Technology Purchase Tips: Try Before You Buy
Author: Rick Phelan
Published: 05.08.13
“Try before you buy” makes sense for schools planning to spend scarce dollars on technology. Taking a week to try a prospective new technology with students and staff can help you determine if there’s a match between your desired outcomes and a given technology. Does the product really work as your school technology planning team believes?
Schools can initiate “try before you buy” by talking to vendors and asking for that option. Software companies may offer trials to help educators get a sense of how a product works with students. Lexia Learning, Odysseyware, and ALEKS are three companies that have offered local schools this option with their materials.
Hardware vendors may not be as eager to let schools try out devices. Recognizing this issue, SCOE has worked with the California Technology Assistance Project (CTAP) to initiate a pilot of try-before-you-buy hardware, specifically focusing on iPads.
Try-Before-You-Buy iPad Set at SCOE
This pilot program allows schools to borrow a set of 15 iPads for 1-2 weeks. SCOE provides a general overview of the devices for staff on the day they are brought to the school. Topics including general operations, management guidelines, and ideas for use with students. SCOE staff can also model lessons with students. Schools that borrow the iPad set agree to care for equipment and recognize that they are responsible for any lost or damaged iPads during the period of use.
Schools can choose how to use the devices during the week. Some schools keep the devices in one classroom, while others move them around to different classrooms using different pedagogical models (whole class activities, small group learning, one-to-one rotation models).
Some of the schools that have taken advantage of this pilot program include Hahn Elementary School, Kenwood School, Penngrove Elementary School, Riebli Elementary School, Montgomery High School, Live Oak Charter School, and Cinnabar School. Activities from the pilot have helped school staff get a sense of how iPads can be integrated into student learning activities.
Feedback from the iPad Pilot
Montgomery High School science teacher David Miller had the following feedback following his use of the iPad set:
I found the iPad very useful as a curriculum tool. It creates a high level of interest and nearly all students immediately took to it, being the digital natives that they are. We used an app for building circuits. It allowed students a “hands-on opportunity” to build circuits and manipulate them in a no-risk learning environment. This made the students more comfortable and better prepared to build actual circuits in the lab using real wire leads, light bulbs, and batteries.
Presentation tools like Educreations show a lot of promise both for teachers and students. The only serious limitation was the lack of Flash player, since many of the great web-based science simulations use Flash.
I have just begun to scratch the surface of what is possible and am excited about the possibilities of a digital classroom where students have access to online textbooks and are able to post their work electronically to the web or through email. As a former art teacher, I find that the iPad apps for drawing, painting, and sculpting rival those for desktop computers at a fraction of the cost. I could imagine an art class where students use the iPad as a drawing/painting tablet and then post their work online for feedback through apps such as Sketchclub or use the Internet for source material or to access the many art tutorials that are available.
Try before you buy, is an intelligent option with technology. Ask vendors about opportunities they have. If you’re at a Sonoma County school and are interested in seeing how new kinds of hardware can work in your classroom, consider spending a week with 15 devices. SCOE also has a set of 15 Chromebooks in the try-before-you-buy program.
Contacts
For the iPad Set | Rick Phelan, rphelan@scoe.org
For the Chromebook Set | Matt O’Donnell, modonnell@scoe.org
Blog: Technology for Learners
