How are you funding your iPad program?

[Sam Gliksman]

I'll often get messages from site members asking about ways to get funding for an iPad program at their school. What better way of helping each other out? Share your insights and suggestions...

 

Sam Gliksman

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Twitter: @samgliksman

[Estela Landeros-Dugourd]

One idea would be to seek help from your Rotary Clubs. This organization has funding for local projects in several areas and education is one of them. If you present a simple proposal to the club in your area, they can ask for support to other clubs and together fund your project. Try them.

[Sam Gliksman]

There are many government subsidy programs that fall under the radar. For example, California schools can apply to the "Teleconnect Fund" and easily get a 50% subsidy on telecommunications expenses. All you need to do is fill out an online form. That's many thousands of dollars that can be saved and then applied to the technology program. Check what's available in your state.

[paulthebert]

I wrote a grant request... I should find out by the end of the month if we got funding.

[Roger L. Burtner]

The elementary school district in Fullerton, CA has a 1:1 MacBook program in some schools in grades 2-8 that is funded by the parents who purchased the laptops.  An iPad2 program could be modeled after this program at lower cost.  I work with a private school which used donations/grants to install classroom infrastructure and teacher equipment in each classroom that consists of an interactive whiteboard, hi-def, wide-screen, ultra-short-throw video projector, teacher's MacBook Pro laptop and iPad2, wireless printer, Internet router, Apple TV unit and a wireless network.  Doceri software, Apple TV and Apple's iOS5 operating system make the laptop and iPads wirelessly interactive with the whiteboard.

Parents are charged a tech fee (similar to a registration fee) each year of $350 or $37.50 per month to cover the cost of an iPad2 for their student.  Each student received an iPad2 at the beginning of the school year that was obtained through the Apple 2-year, lease/purchase program.  The fee covers the cost of the iPad2, an extended warranty, a protective case, and insurance against accident, theft and vandalism anywhere in the world.  Students are asked to take the iPads home at night and on weekends and are required to bring them to school fully charged each day. 

[Matt Baier]

We are a private school so most of our money comes from tuition. To fund our iPad 1:1 program next year the teachers have to find enough textbook savings to offset the extra money parents will pay to fund to the program.

For example, next year we will use a digital textbook in our American Government classes instead of a traditional textbook.  The old book costs $60-$80.  The digital book is $15 for a semester subscription.

If the parents have to pay $400 a year to pay for the iPad leases, then we need to save them $400 a year in textbook costs.

Some of us are working on creating our own collections of resources to replace the textbook which we could distribute on the iPads for free. This way the iPad program is actually saving our parents money.

I realize that is is probably not an option in public schools but maybe its an approach that will work in other private schools.

[Roger L. Burtner]

We too are looking at potentially saving money on textbooks that could instead be used to support the iPad program.  At this time textbook companies are in the process of adapting their business models to the new digital realities.  For example ck12.org has numerous digital textbooks that are free and meet California state standards.  Most are for the upper grades.  Also Khan Academy is a major resources for teaching materials that may supplant/complement some textbooks.  

Our tech fee will probably eventually be made part of the registration fee which has been used to buy textbooks and supplies.  

[Kim Floyd]

I began my iPad integration with one iPad, yes, one. The next year I wrote another grant (Kiwannis) and got one more.  I would suggest that if you can't get funding for an entire cart and 1:1 iPads, start with what you can get!  I found that "seeing is believing" and as my district, my PTA, and my parents saw the benefits of using two iPads, they began to "buy in".  (Today I have 15 iPads, given by a philanthropist who believed in what he could see.)  I was able to use two iPads with 24 kindergarten kids last year  with no Wifi.  Where there is a will, there is a way.  I had no funding for apps, so I found everything I could find for free, shortly thereafter my parents started donating iTunes cards so I could add more apps.  The benefit of having only a few iPads, was that I was able to manage them myself, without the district limiting my app selection. (Shhh, don't tell, please)  With the iPad cart, the district maintains complete controll and I am not able to purchase all of the apps I want when I find them.  I use iPads everyday and don't always need 1:1, so my advice is to start small if you have to.

[Roger L. Burtner]

I have been advised by a woman who supervised a large pre-school program on Long Island last year that there are many apps for kindergarteners and pre-schoolers, but that it is best not to have more than one or two iPads in a classroom at those grade levels.  Apple sells iPads in packs of ten and we had a few more than we needed for backup in our 1:1 iPad program for grades 3-8 so we will be giving them to our kindergarten and pre-K teachers to experiment with over the holidays.  

Our kindergarten and grades 1-2 have the same classroom tech infrastructure as the upper grades except that we use eBeam rather than Doceri for the interactive whiteboard component because the students and teachers in the lower grades have not had iPads.   

[Michael Hoke]

I specialize in working with education to implement 1:1 iPad and Macbook programs all across the country (for both K12 and higher ed). I find that the greatest challenge is not necessarily in coming up with the initial funds to make the first iPad purchase, but in putting a "system" in place that most cost effectively manages the preferred iPad "refresh" process at any given school, over time. Donations and grants are wonderful, but how will you fund next year's acquisition, and the year after that? How will you track all of the iPads for each student? How will you decommission each iPad when they've exceeded their useful life? How will you manage the obsolescence risk of iPad technology knowing that Apple will most likely come out with newer and better iPad technology almost every year moving forward? Most of the schools we work with put in place a lease-based refresh model for their iPad programs. Over a three year period they're paying only 97% of the actual purchase price for the iPads, they have a process in place which ensures they'll never have an iPad on campus over three years old and they are supplied with all of the support and tracking tools they will need to effectively manage the program (all at no additional cost). As mentioned in one of the comments below, most of these schools pass on the lease cost to the students in the form of a technology fee which coincides with the school's lease payments. Here are two examples of schools we work with who have successfully implemented 1:1 programs. The first is an article in "The Journal" for the Tower School in Massachusetts. The second is a case study video for Xavarian High School in New York City.

The Tower School: Massachusetts

http://thejournal.com/Articles/2011/08/03/Tower-Schools-11-Program-...

Xavarian High School - New York City

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1hj7YTqpsjY&noredirect=1

We work with over 300 educational institutions all accross the county so if you would like to learn more about how schools are funding and managing these types of programs, I would be happy to share some insight.

[Kim Beiderman]

I used Title III funds (ESL) to purchase 17 iPads with 3 more to buy soon. I have about 70 ELLs which gets me about $200 a student. Title III needs to be used to supplement, not supplant the curriculum and technology is an approved method to do this. I'm piloting these now with my high school ELLs, but I hope to buy a few more every year to help grow the idea in my school. We also used School Improvement money to buy a class set of iPod Touches, but these are not in use yet.

[Roger L. Burtner]

Many 1:1 laptop programs use a 3-year lease/refresh cycle because laptops are more expensive than iPads and the useful life may be a bit longer than iPads for which the technological life may be shorter.  It is for that reason that we opted for a 2-year lease/refresh cycle for our iPads.  Initially we were going to ask parents to purchase iPads for their students but decided not to for the following reasons: 1) the initial cost would be significantly higher, 2) they would be asked to do it again in about 2 years, and 3) we would lose control of what apps and content would be on the iPads.  Michael Hoke above makes some other good points for having a 2- or 3-year lease/refresh program.  By retaining ownership we have much tighter control of what is on the iPads and how they are used.  

I have heard that some schools have a policy in which students bring their own devices to school.  With so many different devices available with differing capabilities I fail to see how a teacher can implement an effective learning program.  It would either have to be dumbed down to the lowest capability or seemingly be complex and chaotic.    

[Michael Hoke]

Roger, all great points and I'm very glad to see you're on a 2 year refresh with the iPads. In regards to your comments, I too always highly recommend a 2 year refresh for iPads, for the reasons you stated. Keeping current with technology is no longer a static, or periodic activity. It's very dynamic and constantly evolving (especially for hand-held devices). Therefore, budgeting for the 21st century classroom needs to be a conversation that happens right alongside all discussions about the actual technology in the 21st century classroom. It does a school no good to focus only how they will pay for a particular piece of equipment, if they know for a fact that they'll be refreshing that equipment every 2-3 years. The point being, you can't budget for and pay for technology the same way you budget for and pay for a piece of furniture (which is how most schools pay for technology - year to year - out of the capital budget). The schools with the most strategic approach to keeping current with technology do so with a technology budget that view's keeping current as an ongoing, level and predictable expense, rather than a year-to-year "capital expense" that just so happens to pop up every year. My company recently hosted a peer discussion on Budgeting for the 21st Century Classroom out at EDUCUASE in Philadelphia. We had CIOs from about 40 higher education institutions in attendance to include Yale, Carnegie Melon and Syracuse. From that event we created a white paper on Budgeting for the 21st Century classroom which illustrates the direction many schools are moving in (I've included that white paper below). In regards to 1:1 programs, one cannot lose sight of the "program" that needs to be in place to successfully facilitate what will turn out to be several acquisitions that occur on a regular basis over time. Therefore, "how" we pay for technology becomes just as important as "what" we intend to acquire.

White Paper - Budgeting for the 21st Century Classroom

http://www.faeducationfinance.com/filehandler.ashx?x=586

Many 1:1 laptop programs use a 3-year lease/refresh cycle because laptops are more expensive than iPads and the useful life may be a bit longer than iPads for which the technological life may be shorter.  It is for that reason that we opted for a 2-year lease/refresh cycle for our iPads.  Initially we were going to ask parents to purchase iPads for their students but decided not to for the following reasons: 1) the initial cost would be significantly higher, 2) they would be asked to do it again in about 2 years, and 3) we would lose control of what apps and content would be on the iPads.  Michael Hoke above makes some other good points for having a 2- or 3-year lease/refresh program.  By retaining ownership we have much tighter control of what is on the iPads and how they are used.  

I have heard that some schools have a policy in which students bring their own devices to school.  With so many different devices available with differing capabilities I fail to see how a teacher can implement an effective learning program.  It would either have to be dumbed down to the lowest capability or seemingly be complex and chaotic.