Bridgeport Public Schools equip students for success with Chromebooks and Google Apps At a Glance

What they wanted to do • Increase student access to computers and online resources • Reduce support demands on small IT staff • Find affordable devices to help the district stretch its budget

What they did

• Purchased 9,000 Chromebooks • Adopted Google Apps for Education for email, documents, and file storage • Reduced the number of computer labs in favor of shareable 1:1 devices

What they accomplished

• Gave every student in grades 7-12 access to their own Chromebook, and placed Chromebooks in every district school • Created a more engaged and studentcentered learning environment • Decreased workload for IT staff • Saved thousands of dollars by eliminating computer labs

The District

The Bridgeport Public Schools District serves 21,000 students in Bridgeport, Connecticut – the second-largest district in the state. The district has 37 schools and two alternative programs, and employs 3,500 people.

The Challenge

With only a few aging desktop computers in the back of each elementary and middle-school classroom, and with several desktops isolated in high school computer labs, getting students in the Bridgeport (Conn.) Public Schools district to spend time online wasn’t easy. The school district serves a city whose residents must cope with high unemployment and a rising poverty rate: 95% of the 21,000 students in the district quality for the free/reduced lunch program. Funding for computers has been hard to come by, and students typically don’t have their own computers to use at home. “We always have to get creative about finding funds for new technology,” explains David Andrade, a longtime teacher in Bridgeport schools who became the district’s chief information officer in 2012. Andrade and other members of the district’s technology committee agreed that if they could find funds or grants, getting students better access to computers and the web was the number-one priority. Also high on their list of must-haves for new technology: devices that were easy for the IT team and teachers to manage, and engaging for kids to use. “We have a small IT staff and they have to work across 40 buildings,” Andrade says. “They had 10,000 devices to manage – it was overwhelming, and a nightmare to keep everything updated.” Classrooms for students in 4th through 8th grades only had four desktop computers each, so students had to use them in rotation. More machines were available in Bridgeport’s high school computer labs, but students still had to share access at restricted times. “We wanted kids to get inspired to create things, to work on projects online, and to do research on their own,” Andrade says.

The Solution

In 2009, Andrade launched a blog, Educational Technology Guy, to guide other teachers in using technology to enhance learning. In 2010 he received an early Chromebook from Google as part of a pilot program, and quickly became a fan. Chromebooks, Andrade told the district’s technology committee, could solve the challenges of broader access to devices, at lower cost and less IT support. “The big issue for the committee was whether there was anything students couldn’t do with a Chromebook that they could do on our existing computers – and the answer was no,” Andrade says. Teachers and other committee members also wondered if students could easily learn how to use Chromebooks – at which point Andrade floated the idea of adopting Google Apps for Education at the same time. “It made sense to bring Google Apps to students and teachers when we were buying new devices,” Andrade says. “For one thing, it gave us a way to supply every student with an email address – something we’d never been able to do before. It would help students and teachers stay in touch with each other. We

“With Google, there’s a lot less of ‘listen-to-me’ lecturing, and a lot more of students actively learning and creating projects. Now students can explore resources themselves. It’s much more student-centered.” —David Andrade, CIO, Bridgeport Public Schools

“They help to take your work everywhere you go. You can work on your school work anywhere.” —Stephanie, Grade 12

“They make it easier to hand in work and it decreases your chance of failing.” —Ilani, Grade 10

also realized that we could use Google Drive to move student documents off of our internal file storage system – another way we could save the IT team time and money.” The affordability of Chromebooks clinched the decision. “We could buy three Chromebooks for the price of one desktop, and save support costs at the same time,” Andrade says. The district initially purchased 4,000 Chromebooks for its five high schools, placing a cart with 29 Chromebooks in each classroom (to match the maximum class size for each room). Whenever the district obtained grant money for new technology purchases, Andrade bought more Chromebooks (a mix of HP, Samsung, and Acer), bringing the number to 9,000 by mid-2014, and outfitting all classrooms in grades 7 through 12 with enough Chromebooks for each student. “Eventually, every classroom in grades 4 through 12 will have some Chromebooks,” Andrade says.

The Benefits

Teaching across the district has become more interactive now that Chromebooks can help students get more involved in learning, Andrade says. “With Google, there’s a lot less of ‘listen-to-me’ lecturing, and a lot more of students actively learning and creating projects,” he says. “Before, if teachers wanted to show a video or a website, they had to use a screen to bring it to the entire classroom. Now students can explore these resources themselves. It’s much more student-centered.”

About Google for Education

Google for Education provides open technologies to improve learning for everyone, anywhere. Solutions consist of affordable devices, innovative tools, and educational content designed for learning and built for the classroom. • Chromebooks—fast, secure, portable computers that allow students to collaborate and share their work. Devices starting at $249 that are easy to setup and manage. • Tablets with Google Play for Education— an affordable 1:1 tablet solution that you can set up and manage in minutes. Provide the right educational content by exploring thousands of teacher-approved apps, books and videos. • Google Apps—a suite of communication and collaboration tools free for schools including email, calendar and documents accessible from any device, at any time

Learn more

Get started at google.com/edu/gogoogle

“The impact on my classroom is HUGE. I use my Chromebooks/Apps often. Instead of testing my students with written exams, I now use project based learning. This has helped my students achieve success that was previously unattainable.” —Cori Andrade, science teacher, Bridgeport Public Schools Support needs for Chromebooks are minimal, Andrade says: “There are rarely issues, but even when there are, it takes much less time to fix them. A Chromebook full reset takes about 12 minutes, instead of two hours for a PC.” The 10,000 desktop PCs are being gradually phased out and removed from district classrooms, which will save the IT staff even more time in the future. The Chromebook management console helps the IT team save even more time. “When we change policies, set up filtering, or reset user accounts, the changes happen very quickly for every Chromebook user,” Andrade says. “With Windows, these kinds of updates could take a very long time to get to every device – but with Chromebooks, the changes happen in a minute or two.” Google Apps is also helping provide better tools to teachers and students with less intervention from IT, including providing about 26,000 email accounts. In a typical week, Andrade says, about 7,000 documents are created on Google Drive. The district is also saving money because it doesn’t need as many computer labs as it used to, since nearly every student has access to a Chromebook. In a high school currently under renovation, only two labs will be needed to house high-powered computers, compared to the eight labs needed in the old structure. “We’ll see a huge cost savings – instead of having to run power and cabling and wireless connections to labs, and buying furniture, we’ll just have Chromebooks.” Andrade says. He estimates that constructing a new computer lab would cost $50,000, compared to $11,000 for outfitting a classroom with Chromebooks, which can be used flexibly. © 2014 Google Inc. All rights reserved. Google and the Google logo are trademarks of Google Inc. All other company and product names may be trademarks of the respective companies with which they are associated. 140818