Keys to Managing 20,000 Devices in One Year

The Rowan-Salisbury School District sure knows what it’s doing with MacBook Airs and it was very evident on Tuesday afternoon. Candace Salmon-Hosey, Clark Poole, and Andrew J. Smith of the North Carolina district explained how they successfully rolled out a one-to-one MacBook Air program for their district of 20,000 students and 2,000 staff.

They went through several categories of DOs and DON’T’s to help other schools roll out the most successful one-to-one initiative possible — and they should know, they rolled out 1,128 MacBook Airs to their teachers in one day! Here are the lessons that the Rowan-Salisbury School District passed on to us:

DOs:

• Secure buy-in from the top down
• Send teacher leaders to technology conferences to build capacity and knowledge
• Create a “Back to School” Conference to create pervasive knowledge across the district
• Create Frequently Asked Questions document
• Create parent involvement nights
• Secure a recurring line-item within the budget
• Begin with an external audit of the network and infrastructure
• Notify your ISP of your intentions to implement a one-to-one to increase bandwidth
• Develop user interface for under-13 Apple IDs
• Develop a work flow for day-to-day operations
• Enable staff to learn independently

DON’T’s:

• Forget the community ecosystem
• Forget to ensure professional development is consistent and continual
• Forget to build “partnerships” with vendors
• Confuse wireless coverage and wireless density
• Depend on end-of-life equipment
• Overlook the details
• Forget to change Board of Education Policies

To learn more, check out the Rowan-Salisbury School System video to see their roll out in action. 

Watch the full video of this session now.