Quote:
Originally Posted by tarcone
Smartboards.
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Meanwhile that's the very thing I was about to warn
against.
They were all the rage with systems/schools - both public & private - around here for several years but now several of those are questioning the decision, some even quietly starting to phase them out after discovering a range of problems from maintenance to practicality (mostly the wiring iirc) to inconsistencies in teacher usage spanning too much to too little (some didn't touch them, others turned them into the modern version of coaches-showing-filmstrips-instead-of-teaching). Completely anecdotal, just the product of pretty randomly having ended up at lunch with 3 school system IT administrators a few months back & hearing them discuss them for a good 20 minutes. Two were pretty unhappy, the third was more neutral. If you do go that route, I'd recommend very comprehensive pre-planning that included significant amount of conversation with districts that have used them for a prolonged period. Once the honeymoon is over & that new car smell is gone, my sense is that the feelings about them change quite a bit.
As for the netbook thing, what I've learned as a parent in a school where they're issued to everyone in Gr 5-12 -- probably 600 or so kids - is that there is indeed a steady stream of repair, as well as a constant replacement cycle (currently 1/3 of the units are replaced each year) that makes it a long term commitment beyond the initial purchase. In our case, that burden is handled with a mandatory annual "lease" payment that amounts to each parent paying roughly 1.5x the value of the unit over the course of three years. They're incredibly valuable IMO, literally constant companions to every student that has them & used daily in virtually every class, but the cost is not insignificant by any means.
My own two cents would be to look for specific areas of instruction to target for expanded capabilities. For example, our A/V department could definitely use several new units to upgrade their ability for video editing, same dept could use three new laptops to expand our webcasting capabilities, adding a dedicated laptop or two for the drama dept would make it easier for them to interact with the A/V dept, and so forth. I don't know your school, so obviously the specifics will be different but the idea is the same, looking for specific ways that you can expand/improve what you currently do. By keeping the usage more compartmentalized it seems possible that it could ultimately be more sustainable as well, upgrades/replacements become piecemeal rather than en masse.
And in a completely different vein, if these would qualify for the money, one of the most popular things I've seen in our classrooms has been the addition of two mid-range flip cams dedicated for every grade. They're used to document projects, trips, etc., providing extra engagement for the students while also letting them work on valuable skills like presentation, editing, etc.