Interview 5 of Twittering for Education
Lack of resources is one of the main barriers to teachers integrating technology in the classroom. One of the main goals of this blog is to find solutions to these barriers by highlighting effective solutions implemented in school districts. For this reason, I was excited to interview Rich Kiker (@rkiker) and discover how he implemented a 1:1 program at his school district. Rich wanted each of the students in his district to have access to the Internet and the wonderful tools online. Therefore, he implemented a 1:1 purchase program and applied for some grants to help support families with no funds. In the interview, he tells us how his program works and how to get this program started at your school. Rich will even Skype with you to walk you through setting up your own 1:1 purchase program. Rich has a passion to repeat the success of his program to those schools wanting to get their students connected!
More Information
Bio
Rich Kiker is an Instructional Technology & Design Consultant specializing in professional development for new media, web applications, 1:1 computing, online learning and technology pathways. Formerly a Media Technology Chair and Technology Coordinator, he is now a consultant for several educational agencies, school districts, and an adjunct professor. You can contact him at www.kikerlearning.com or on Twitter as @rkiker.
You can visit the 1:1 Palisades Page to find out more information about the program.
Here’s how Gary Adams, Palisades Director of Technology, describes the program:
Essentially we have segmented our student device traffic from our production network by using DHCP reservations and logically segmenting them into a separate subnet that is firewalled from the production network. Unfortunately our wireless system doesn’t currently lend itself to using multiple SSIDs, otherwise we would have done this and assigned access to the “guest” SSID to a totally separate VLAN. They are able to access network resources from this segmented network, and from home for that matter, through a remote desktop connection. The remote desktop server provides them with access to their documents on the network as well as some internal applications and Microsoft Office. This scenario allows the students to purchase a device with the “home” version of any Windows OS, as well as use a device running any other OS that supports a Microsoft Remote Desktop Client, which includes Mac OS X, most flavors of Linux, and even the i-Pad running one of the free RDP clients available via the Apps Store. We can also provide internet access to wifi enabled smart devices such as the i-Pod Touch, i-Phone or Android devices.
Previous Interviews
Check out the previous interviews Twittering for Education- Jo and Phil Hart, Twittering for Education- Eric and Melissa Sheninger, Twittering for Education- Will and Elle Deyamport, and Connected Principals- George Couros!
Challenge:
Investigate ways to get technology resources to your students. Lack of resources does not have to be a barrier.
We miss the opportunity to utilize the technology tucked in every student’s pocket, backpack or book bag……their cell phone or droid, or i touch. This is technology! Our students are not lacking technology exposure they are lacking instruction and practice on how to use it to obtain crucial information to raise their grades. We train them on technology and then take it away at testing time? With this practice what is their motivation to focus and utilize technology for educational purposes?
Scott,
This is so true! I recently wrote another post in which I showed a video that said the same thing. Students are going to use their cell phones anyway. We have to decide to allow them to use the tools they will have to use for their jobs and teach them how to problem solve and communicate with these tools. Thank you for bringing this issue to attention.
Fantastic interview Shelly and Rich! I couldn’t agree more with what Scott said, we are missing out on opportunities to go one to one when we won’t allow our students to access the technologies they already have. The school I worked at had students from wealthier families. They ALL had the technology…the problem? Administration said they couldn’t bring it to school and learn with it. So here they are 7 years later, still trying to raise fund for a 1 to 1 program and all along the solution is right there in front of them.
I love the split screen interview format. You continue to prove that the world is a smaller place everyday. As I’m a virtual video moron, how did you achieve the split screen?
Hi Todd!
You’re not a moron at all. It’s a free video tool! I used a free service called Wetoku, http://wetoku.com/.