be using a Chromebook as a primary portable device (Chromebook Flip);
  • We have been replacing aging projectors with TV's and Chromecast
  • Become familiar with add-ons and scripts
    • I personally have written many add-ons that are focused on school workflow: http://scripts.edlisten.com/, Lab Scheduler, CheckItOut, Transfer Ownership, Copy Folder
    • Auto-send form data: Homework-Club, parent notification (AutoCrat,  Simply Send)
    • Custom scripts for distributing Budget sheets, and IEP's to teachers.
  • Chromebooks don't print.  
    • Students can use a designated desktop in the library if they need to print.

Repairs


  • About 20% screen breakage
  • Incident-fee instead of prepaid insurance
  • We fix and hand back to student.   We complete a google form, which auto-generates an invoice which we mail home.   Unpaid bills get given to the administration to deal with each month.
  • We spend about 1/3rd the cost to fix in-house and just take the loss on dead ones, then when if we went with an insurance of some type.

Collecting


  • Challenge:  Let students have them through their last exam.
  • We chose to allow students to take Chromebooks home over the summer if they got them pre-inventoried.   About 1/3rd took us up on the offer.
  • Take-home: They had to bring their CB to the IT office sometime during the month of June and get the device inventoried.
  • Leave at school: They had to drop it off at the IT office after the last exam that they needed it for.

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