District 15 plans to expand laptop initiative for students
Palatine Township Elementary District 15 plans to expand its laptop computer initiative for students in the 2018-19 academic year.
Based on the results of a pilot program for children in kindergarten through fifth grade, administrators recommend spending $540,000 on the purchase of about 1,600 touch-screen Chromebooks, which includes related equipment such as charging and storage carts. Officials said the devices would stay in the schools with students sharing them.
If approved by the school board in May, the purchase of the Chromebooks for the younger children at 15 elementary schools would follow the effort that provided similar laptops for all students in grades six through eight for use in classrooms and at home in the current academic year.
Deputy Superintendent Matthew Barbini said at a recent meeting that nearly $1.6 million was budgeted to replace about 3,000 Apple iPads before 2017-18, but officials reallocated roughly $1 million for the 4,400 Lenovo Chromebooks. He said the rest of the money not going to Apple would be used to provide the 1,600 touch-screen Chromebooks to the younger students in 2018-19.
"We're really pretty much phasing out the use of Apple products in terms of iPads in our district in favor of Chromebooks, because we can put more technology out there for kids," Barbini said.
Amanda Grimes, a second-grade teacher at Lincoln Elementary School in Palatine, said the young students are most comfortable with the Chromebook's touch screen. She said they enthusiastically used the devices for standardized tests.
"They're a generation of finger swipers," Grimes said. "They don't know clicking and dragging (with a mouse). That's a really hard skill for them."
As part of the pilot program that began in the fall, teachers, students and administrators from six elementary schools used the iPads and touch-screen Chromebooks and evaluated the devices. Feedback was collected through a voluntary survey taken by 40 employees and 290 pupils over two weeks in February, said instructional technology coordinator Kelly Mollenhauer.
Opinions on the Chromebooks and iPads were given regarding content creation, typing, personalization and communication. The Chromebook, a lightweight laptop that runs on internet-based programs instead of standard computer software, won the survey.
District 15 administrators cited the Chromebook's cost-effectiveness in areas including power use, placing it above the iPad.
Responding to school board questions, Mollenhauer said each touch-screen Chromebook would cost $250 to $275, compared to about $200 for a keyboard model. She said the iPad costs more than $300.
All District 15 children in grades six through eight are using the traditional Chromebook in what educators call a "one-to-one" computer initiative. Loaded with Google's suite of apps for educational use, the devices are expected benefit students in areas such as collaboration with their peers, content creation and research. ith Google's suite of apps for educational use, officials said they expect the devices to benefit students in areas such as collaboration with their peers, content creation and research.