District Administration - June 2009 - (Page 49)

School, a technology school in the North Daviess (Ind.) Community Schools, will start using the HP Mini 2140 this fall in a “living textbook” project to replace some print textbooks and reduce costs for parents. Students will download curriculum into the netbooks and use them instead of textbooks. ey will also use them to do research on the Internet on subjects such as social studies and Indiana history, all aligned to state standards. e project will begin with ninth- and 10th-graders, who will be charged rental fees from $55 to $73.33 per year, compared to print textbook fees that could be up to $120 per year in some subjects, says Todd Whitlock, technology coordinator for the district. Students will be able to use the netbooks 24/7 from wherever they are. North Daviess ultimately aims to include all students in grades 5-12 in the program. “We won’t eliminate textbooks completely. We still will have to buy them for some classes, like math. But we hope we will have to use them less and less, and more as resources than as curriculum,” Whitlock declares. e Round Rock (Texas) Independent School District plans to test a new Dell netbook in two schools this fall. Dell is headquartered in Round Rock. “We didn’t go out and look at other netbooks until we knew what Dell was planning to do,” says Ed Zaiontz, the district’s executive director of information services and also chair of the Consortium for School Networking. Even before the Dell product was on the market, Zaiontz suggested making sure “that if something goes wrong with it, we can ﬁx it right here ourselves, with or without warranty, and don’t have to ship it someplace.” He notes that netbooks “don’t have as many moving parts” as desktops or earlier laptops, “so we’re hoping there will be fewer failures with them 1995 Microsoft launches Windows 95. and they will be more maintenance-free.” Screen Size and Costs e size of netbook screens and keyboards has been problematic for some districts and manufacturers. Zaiontz sees netbooks as useful for online testing and suggested to Dell that a larger screen would be better for that. e Irving district bought 1,200 of a 9-inch model produced by ASUS and put them in some of its elementary schools and all its middle schools. “It has been working great,” reports Owen, “but we decided it was too small for the hands of a big high-schooler.” e district is awaiting vendors’ responses to a request for 10-inch models with larger keyboards. Arapahoe High School in the Littleton (Colo.) Public Schools is testing an 8.9inch ASUS model but probably will go for a product with a 10-inch screen, says Karl Fisch, the school’s director of technology. Meanwhile, in response to “a ton of questions” he gets from parents about what netbooks they should buy for their children, he suggests they consider the many options and features of diﬀerent products. Finding the cash to fund large-scale netbook purchases is another issue for administrators. “We had to ﬁnd something that was more sustainable in terms of the cost of the device. Luckily, the price has come down some,” says Owen. e district had been paying about $1,000 per laptop, but the ASUS netbooks it bought last year cost about $550, she says. Round Rock is tapping some of the $29 million earmarked for technology that was included in a $293 million school bond issue that district voters approved last fall. And training teachers to adapt to netbooks is a challenge. “ ere sometimes is a digital divide between students and teachers these days,” Madden says. All Fresno teachers get a basic orien2005 The One Laptop per Child (OLPC) organization is created. The Skinny on Netbooks NETBOOKS ARE COMPACT VERSIONS OF conventional laptops, with features and options that make them attractive for districts to buy and students to use. PRICE: Starting at about $200. Due to their low cost, districts can buy more for students, says Susan Einhorn, executive director of the Anytime Anywhere Learning Foundation. “You can buy two or three for the price you’re paying for a larger laptop right now,” agrees Ed Zaiontz, executive director of information services in the Round Rock (Texas) Independent School District and chair of the National Consortium for School Networking. WEIGHT AND SIZE: Usually under 3 pounds and small enough to ﬁ t in a student’s backpack. “They don’t have to carry around a huge, bulky system,” according to Richard Black, marketing director for Acer America. DURABILITY: Few moving parts that require replacement or repairs. Some keyboards are single pieces of hermetically sealed plastic. “If children spill a soda on it, they can just wipe it off with no damage to the computer,” says Robert McKenna, assistant to the mayor of Birmingham, Ala. ENVIRONMENTALLY FRIENDLY: Some models contain no toxic metals. Battery life up to 10 hours reduces electrical and power consumption. CAPABILITIES: Principally word processing, Web browsing, e-mail. Most are not functional for playing games, watching DVDs or streaming videos. MANUFACTURERS: Those companies with netbooks on the market now or with models under development include Acer America, ASUS, Dell, Fujitsu, HP, Lenovo, MSI and Samsung. 2009 Netbooks gain popularity. 1996-1999 Many schools rewire for Internet access. A few schools install Web servers and provide ways to create instructional Web pages. 2007 Foleo, the ﬁrst protonetbook, is launched by Palm Computing. Sources: www.csulb.edu/~murdock/ histofcs.html; www.ideaﬁnder.com/ history/inventions/compersonal.htm; www.cs.iastate.edu/jva/jva-archive. shtml; www.pcmag.com www.DistrictAdministration.com June/July 2009 49 http://www.csulb.edu/~murdock/histofcs.html http://www.csulb.edu/~murdock/histofcs.html http://www.ideafinder.com/history/inventions/compersonal.htm http://www.ideafinder.com/history/inventions/compersonal.htm http://www.cs.iastate.edu/jva/jva-archive.shtml http://www.cs.iastate.edu/jva/jva-archive.shtml http://www.pcmag.com http://www.DistrictAdministration.com

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of District Administration - June 2009

District Administration - June 2009
Contents
From the Editor
News Update
Stimulus Monitor
District Profile
Admin Profile
Crisis Response
Tech Disruptions
A Deeper Shade of Green
The New School Lunch
Business Brings Sustainable Lessons to School
A Netbook for Every Student
Vision Videos Empower Students
New Books
How Well Does This Web Site Work?
New Products
Problem Solution
Online Edge

District Administration - June 2009