The benefits of 1:1 devices in schools

10/21/22 • 35 min

Microsoft 365 User Adoption for Schools, MATs and Districts

In this episode Darren Hemming speaks to Stefan from Lingfield College about the rollout and adoption of 1:1 devices.
Find out more about Cloud Design Box at https://www.clouddesignbox.co.uk

The benefits of 1:1 devices in schools with Lingfield College

The Director of Digital Learning at Linfield College talks about the school’s plan to roll out per-student devices to every student and the challenges and benefits that come with digital transformation.

Lingfield College is a co-educational independent school in Surrey for pupils aged two to eighteen. Stefan Hagen is the Director of Digital Learning and works with his team to help drive digital learning within the school, working with the school’s partner companies – including Cloud Design Box – to deliver quality technology to staff and students.

The school has bold plans to introduce a per-student device policy – eventually rolling out touch-screen laptops to every student within the school.

In this podcast episode, we discuss the challenges of moving to blended learning, as well as the many benefits that come with a 1:1 device policy in education.

Stefan also outlines what the school has done so far to lay the foundations for this digital learning strategy and what the plan is to accomplish their goal of per-student devices.

A vision for cloud-based learning.

Lingfield College had begun looking at ways to “get digital moving”, as Stefan puts it before the pandemic.

But, things didn’t move as quickly as they had hoped and as the pandemic and subsequent lockdowns hit in the UK, the school had to move quickly to deliver quality lessons via Microsoft Teams.

“When we returned to the classroom after lockdown, I was keen to keep the momentum that we had built up going, encouraging staff members to use Teams and OneDrive,” Stefan explains.

“However, I realised that many people were fed up with computer screens and that we had to move more slowly and carefully to get everyone on board.”

It was around that time that Lingfield College began working with Cloud Design Box to create a long-term strategy that would enable the school to migrate to the cloud, which would lay the foundations for their 1:1 device policy.

Moving to the cloud.

“As they say, when you move house, you have a clear out before you move so you don’t take all your junk with you. And, it was the same as we moved from our old servers to the cloud,” Stefan explains.

Cloud Design Box worked with Lingfield College to give staff the time and training they needed to move their resources over to the cloud.

“We set up key milestones and eventually turned the old servers to ‘view-only’ to give staff who hadn’t been able to move resources over yet access without creating a confusing dual system.”

1:1 devices for teachers and school staff.

Moving to the cloud allowed Lingfield College to roll out 1:1 devices for every staff member, allowing teachers to build up their confidence with the new technology.

“This approach made the most sense to us because teachers can get used to the technology as they’re using it for teaching so that when we are ready to roll out 1:1 devices for students, teachers can help resolve some tech issues if they do occur in the classroom.”

Infrastructure challenges that come with 1:1 devices.

As Stefan points out in the podcast, there’s more to think about when rolling out 1:1 devices than simply giving everyone a laptop or tablet.

“Getting the infrastructure right is a challenge. For example, our flooring makes it difficult for us to put charging ports into our classrooms. So we’re now looking at char

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In this episode Darren Hemming speaks to Stefan from Lingfield College about the rollout and adoption of 1:1 devices.
Find out more about Cloud Design Box at https://www.clouddesignbox.co.uk

The benefits of 1:1 devices in schools with Lingfield College

The school has bold plans to introduce a per-student device policy – eventually rolling out touch-screen laptops to every student within the school.

In this podcast episode, we discuss the challenges of moving to blended learning, as well as the many benefits that come with a 1:1 device policy in education.

Stefan also outlines what the school has done so far to lay the foundations for this digital learning strategy and what the plan is to accomplish their goal of per-student devices.

A vision for cloud-based learning.

Lingfield College had begun looking at ways to “get digital moving”, as Stefan puts it before the pandemic.

But, things didn’t move as quickly as they had hoped and as the pandemic and subsequent lockdowns hit in the UK, the school had to move quickly to deliver quality lessons via Microsoft Teams.

“When we returned to the classroom after lockdown, I was keen to keep the momentum that we had built up going, encouraging staff members to use Teams and OneDrive,” Stefan explains.

“However, I realised that many people were fed up with computer screens and that we had to move more slowly and carefully to get everyone on board.”

Moving to the cloud.

Cloud Design Box worked with Lingfield College to give staff the time and training they needed to move their resources over to the cloud.

1:1 devices for teachers and school staff.

Moving to the cloud allowed Lingfield College to roll out 1:1 devices for every staff member, allowing teachers to build up their confidence with the new technology.

Infrastructure challenges that come with 1:1 devices.

As Stefan points out in the podcast, there’s more to think about when rolling out 1:1 devices than simply giving everyone a laptop or tablet.

“Getting the infrastructure right is a challenge. For example, our flooring makes it difficult for us to put charging ports into our classrooms. So we’re now looking at char

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Previous Episode

Getting best value from Microsoft 365 for Education with Jonathan Bishop

An eye opening interview with Jonathan Bishop, the CEO & Executive Headteacher of Cornerstone Academy Trust.

Best value doesn't mean cheapest.
It's not about directly balancing reduced printing costs against buying Surface Pros - the aim is to improve T & L and build staff efficiency while spending effectively.
He talked about needing fewer staff though, which I thought was controversial. Or at least freeing up staff time to do other things. I think different folks may hear that message differently though, depending on whether they are a CEO or a technician! Remember that Cornerstone outsource their technicians...
More expensive devices work better and longer e.g. power requirements
He prefers one-to-one devices to whiteboards - you don't have to turn your back!
He took no prisoners in suggesting that some schools should have done more with ICT - it's not optional. Digital Divides don't just come from families with low incomes - you can have a school down the road who have not prioritised IT enough.
He borrowed the money to buy the Surfaces (well, he leased them). £4K per pupil on average should allows £200 to be spent on a device annually.
Teachers are saving time by marking assessments with the students on their surfaces, rather than taking them away to mark.
MATs have millions (perhaps billions) of pounds sitting in their bank accounts for emergencies. He thinks some of that money should be spent on ICT projects.

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