Investing in technology in your school can be a hard sell to the wider leadership team. Throughout the year, you retain a laser-like focus teaching quality and student attainment levels, therefore securing the best results. This means that any significant chunk of budget can be tricky to lock down, and many a school is encouraged to “make do” with what they’ve got.
When it comes to technology in the classroom, “making do” is far from ideal. Downtime, slow loading times and limited pool of devices can cause disruption, and mean that some students miss out on having a truly immersive experience.
With that in mind, here are 5 reasons to run a one-to-one (or 1:1) technology program in your school.
Create a better learning experience
It’s pretty much a given that not every student learns in the same way. Providing students with access to their own, personalised device allows you and them to create a tailored learning experience and enables them to engage with teaching and material in a way that’s best for them. Having each student with their own device can also help to significantly help to improve communication between student and teacher, including giving feedback and providing help and advice. Students can also use their devices to better communicate and collaborate with each other – encouraging them to be more independent in their learning.
Save money
Outside of the learning outcomes, one of the main reasons to run a 1:1 programme is, very simply, to save money. Instead of worrying about finding enough budget to replace an IT suite of desktops, or your estate of laptops, you can offset the cost of bringing in new technology through parental payments.
No risk
A big concern around running a 1:1 device programme driven by parental payments can be – what happens if a parent stops paying? Will your school lose out? The good news is that now many providers also offer misappropriation insurance – completely covering you for the costs associated with the technology should payments stop. Some providers can also offer insurance and warranty on your programme devices – meaning you get peace of mind that everything is handled in one place, and you can get devices back up and running quickly should they be lost or broken.
No admin burden
Another concern around running a 1:1 device programme can be – well, that’s all very well and good, but who’s going to manage all of this? The good news is, if you opt for a fully managed programme, like ours, this takes care of all aspects of the programme, and you don’t have to worry about pulling in additional resource. Marketing and comms with parents, ordering portal creation and management, payment chasing, and other admin tasks will be all be handled by your provider, so you and your school can essentially sit back, take advantage of the technology and reap the educational benefits.
Access to the latest and greatest devices
As mentioned earlier in the article, it’s quite common that when IT spend is approved within a school, whoever’s responsible for the investment is often encouraged to “make do” – perhaps compromising on performance or quality to fall within budget. With a 1:1 device programme and the right provider, you and your students can access the latest devices from leading vendors like Google, Apple, Acer, HP, Lenovo and Microsoft to name a few. With a 1:1 programme, you can provide students with the latest devices enabling them to stay secure, experience faster loading times and better performance, and above all have more tools to communicate and collaborate wherever they are.
Are you considering a 1:1 technology programme for your school? Freedom Technology work with leading vendors and resellers to provide fully managed programmes to a range of educational establishments, from primary schools to Multi Academy Trusts. If you’d like to arrange a initial phone call to discuss your requirements, get in touch.
