At best, insurance is a crucial investment that leads to peace of mind after large educational technology expenditures. If something goes wrong, the insurer pays the claim. At worst, insurance premiums siphon money from school budgets while lining the pockets of distant company executives. John Connolly, director of technology at Consolidated High…

When it comes to implementing a large-scale 1-to-1 computing initiative, deciding which device students will use every day to support their learning requires a significant amount of thought and research. Laptop, netbook, Chromebook, tablet--each device has enough similarities to make the decision seem easy, but enough differences to make a big…

Prince George's County Public Schools in Maryland, just outside of Washington, DC, has 125,000 students, 200 schools, and an annual budget of about $1.6 billion. Last year that budget was cut by about $16 million. The year before it was cut by $80 million. Every year now, it seems, school districts are forced to leave no stone unturned when it…

The Forest Hills Local Schools board in Ohio had always been supportive of a 1-to-1 program, but it simply did not have the resources to buy every student a computer. The district had some laptops available, but only enough for about one out of every five students. So, when a teacher wanted to integrate technology into a lesson, the machines had…

Few computing devices have sparked the burning gizmo lust ignited by the iPad. Apple's latest entry into the tablet PC market didn't generate much heat when it was first unveiled in January, but by April 3, the day of the official release, feverish customers were mobbing Apple stores. The company claims to have sold 300,000 iPads by midnight on…