1 to 1 Computing? Lease/Buy? PC vs. Mac? What are your thoughts?

[Mike Travis]

Hi! As part of the grant, we will be purchasing laptops to try and get to a point where all juniors and seniors have a school laptop or their own laptop.

My question is - what is your experiences with laptop programs from a purchasing standpoint? PCs vs. Macs? Leasing vs. Purchasing? I would love thoughts from anyone on this. Also, if you know a good company for leasing Macs, please pass on the information to me.

Thanks so much!

Mike Travis
Assets School

[Melissa Handy]

Island Pacific Academy has been a one-to-one tablet computer immersion program since we opened our school. Our program requires students to lease a tablet computer from the school each year. The lease fee has gone up, and last year was $450. We have about 350 students in our Middle and Upper schools and they all lease the same 4 models from the school.

At times, we have considered allowing students to bring their own computer to campus because parents have trouble paying a yearly lease fee when they have a working laptop at home. But we have stopped short of allowing exceptions, wanting all students to have the same models to enable easier management of onsite repairs and to have more control over network access. We have one full time hardware specialist who manages the warranty repairs and services the computers on site and a network admin who also assists in help-desk calls. We also have a pool of about 30-40 extra computers that we use as "loaners" for students whose computers are waiting for parts or have more extensive damage and must be sent off for repair. Also, we allow our students to take their leased computer home every evening and we have remote URL filtering for all of our students.

We currently have 4 years of experience leasing computers from MPC/Gateway, which incidentally has filed for Chapter 11 this year. Our leases always included accidental damage protection warranties, which basically meant that if the student drops the computer off the roof of the building - Gateway would fix it. We always chose 3-year leases and initially the 1 dollar buyout options for lease end. Our most recent 4 year lease agreement has a market-value buyout option because we wanted to pay lower annual payments. We prefer to rid ourselves of nonworking machines instead of having to find a way to recycle them, so it was essential to get a line-item buyout, which means we don't have to buy all or none.

With four years of experience as a one-to-one school, we are reevaluating the human and financial costs of managing the technology. In addition to the cost of the laptops and parent requests to bring their own computers, the MPC/Gateway bankruptcy filing has enticed us to remove ourselves from the costly repair process. So we are experimenting with a different one-to-one model that requires students to purchase and arrange repairs for their own laptop or tablet. Our juniors and seniors will be the first required to bring their own computers to school for the 2009-2010 school year. This policy change will require substantial dialogue about student access to our network and software requirements and adjustments to be made by teachers in the classroom. We'll have to spend a lot of time communicating the change to parents and we anticipate most will be happier, but it may be a bumpy transition.

I believe our school will always require students to have a portable computer because the students benefit so much from these exceptional learning tools. I would recommend thoroughly thinking about implementation procedures and talking to as many one-to-one schools as you can before starting a program.

I'll leave the Mac vs. PC debate for another time.

Please feel free to contact me with any questions about our program and any advice is welcome!

Aloha,
Melissa Handy
Director of Technology
Island Pacific Academy
808-674-3523 ext. 405
[e-mail]

[Diana Oshiro]

Hi Mike,
We have done both. The lease option suited us well 5 years ago but we have since moved to purchase and allowing students to use their personal laptops if they wish. The agreed understanding for those using personal equipment (MAC or PC) is that we will not serve as tech support and will require everyone to have a set of software loaded on their laptops (i.e. MS Office, Adobe, etc.)
The price for laptops have come down significantly so we just purchase them and have families pay for the extended warranty of approx. $50. per year. If they have their own laptop, no problem and no fee.

[Mark Hines]

HI All - in line with this topic, thought Id share a response to a recent question about $100 laptops

Aloha Mark - I was recently talking to a colleague and they said you had information regarding the possiblility of aquiring laptops for about $100.00. Is this true? If so could you advise me how we could be a part of this. It would certainly help to update and provide the resources for our students and some teachers. Mahalo - Sue Wehrsig

HI Susan
I continue to be interested in the evolution of new tools -- and the latest generation of laptops are what are referred to as "netbooks". these are small, light, cheap devices that are primarily designed to be go-betweens from desktop computers or larger laptops. Most of these are currently running in the price range of $300-$500, but it is clear that some one hundred dollar ones are on the horizon.
There is already a company called HiVision that makes a netbook called mininote that is supposed to list for $98, although it doesn't appear to be available in the United States yet.
I need to add my caveat here -- these are not full-blown laptops. They typically run either a variant of Linux operating system, or Windows XP, as they run smaller processors and less memory than typical large laptops. They also tend to run only 7 inch displays, as that's one of the more pricey items on any given laptop, and also a large user of power.
The important thing to understand, is that the trend in technology is towards these devices. A combination of factors are at work here: cheap computing, movement to cloud computing, desirable portability.
I currently have an Asus eee pc that I play with, and I find to be an excellent unit -- it cost me $299.
Again, I'm interested in the trend -- these devices will be down around $100, they will be everywhere, and they will be devices are students feel comfortable using.
Lastly, I believe it is a common misunderstanding from most people in thinking of these devices as small laptops. I think the correct trend is these are more like keyboard driven, large smart phones. Probably the greatest influencer of this will be the fact that the Google phone runs an operating system called Android. There are already efforts to port the android operating system onto small netbooks - probably using energy-efficient processors like ARM. I believe this correctly takes advantage of what these devices will do best: small, easy-to-use, and always on using three g for connectivity.
Does that help answer your question?
Tried to google terms like "$100 netbook", "asus eee pc" or "hivision mininote" to get a sense of what's emerging here.

[Jeremiah Demster]

I'm not exactly sure what you're looking for your computers to be able to do, but I've been involved with two schools that had laptop programs and both of them chose to go with tablet laptops from Toshiba. Good customer service, good reliability, great features. Just a thought.