The Consumerization of IT
There's no doubt, BYOD is a disruptive trend and...
Bring Your Own Device eGuide
As more and more CIOs are beginning to see...
The Consumerization of IT
There's no doubt, BYOD is a disruptive trend and...
An Interactive Guide: Bring Your Own Device
As more and more enterprises begin to see...
Bring Your Own Device eGuide
As more and more CIOs are beginning to see...
An Interactive Guide: Bring Your Own Device
As more and more enterprises begin to see...
The Consumerization of IT
There's no doubt, BYOD is a disruptive trend and...
Bring Your Own Device eGuide
As more and more CIOs are beginning to see...
The Consumerization of IT
There's no doubt, BYOD is a disruptive trend and...
Bring Your Own Device eGuide
As more and more CIOs are beginning to see...
On election day, residents of Coachella passed Measure X, also known as the Coachella Valley Unified School District Mobile Learning Initiative, allowing for the sale of bonds to raise a proposed $20.5 million to fund a planned deployment of 19,000 Apple iPad tablets to every single one of its students and teachers.
The CVUSD Mobile Learning Initiative's mission statement reads, in part:
Our framework is '"Preparing Students for College, Career and Citizenship" by teaching them to navigate the 7 Cs. Students will leave our school district as Effective Communicators, Critical Thinkers, Creative Problem Solvers, Viable Community Members, Consistent Life--Long Learners, Curious Knowledge Seekers and Collaborative Team Members.
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It's a lofty goal, and Dr. Darryl S. Adams, Superintendent of Schools for the Coachella Valley Unified School District, acknowledges that the district has a lot of work ahead of it before the dream can become reality. The CVUSD student body includes undocumented immigrants, ESL learners, and residents of rural, Internet--free areas, says Dr. Adams, and for many of them this may be the only chance they have to develop theInternet and technology skills required to succeed in the always--on 21st century. For many students, the school--provided iPads will be the first Internet--enabled devices in their homes, short of perhaps a smartphone.
A recent pilot of 6,000 iPads in CVUSD schools gave ample evidence that the program has merit, Dr. Adams says, but it also revealed the weaknesses of the district's existing IT infrastructure. Of the Measure X money, $7 million is earmarked for IT improvements in that area, according to the district's implementation plan.
Most dramatically, that means building antennae until Wi--Fi connectivity reaches every inch of the 120 square miles that makes up the school district. But it also requires beefing up the backend, ensuring there are enough IP addresses and generally boosting overall capacity. For this project, Dr. Adams says the district is working with Johnson Consulting Engineers, a San Diego--area contractor with plenty of experience in modernizing aging school IT infrastructure.
Meanwhile, $4 million per year for four years -- or just shy of $12 million total -- will go into buying 19,000 Apple iPads at a discounted educational rate of $640 per unit. An additional $1.5 million goes into buying 750 Apple Macbooks for teachers for $2,073 each. In addition to those discounted iDevices, Apple itself donated services including teacher training, authoring textbooks in iBooks, Xcode app development workshops and more.
"[Apple's] really given back a lot," Dr. Adams says.
Despite this massive investment, Measure X isn't designed to fund the elimination of the traditional classroom. Students participating in the pilot program used the iPad to research the threat that smog poses to Coachella's local environment and present possible solutions. Music classes are experimenting with having students use the tablet to swap the songs they write in class. There are plenty of other use--cases out in the wild to get a sense of what's possible with tablets in the classroom.
Getting off Apple and going all Google has increased my respect for both companies. I've come to realize that the very best mobile experience right now is built on a foundation of Google services on Apple hardware. I wish only that these two companies could get along better, and that Apple will allow more Google integration on the iPhone.
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Brandon Porco, the chief technologist for defense contractor Northrop Grumman, says that IT will have to try lots of different things and move quickly to keep abreast of evolving employee needs. "Google has it very well-patterned: Launch and iterate."
Although Apple is often accused of not being an enterprise company, it's only in the last few years that Apple has abandoned its enterprise-oriented products. The real story may be that Apple's discovered that making enterprise-focused efforts simply don't deliver a huge return on investment.
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