1:1 Pilot program
1:1 Pilot program – Traner Middle School
A 1:1 school is a learning environment where every student is provided a laptop by the school to complete classwork and take it home with them to complete their homework as well. Through grant funding, the school district was able to launch the 1:1 laptop program at Traner Middle School. With the experiences learned from the pilot program at Traner, the school district used these lessons and experiences at 1:1 schools that would open in the coming years.
Summer 2018
With students being required to take devices home the district needed a solution for managing student devices. This need was met with the implementation of Microsoft Intune. Before the start of the school year, the student devices purchased for the 1:1 program were enrolled into the MDM solution, and devices were prepped for student distribution at the site. Along with student device distribution, roles needed to be defined for key players in supporting the 1:1 program including who and how will students be supported and how students will receive devices.
2018-2019 School Year
For the 2018-2019 school year several goals and outcomes needed to be identified and achieved.
The first objective that needed to be identified was how will students and staff be supported with all the technology made available to them. One of the key requirements for the 1:1 schools is for a full-time 1:1 IT technician to be available at the school every day unlike non-1:1 schools in the district. Throughout the year, policies and procedures were identified and implemented to best serve the students and staff at the school.
Along the lines of providing support to students and staff, procedures also needed to be implemented on repairing and if necessary replacing student devices. With this being a middle school environment, repairs were bound to happen. At the start of the schoolyear procedures were implemented on repairing devices, repacing devices, and sending devices out for warranty repairs. A fee system was also implemented and solutions were also made available to students who were unable to pay repair fees.
As the school year progressed, there was a need identified for implementing a classroom management software solution. With the assistance of Intune, classroom management software was pushed and installed on the student devices. This need was identified as several teachers brought up that several students would misuse their laptops to play games and not use them for schoolwork during class.
Throughout the year, several maintenance and inventory tasks needed to be addressed. Since this was the first year the school had a full-time IT technician, I took it upon myself to inventory and maintain several pieces of technology that had been neglected. These tasks included:
- Maintaining and repairing existing laptop carts
- Identifying and e-wasting old unused inventory
- Properly identifying and inventorying usable inventory
- Identifying and locating Title 1 inventory
At the end of the year, student devices were collected and stored for students to use next year. It was determined that returning students would keep their existing devices and non-returning student’s devices would be used for new students. A majority of my work involved assisting in collecting devices and ensuring that devices checked-in would be functional for new students. These repairs and prep work were carried out over the summer to ensure that the next school year was started successfully!
Summary/Outcomes
Throughout the year there was a lot of collaboration and documentation needed between all stakeholders in the launch of the 1:1 pilot program.
Throughout the school year, solutions and procedures were identified and implemented. With this being the first year of the program several things had to be updated throughout the year. Additionally, at the of the year, areas that needed improvement were identified so they could be implemented next school year and shared with the new 1:1 schools.
A key requirement for a school to be 1:1 in the district was for the school to have a full-time IT Tech. Throughout the year I worked with both the school and the district’s IT department to help define my role and responsibilities at the school. This information was valuable as the school district planned on opening several new 1:1 schools in the coming years.
