The Lie about Computers in Schools: When 1 to 1 is 0 to 1
You may have heard about all of the schools that have 1 to 1 devices , Chromebooks, iPads or Windows computers. It’s a lie.
I’m not saying that no schools have a device for every child. I’m sure some do. However, one thing the last four years has taught me is that surveys, or even interviews, are no substitute for going into a building to see for yourself.
We’ve been looking at the barriers to implementing educational software in schools. In the process, we’ve visited 42 schools, in the US and Chile, along with conducting many interviews. (Thank you immensely, by the way, if you’re were part of this sample.)
Here is the TL; DR version — Many schools that claim to have a device for each child have no computers at all, or very few
Of the 32 US schools, 100% of the administrators told us that their schools had computers. Of those 32 schools, 8 had no computers at all for at least start of the study period. Three schools had one or two computer labs shared by 15 classrooms or more, giving the students, at most three hours per week of access to computers.
