In an increasingly digital and connected world, education tends to lag behind the trend. At Alliance High School, thanks to extensive grants, this trend is about to change. On October 24, 2011, Alliance High is rolling out a program that will provide a laptop for every student.
Providing a laptop for each student is something the school has been considering for a while and in late Spring of 2011 the required number of computers was reached. AHS now has around five hundred and fifty MacBook Pros, one for each student. Shortly before the distribution all of the laptop carts will be taken out of classrooms, re-imaged, and restored to a like-new condition. The computers will be given virus protection and will have the school’s Internet blocks installed (These blocks will only function while the laptop is in the building).
During the October 7th parent-teacher conferences, parents will meet with staff members and sign a form assuming liability of the computer assigned to their student. Each student will have to take a laptop. According to Leonard Hartman, the Computer Science teacher at AHS, “The computer needs to be thought of like a textbook. You don’t have the option to not take a textbook.”
Students will be able to take the computers home for use over nights, weekends, and even breaks. Computers will be returned at the end of the school year, before summer break. This year’s students will not have the option to purchase the laptops at the end of the year, but once a cycle is in place that option may become available. To protect the laptops, a carrying case is being provided for each computer. All cases will feature the AHS logo. Because Box Butte General Hospital generously donated half of the money for the cases, the cases will also be decorated with a BBGH logo.
The one-to-one initiative will create endless possibilities for teachers and students alike. Teachers will now have the ability to control their students’ computers in class due to a new program being installed on all of the computers that will link student and teacher computers. Teachers will be able to limit student use to whatever the students are supposed to be working on in that particular class. Teachers can even view a student’s screen on their computer or show their own screen on the students’ screens. The possibilities are startling. As Hartman says, “…[the one to one initiative] will help enhance the learning environment at the high school.”
Thanks to the new initiative, Alliance High School is keeping up with, and even surpassing, the majority of Nebraska schools. The digital age has come and AHS is embracing the endless capabilities for the expansion and improvement of the learning here at the home of the Bulldogs.