>> On the infrastructure and hardware front, we're actually not going to go too
deep, because the reality is that a lot of these decisions are common sense.
And the reality on the field is actually changing every six to 12 months.
So we just want to give you a few tips as you think about these decisions.
>> Yeah, and the first tip is that the design of
your program is going to influence the kind of hardware you need.
If you're going for an ambitious flex program, where kids spend a large
portion of each day at their own time and choice, when they're online,
you're going to probably need one to one.
And if you go to a station rotation model, in which
there's three stations, probably need one computer for each three students.
But the model dictates your tech needs.
>> Now, either way on that though, you're going to need a lot of bandwidth.
And our friends at the education superhighway recommend that
you have 100 megabits per second, for every 1,000 students.
And that seems like a pretty good recommendation, that if
you don't have, you're going to choke your blended learning model.
>> Right, and if you take
a look at the education superhighway website,
they have a nice testing feature, so you
can actually see how much you have in your setting that you're in, doing education.
but the network is usually the place where we see most of the problems.
Either not enough bandwidth coming in, or even just bad internal configuration.
So we're going to pop up a couple resources that can help
you just start thinking about designing
good network settings for educational venues.
>> Now, of course you have to think
about your charging, your outlets, and security, as you dive into this.
And we're seeing a lot of schools move away from this
fixed model of desktop computers chained to an outlet with an
Ethernet cord, and much more toward using laptops and tablets with
charging stations that allow you to get power for an entire day.
And we would note that having power for an entire day on a
device is really a critical requirement to do these sorts of fun -learning models.
>> And
schools think about charging in a couple different ways.
If they keep the devices at school, they usually have
a system where every student plugs in before they go.
And the teacher ensures the devices are fully charged when kids arrive.
If you send the students home with the devices, you have to build in a
routine that requires them to do the
charging, and bring back the devices fully charged.
Just trusting students to do this on their
own, probably not going to work out for you.
And you might even need a backup, so set up
a station in the room where there's a couple charging
outlets set up, and students can work there, in case those
two kids forget, and don't bring a charged device to school.
>> On the device front, your choice is really between desktop, laptop, or tablet.
Now, Brian and I aren't here to endorse a particular product, and we don't
have any allegiances or compensation per se from any of the folks out there.
But what we're seeing is that schools are
generally moving toward adopting Google Chromebooks right now.
There have
been a bunch of market surveys as well as in our blended
learning universe, we're seeing this has become a clear trend right now.
We think that the reason for this is that Chrome books are
significantly less expensive than a lot of the other options out there.
They're often just $250 a pop, and also they're
far easier to manage in a blended learning environment.
They charge for a full day so you don't have to constantly figure out
where you're going to re-charge the, a,
computer, and because they operate in a cloud,
they're really interchangeable.
You can do your work, store it in the cloud, and
then jump on another Chromebook and leave just where you left off.
And so they're really user-friendly in
these blended learning environments right now.
>> Now the one downside to Chromebooks is that you generally
need a wireless connection for them to have their full functionality.
So if you're in a school that has good wireless, that can be a great option.
But do make sure that the software you want to use is Chromebook-compatible.
And this is only an issue
if it's not web-based.
If it can be brought on a browser, you should be fine on the Chromebooks.
>> Now, we also hear a lot of
schools moving toward iPads, and iPads certainly have
a cool factor and there's also a lot to like about a tablet form for computing.
Reading is a lot easier on these devices, and for
younger students a, it's a lot more intuitive, to use
your finger and just swipe along on a device, rather
than trying to figure out a track pad on a laptop.
In addition, a lot of the,
apps that are emerging are only available for mobile devices, which
means that you'll need a tablet if you want to use those.