School iPads to cost nearly $100 more each, revised budget shows

[Igel]

40. It takes a lot of thought to go one-to-one.

You have to have your teachers trained.

You need to train your administrators.

You need to train your students.

You need to
have good filters to block unacceptable Internet, with a strong database
have good mechanisms for monitoring and controlling student use, including
devices such as flash drives and wi-fi hotspots
have too procedures in place for monitoring and limiting interstudent communication
have robust software for uploading and organizing student submissions as well as
providing feedback to students for this purpose
have nearly ironclad mechanisms, software and real-world, for ensuring test security
and you have to have nearly real-time updating of all databases used for security,
testing, and student monitoring to accommodate the changes to class rosters that
are constantly happening.

There's nothing like having a test review from one class turned in by students from another class, the teacher's handwriting morphed into typed text.

There's nothing like having a student leave a test room to go pee, only to text a friend, have the friend log in using the student's username/password, and take the test while reviewing notes and the textbook.

You can't beat having a teacher walk away from an unsecured teacher computer, only to have a student use the teacher's username and the password the computer stored to access the online gradebook. Just takes a minute for a lot of failing grades to become solid Cs.

It's great to be giving a test or monitoring students, only to find that the three students who arrived in your class in the last 2 days don't have privileges for your class or can't be monitored because nobody's updated the appropriate file. Even worse, you find that the students who, in the last 10 days, *left* you class are still monitored by you even if they're in another class.

Then there's my favorite: You're mid-class and wifi fails. Suddenly your paperless campus needs to be paperful, but you neither make all the copies you need "just in case" because it's a giant waste of resources, nor can you leave your class to go and get the copies you suddenly need. And the perfect storm is when it happens during the last test before the end of a marking period.