The Boothbay-Boothbay Harbor Community School District School Committee heard from Technology Integrator Abby Manahan and IT Coordinator Brynne Roseberry about the latest in the schools’ technology Dec.11.

Manahan and Roseberry reflected on their and BRES Technology Coordinator Zachary Gray’s attendance of the annual Association for Computer Technology Educators of Maine (ACTEM) conference in October. Between the three tech educators, they covered sessions on digital processes for evaluating work habits; the future of the Maine Technology Learning Initiative (MLTI); filmmaking as an introduction to digital tech classes; coaching adult learners; what's new in Google; engaging Science Technology Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) with iPad; and coding at the primary level.

“They are going to some very good conferences,” said Superintendent Keith Laser. “It's important that they stay up to speed with this stuff and I think it's important that they come back and report what they're learning because there's a lot.”

Manahan expressed some of the frustration with the current iPad Airs students at Boothbay Region High School are using.

“If you were to ask a freshman student they will tell you, ‘Wait a minute. I had a Pro in eighth grade and now you're giving me an Air?’” said Manahan. “It's a downgrade. What we didn't quite realize or bank on was that the iPad Airs have reached the end of their life. They’re  no longer accepting software updates.”

Manahan contacted the school's Apple representative. Luckily, there is an iPad Air buyback program that will pay $90 per device totaling $8,640, Manahan said. But she said the CSD will need to act fast because the more schools that do it, the less they will get for each device.

With another $30,000 in the high school’s budget, the plan so far is to hold onto the BRES iPad Pros as the CSD is still under contract for them. Once the lease is up, a cohort of the devices will be kept and the rest will be sold. Manahan said the CSD should strive for a two-year finance contract for the next program, but with MLTI's future unknown, so are the types of devices.

She said Chromebooks are quickly becoming more popular as they can do more than the Apple Education iPad 10.2s and cost much less. They will also be easier to upgrade, said Roseberry, and gaming will be much easier to block.

As students and faculty are using Google Suite more and more, they are finding it frustrating to navigate the Google apps from the iPads. It is affecting their productivity and workflow, and that is another reason why Chromebooks, a Google device, would be far easier to work with, Manahan said.

Roseberry gave an example of accessing PDFs on an iPad: the PDF must be downloaded and viewed either through iBooks or another third party app which also must be downloaded. “The workflow is very inhibited ... We're seeing not just the gaming, we are seeing there is some functionality with the iPads that just don't work as well as we would like them to.”

Manahan and Roseberry suggested a future program might include letting students own the devices once they graduate, as a way to increase students’ accountability and responsibility. “It’s a depreciated device, but it may help them in their first year of college,” Manahan said.

If that change is made, the CSD would need to budget for new devices every year, said Manahan. She put the cost in the ballpark of $14,000. Insurance and repairs will increase the cost, but after the first investment of around $47,000, it will be a fairly small item, she said.

Laser said a similar program he helped start at Regional School Unit (RSU) 67 proved quite successful. He said the high school provided Chromebooks for all students and rarely had a problem with care. “It was a very popular program. They took care of them and it was because they knew they were going to keep them.”

Manahan reported the CSD nailed down a final eRATE upgrade for both schools with about 70% of the funds to be reimbursed by the federal government. The BRHS invoice is $11,380.50, BRES’s is $22,594.50 and the CSD will get reimbursed $7,021.35 and $15,815.80, respectively.