So everyone has a computer, now what? and Bytespeed

My next seminars were with the Newell-Fonda School District & Bytespeed Computers, explaining to us what to do with our laptops. Now since we are just in the early stages of implementing a 1:1 institute we still have a lot to do. But some of the things that we learned from this is to pilot them first. By doing this we need to get some students to help us with this by getting a few of the laptops that we are looking at, let them try them, get some feedback from the student, teachers, parents and other staff. Once we get them all figured out on what we want to do, we will go further. But right now we are looking at deciding between Apples and Windows. They both have pros and cons. And as a technology person I'm looking for the best things for our students. But also want to make as simple as I can for our teachers and myself. And with Apple they have some really great products, good professional development and also great support. But they have some downsides on the technician side. How ever the company we are planning on choosing for our Windows side is Bytespeed Computers, and they are working with another company from Milford, Thinix. These two are both working on a user interface that will really be easier for our students. But then the group asked with aren't that we are suppose to be teaching students how to use computer. So if we are teaching them how to use an interface that we create at our district, how are we benefiting them. And I answered back, we aren't suppose to teach them how to use Windows, Apple or Linux, we are there to teach them how to utilize the resources that they have in front of them. So if we gave them a laptop with Apple operating system, that doesn't mean that we are teaching them to like Apple, and even the same with Windows. We are teaching them to take advantage of all the stuff that we supply them.