Sustainable 1 to 1 Learning Transforms Alaska District’s Culture
Apple 1 to 1 Learning
Since the fall of 2004, when iBook and PowerBook laptops were distributed to all sixth- to twelfth-grade teachers and students in the Denali Borough School District, classroom culture has undergone a dramatic transformation. Now, says Pete Vraspir, chief information officer for the district, “Our students can’t imagine being without their Apple laptops for even an hour.”
“With the help of the Apple laptops, we’ve seen an improvement over the last few years in student achievement, in every level.”
— Pete Vraspir, Chief Information Officer, Denali Borough School District
Vraspir says the Apple laptops have enabled powerful technology tools to become infused throughout all learning activities and content areas. Students have switched from traditional pen-and-paper reports to creating rich digital research projects using the iLife suite, and saving them in electronic portfolios and DVDs. Teachers have set up electronic drop-boxes on their schools’ Xserves, which enable paperless submission and grading of classroom assignments. And district Xserve RAID systems house the schools’ ever-growing digital archives of students’ work.
The Denali district acquired its initial group of PowerBook and iBook laptops in 2003 with the help of a creative leasing program made possible by Apple Financial Services (AFS) Education Finance. Since then, Vraspir and his team have come up with what may be the country’s first, entirely sustainable 1 to 1 learning program. In this model, the district uses a combination of grant funds and its regular technology budget to lease new Apple laptops each year (Denali also receives discounted Internet access through the Federal E-rate program). At the end of a student’s high school career, he or she will then be offered a buy-out of the laptop
Since the 1 to 1 learning program was rolled out in the Denali district, the news has been consistently good. Denali’s “Peak Performance” participants who used the Apple laptops during the full school year were the only home-schooled students in the entire state to meet the national AYP (Adequate Yearly Progress) standard. The arrival of the iBook laptops also has sparked a districtwide excitement for learning: Discipline referrals are decreasing every year, and students and teachers now consider the computers to be an integral learning tool.
