The School of the Osage Board of Education approved the first phase of introducing new technology district-wide, including purchasing more than 150 new devices, during its Aug. 25 meeting.
Based on the recommendation of the technology strategic planning committee, Phase 1 of the technology initiative will consist of the following:
Adding three carts of 20 iPads at Heritage Elementary, which will up the school's three iPads per classroom to a ratio of one device to every two students
Purchasing 10 MacBook Air laptops for the Heritage Elementary library
Replacing all fifth-grade laptops at the upper elementary with 40 iPad Air devices and shifting the laptops to the fourth-grade Aspire program classroom
Purchasing classroom sets of three different types of devices (Dell Chromebooks, MacBook Air laptops and Microsoft two-in-one tablet devices) for the members of the middle and high school Tech Tribes, which consist of students who will help test devices for effectiveness
Repurposing 30 desktop computers and 30 laptops from the upper elementary to the high school library and purchasing 20 MacBook Air laptops for a mobile cart at the high school.
The district's 2014-15 budget allots $23,000 per building for a technology pilot program, but Superintendent Brent Depe© said the cost of this phase will cost roughly $25,000 more than that total.
"This is the direction that we need to go. This is smart, and this has been thought out," Depe© said.
Administrators announced a plan this past spring to implement a pilot program this fall that would place devices in two classrooms at each of the district's four schools in order to determine which devices would be most effective at each level. While the logistics of the program have changed, this first phase of the district's technology initiative will allow for evaluation of the different devices employed, especially within the middle and high school Tech Tribes.
"At the middle school and the high school, the purpose of having different devices in the Tech Tribes is really in a big way to find out what devices are going to work for our district. This is laying the ground work for the rest of this initiative," said Eric Martin, a middle school teacher and technology committee member. "We need to know what devices are durable, what devices will work for our students, what devices are developmentally appropriate and what platform is going to work for these kids."
The technology committee told the Board of Education this phase is a step toward transitioning School of the Osage to a ratio of one device to each student within two to four years.
"We know that this is going to take a phase-in approach," said Paula Niemeier, guidance counselor at the middle school and a member of the technology committee. "That's going to be based on research, some on funding and on what we find out about the life cycles of the various devices that we look at."
Niemeier noted that the committee plans to perform further research before deciding whether a one-to-one technology ratio is appropriate for the elementary age level.
The district should be able to order the new devices within the next month, said Assistant Superintendent Laura Nelson.