Kutztown Area School District expands its one-to-one program this upcoming school year by providing every middle school student with a Chromebook.
“This program is an expansion and continuation of our commitment to providing technological access to content, resources, and engagement for all of our students. Our unique program Right Device: Right Time has a vision of providing multiple technological resources for our students to produce rich content and deeply engage the content in new ways,” said Dr. Scott Hand, Kutztown Area School District Director of Educational Technology. “As the high school and 8th grade programs have been utilizing in 1:1 for many years, we have seen our students engaged in rich online experiences the promoting collaboration, rich investigation, and blended learning which enriches and extends the in-school learning.”
Hand explained that the program expansion was presented to both the school board and board Policy and Curriculum Committee, first in May 2017 and with updates during the past school year. The school board approved the continuation of the high school Apple lease and the refreshed maintenance and repair fee options for students in both the middle and high schools in May 2018.
“The goal is to provide our students with immediate access to various devices, enabling teachers and students to choose the best fit tool for the job or project on which they are working,” said Hand. “At the same time, they will also become more familiar and versatile with various technologies making them more competitively aware of a variety of platforms and able to seamlessly move between, understand, choose, transfer knowledge between, and operate various technology tools.”
Hand said that while the middle school students will have a Chromebook as their immediate device to access and engage with content, they will also have access to iPads, macbook laptops, video cameras, robotics kits, electronic and circuitry kits, programmable drones, green screen, and virtual and augmented reality equipment.
The eighth grade 1:1 program has been running for the past three years, with the students initially using iPad devices in the first two years, and this past 2017-18 school year using Chomebooks as their 1:1 device in eighth grade.
“The eighth grade model was highly successful this past year, we were posed to expand the program to our entire middle school this coming year,” said Hand.
This program expansion will include 6th and 7th grade students, equipping the entire middle school population with personal devices to access content and resources both at school and at home.
Hand said that this program is part of the overall technology plan and Future-focused 2020 Vision for the district.
“The cost was built in to the technology budget. By revising device refresh cycles and providing classroom Chromebooks to our elementary classrooms, we were able to expand the number of devices to all students while decreasing the overall technology budget by $20,000,” he said. “Lower cost, high-capacity Chromebook devices enable us to procure other devices for student access and expand device access in our elementary buildings.”
Chromebooks integrate the district’s use of the Google Suite of Applications and fits the Future-focused 2020 Vision, promoting project-based learning by equipping teachers to design more engaging activities that ask students to learn through investigation. There is also blended learning opportunities. Teachers use the learning management system, Canvas, to post instructional resources and have students collaboratively participate in online activities.
“With our district Future-focused 2020 Vision centered on project and inquiry-based learning, design thinking, cross-content integration, and blended learning, our district desired to equip our students with the resources needed to enable this vision and become career and college ready,” said Hand. “The middle school has focused heavily on project-based learning in eighth grade this past school year with a culminating interdisciplinary project experience investigating the local ecology of the “critical zone.” (https://sites.google.com/kasd.org/techforward/current-issue/steam-pbl?authuser=0) This project-based learning experience will be expanded into our sixth and seventh grade teams in the 18-19 school year; providing the technological resources was one facet to helping us accomplish this exceptional instructional vision.”
Among the benefits Hand listed, there is an awareness and understanding of various technology platforms.
“Producing versatile students who are agile in operating multiple technologies and not limited to one tool. Ability to choose the right tool for the job or project at hand,” he said while listing the benefits. “Empowering decision-making and availability of resources to produce the highest quality content.”
Hand said the program also provides digital equity, “Ensuring equity of access for all of our students at school and at home,” and provides “immediate access to content and resources.”
“Chromebooks have the ability to quickly start and efficiently operate, providing expedient access to content and maximizing instructional time, reducing the technological barriers of the past,” said Hand. “With our rich tradition of technology access, as the first district in the state to provide 1:1 for our students, this natural extension of the program will enhance the opportunities for all of our middle school students.”
