Our Journey with 1:1 Pine Island upgrades technology, levels playing field for its students
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Tammy Berg-Beniak, Taylor Bauman, Patrick Smith and Josh Westphal
Many districts are currently considering a 1:1 initiative. This isn’t a decision made in a day, it is a journey a district takes to decide on the right device that fits into the culture of their school. This journey will take many forms depending on the district. Last year Pine Island—a K–12 school in southeastern Minnesota—decided to begin this journey; in the end we beefed up our infrastructure, reallocated existing technology, and provided all 9–12 students with a Windows® 8 tablet. Here is our story.
In 2011, Pine Island realized the need to bring the school up to date in regard to its technology. The school infrastructure was out of date, there was no existing Wi-Fi, we still maintained our own e-mail server and we were very traditional in terms of computer labs and laptop carts. Understanding the times were changing, we looked to what other schools were doing to connect their students and level the playing field for their learners. At the time, there was a tablet solution many were implementing. A department in the high school got the ball rolling by using their textbook dollars to purchase two iPad® carts to pilot a device. This is where the journey began. At the end of the year, the pilot was evaluated and it was determined that it wasn’t the right device for us. Because of the pilot, we had a better idea of what we wanted to get out of our device—the pilot was an essential piece in our journey. The next step was to put a plan in place to determine what device we would be handing to our students at the start of the 2013–2014 school year. We began by forming a technology team that involved a variety
22 MSBA Journal