Computers for all yr 9 ,10, 11,and 12 students in Australia

The new Federal Government in Australia have promised to provide a computer for every year 9, 10, 11 and 12 students in schools throughout Australia. This is part of a plan to make Australia the clever country and to ensure students have access to 21st century tools.
These students who are already living with 21st century technology will now have even greater access in schools. However this is not an easy process to put in place and has many barriers that need to be worked through. Almost all of these barriers are achievable but they will require a cost as the support, infrastructure and teaching and learning requirements are not a quick fix.

The idea is to be commended as we know from most technology conferences that one on one computing is seen as the best model for the use of technology. Shared computers have a place, however this is usually for collaborative work, and while we are encouraging this in schools, students still need personalised learning.
It is still unclear how the Governments model will work, however I believe it is different to the notebook programs that are in so many private schools.

Why does the notebook program work so well in private schools?

• Students have ownership of the technology
• The school controls the notebook image that is rolled out. This also ensure greater control over legal software
• Parents pay a higher premium to ensure they notebooks have extended warranties and insurance
• Schools have additional technical support resources for repairs and notebooks servicing and rollouts
  

So how will a notebook for each student in state schools and non notebook schools work?
Putting a desktop in every classroom is impossible. Classrooms are not big enough and have not been designed for this purpose, so I think this is out.
Notebooks are the only way, however my understanding is that the computers will be schools based and not for home usage. This will control much of the copyright and illegal software issues.

However the first issue will be technical support. A high school of 1,000 students with a ratio of 1 to 5 computers will current have 200 computers and one to two EFT (Equivalent Full Time) technical support people. Pluse 80 staff laptops.
With the new model, we could expect a school to have 720 computers, 1 for every yr 9, 10, 11 and 12 (approximately 650 computers) and a ratio of 1 to 5 for year 7 and 8 (70 computers) plus 80 staff laptops. This would require an additional 2 to 4 technician per school.

Perhaps a preloaded national image for every machine may be a solution, which would have to have a Novell, Windows and Lynx build as well as a negotiated national license for software. This may reduce technical support, however it may not work where schools want to customise computer images. Each state and education sector also has different requirements for student use. (e.g. Ultranet in Victoria)

Next we will have to invest in teacher professional development. While we know many teachers are using technology, not many have had classes where every student in every class has access to a notebook. This will require some pedagogical change for many teachers, and while some may have trained in how to use technology, always connected in the classroom is very different.

Infrastructure is the other cost. Internet connection and network connectivity, power for notebooks, additional costs of internet usage, additional printers etc.
We need to find a model that does not charge schools to connect or use the internet. Australia is one of the few countries where internet is not free to schools.

Additional printers may be met by school funds, however it is the hard wiring that has the greatest cost. How do we enable electricity and internet in all classes?

On a recent international study tour, I saw a system that worked extremely well in this area. It also reduced technical support needs as well. It has a high set up cost, however it did provide significant savings long term.
It involved the use of notebook lockers in schools. Students put their notebooks into these lockers each evening and at lunch time, where they were connected to electricity and the school network. A radio frequency disk on a key ring or lanyard was used by students to open their lockers.
Students would connect the notebook in their lockers to electricity overnight which would charge the notebook with enough electricity to run the first 4 hours of the day. At lunch time they would put the notebooks back into the lockers where they would be semi recharged with enough electricity to finish the last 2 hours of the day. In the evening the notebooks were connected to the network and in sleep mode, with lids closed, they could be woken up for software and virus updates, patches and images could be installed. In some cases notebooks were reimaged at night, leaving a student partition untouched which contained student work.

The locker system would detect when notebooks were in lockers and provide a report at the end of the day on any student notebooks that were not returned. These students would lose access to their notebook long term, which deterred students from not following the school policy.

This system provided a cable free school for notebooks, with all network access via wireless and electricity provided through twice daily recharges.

The costs would be high to start with as lockers, electricity, network access and security would have to be funded in the initial build, along with an extended wireless network, however the saving would be significant long term with classrooms requiring little change apart from wireless points and technical support/images/damages reduced due to the locker system and the control the school has over the technology.

Food for thought and Interesting times!!!!!!!!!!!!!!