In the beginning...there was an idea.

One to One. Seems like a simple idea really. Buy a bunch of laptops - pass them out to a bunch of students. No problem. And that is how our one to one laptop initiative started. As a discussion around a table at the board office. The superintendent had a vision. Provide a laptop to each Freshmen so that they can use online textbooks and have access to web resources. But where to go from there?

I would like to say that the next step in the process involved discussions about how technology integration would help transform education in my district. But in reality, the next step, by necessity had to be looking at the budget. What could we afford to buy? For many districts looking at a one to one initiative, this may be where the discussion starts and stops. We had to make the difficult decision to roll out our program on a grade by grade basis over four years. That meant that the freshmen class would receive Dell Netbooks with a Linux/Ubuntu operating system, but the rest of the students - and their teachers - would not.

As the technology specialist, I worked with my building principal to come up with a plan to share the vision of one to one with a staff that had heard all sorts of rumors about the program and were already feeling frustrated that the upperclassmen would not be getting laptops. We could not afford to buy laptops for everyone at once. We held a staff meeting and we acknowledged their concerns and worked with them to come up with ideas for how to make the program work for our school. For the short term, the budget did allow for the purchase of 3 netbook cart labs and some upgrades for our existing computer lab spaces that will expand the access the upperclassmen will have to technology. Additionally , the staff would be given HP laptops that would be set up to run a dual boot of Windows7 and Ubuntu. In my next post, I will talk about how we surveyed the staff and began the discussion about using technology in a transformative way by focusing on the two groups of teachers in our building - those who would be dealing with students who had netbooks and those that would be using the labs.

One of the first things to consider when you are looking at budget are the hidden costs of a one to one initiative. In addition to the netbooks or laptops, you need to also consider the following:

• Infrastructure - Wireless access points, Network switches, Network Servers, Bandwidth, Web filters, Mail servers, Data back up, Data storage
  
• Software - Licenses, Operating Systems, Help Desk Management , Inventory Management
• Training - Staff professional development, Student training, Technology Staff training
• Insurance - Will this be offered by the district - or made available for students to purchase?
• Power - Spare batteries, Spare chargers, Charging Stations, Classroom outlets, Power Bars
• Maintenance - Will this be warranty work that is sent out - or done in house by a certified technician? How many additional laptops will you need on hand as loaners? If you are doing repairs in house - you will need to keep an inventory of parts.
  
• Staffing - Will you need additional tech staff to handle maintenance? Will you hire a technology integration specialist to help teachers use technology to transform student learning?
• Accessories- jump drives, bags or sleeves, wireless mice - will the district buy these or offer them for sale as a fundraiser?
• Peripherals - printers or copier/printers for student use, scanners, digital cameras, video cameras, interactive boards, responder systems, projectors, document cameras
  
• Future Planning - Is this going to be a grade by grade rollout - consider how additional laptops will be purchased - and how the addition of more laptops will impact all the items listed above.

Things to consider that could stretch your limited dollars:

• OpenSource software in place of licensed software
• Ubuntu/Linux operating system over Mac or Windows
  
• Leasing laptops rather than purchasing
• Netbooks
  
• Outsourcing network maintenance/management
• Student rentals of equipment
• Cloud computing - using online tools like Google Apps and Google Domain for Education
• Allowing students the option to bring in their own equipment