School Name: Tiller School
Located in: Beaufort, NC 28516
Grades moving to 1 to 1: 3rd-5th
Principal: Kelly Riley
Have you ever wanted to move away from a BYOD program using a mixture of Window Laptops, Chromebooks and Tablets to a Chromebook 1:1 program, but maybe you don’t have the available funding or resources to make that happen? Over the past 2 months I have been working with Kelly Riley, the principal at Tiller School, to make that exact scenario play out. Tiller school piloted a BYOD program for the past 3 years using a variety of devices that the students brought in. They were having trouble finding curriculum that worked across all platforms. In the 4th year they narrowed it down to only Laptops and Chromebooks then this year they made the decision to only allow Chromebooks be brought in. However, the school didn’t have the available funding to purchase a Chromebook for all students in grades 3-5.
Kelly and I started working together in August to put together a parent order form with some options ranging in price and features to accommodate all families. We narrowed it down to the Lenovo N23 as well as the HP 11 G5 EE models. We offered non touch and touchscreen options to help keep the cost down. Also the parents had the option to add on an extended warranty of 3 years with Accidental Damage protection. Kelly was very pleased with the response she got from her families and is very excited to start receiving the Chromebooks to pass out to the families this week.
Kelly ultimately choose Chromebooks as their preferred choice in device because of the ease of use and no connectivity issues. She said classes don’t have to come to a screeching halt because of needed updates to the software and connectivity issues. As an added bonus the devices have a great battery life. She also believes Chromebooks will help strengthen her students learning with the access to unlimited resources and information. Students will authentically sharpen their research and writing skills as well.
I also asked Kelly how often during the day their chromebooks will be used as well as what curriculum they are hoping to use the chromebooks for. She said while they love technology they also believe in limited screen time. They will only be used if technology enriches the learning, meaning it will vary day to day and will be dictated by teacher lesson plans. They will be utilizing the Google doc’s, sheets and slides apps as well as web based resources for Reading and Math.
