On the first day of school, every J-DHS student received a district-issued Chromebook in their homeroom classes. This is the first time in the school\u2019s history that there have been enough Chromebooks to give to every student. The administration hopes the one-to-one Chromebook rollout will help bridge the digital divide, while teachers hope all students will be able to access their digital learning platforms. J-DHS Technology TA Alan Zimmerman played a large role in facilitating the rollout, tackling logistical hurdles to prepare nearly 1,000 Chromebooks for the students.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cWe needed to get approximately 1,000 Chromebooks to be one-to-one in the school and have enough to support that program in terms of replacing broken ones and students who need to get them replaced if something goes wrong. My role was logistically to make sure we had enough devices in order to make that happen, and then to figure out how to get them assigned to the individuals and roll them out,\u201d says Zimmerman.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Zimmerman notes the challenges he faced and the timing of the rollout. \u201c[The first challenge was] acquiring the physical devices and making sure that they were usable. With the project itself, it was all or nothing. We couldn\u2019t give half the students Chromebooks and not get them for the other half. It was about making sure we had enough devices to give every student. I don\u2019t know if you\u2019re familiar with how Chromebooks work, but they have a lifespan of four-to-five years. Google stops supporting them with updates after four or five years. We needed to get them synched up to our classes. Our graduating eighth graders would come here for the first time. They\u2019ve been one-to-one, and we needed to get them on the right cycle to be one-to-one here. So it was figuring out how to get enough for each class to get what they needed.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Zimmerman hopes the rollout will enable students to take advantage of digital educational platforms. \u201cI think [the effect of the rollout] comes down to addressing the inequity of access to technology. Every student needs to have access to technology. When I was a kid, it was books or audio\/video recorders. All the information was in a dictionary or encyclopedia. But for you guys now, the information is out there on the internet; you just need to access it. Our students who are marginalized, a lot of them can\u2019t access the internet or have inadequate access to it. Maybe they\u2019re sharing devices with a sibling or they don\u2019t have total 24\/7 use. For those students, I think it levels the playing field in that every student can have access to the information that\u2019s out there. Also, it enables teachers to access all the tools that they can for education.\u201d Zimmerman also emphasized the importance of the rollout for students who have to miss one or more days of school.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
J-DHS Principal Gregory Lawson echoes this sentiment. \u201c[Purchasing the Chromebooks] is definitely worth it because it ensures this equal playing field. It also allows us to increase what we\u2019re capable of doing in class and at home. [The classroom can] go from a brick-and-mortar place to a virtual atmosphere. It\u2019s the difference between a 2D and a 3D movie. It\u2019s just the accessibility of the resources \u2014 you go from having a textbook to a more digital world. That\u2019s the key. Which is hard, because now we\u2019re talking about a generational difference as well. It\u2019s harder for us to change as old folks, but this is a reality that you all have. It\u2019s different. It\u2019s how you\u2019re going to access the world in the future.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The district hopes to continue the one-to-one Chromebook program in perpetuity. ZImmerman explains, \u201cI think it was really important when [Superintendent Peter] Smith came onboard. He put out the plan. Assistant Superintendent [Peter] Reyes emphasized that we needed to be one-to-one district-wide at some point in this school year. So we did our absolute best to make sure we reached that goal. COVID got in the way \u2014 you can\u2019t get devices in bulk right now, it\u2019s really hard. From the top down, from Dr. Smith to the IT people on site, we\u2019ve tried to get you guys what you needed. We made it a point to get you guys one-to-one by the end of the school year. And we\u2019re not done. This program is supposed to continue forever. We can\u2019t just stop being one-to-one. The goal is to keep acquiring enough devices to keep the program going in perpetuity. If you came back in ten years, we\u2019d still be one-to-one.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The examination of the effects of the rollout are still being evaluated, and changes may be forthcoming. \u201cWe\u2019re really talking and working that out now. There are some security parameters and printing issues that we\u2019re looking to navigate. We\u2019re going to need everyone to be flexible enough to work with us as we work through this rollout. There might be some compromises that have to be made, but right now we\u2019re trying to make policy based on informed decision, not based on gut reaction,\u201d explains Lawson.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Lawson recognizes that the district is still learning how to manage the one-to-one Chromebook rollout while also addressing student feedback. \u201cI think the biggest thing is that this is a new process for the high school. We\u2019ll need some patience and some grace as we\u2019re working out the kinks and the logistics. The expectations are pretty simple. We decided consciously not to continue to reiterate that, because we think you all know. But I\u2019m excited to work with these issues and hopefully get some good feedback on what is working and what\u2019s not. Mr. Zimmerman\u2019s the rockstar. He made it happen. He was single-handedly responsible for making this possible for every student, which is an incredible amount of work.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
On the first day of school, every J-DHS student received a district-issued Chromebook in their homeroom classes. This is the first time in the school\u2019s history that there have been enough Chromebooks to give to every student. The administration hopes the one-to-one Chromebook rollout will help bridge the digital divide, while teachers hope all students […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":50,"featured_media":18707,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,26,34],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jdrampage.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18706"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/jdrampage.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/jdrampage.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jdrampage.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/50"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jdrampage.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=18706"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/jdrampage.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18706\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":18734,"href":"https:\/\/jdrampage.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18706\/revisions\/18734"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jdrampage.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/18707"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jdrampage.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18706"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jdrampage.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18706"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jdrampage.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18706"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}