It was announced last week that we would be refreshing the 1:1 grade 6 iPads this summer, see http://www.prn.bc.ca/ts/?p=2502 for more on that.
At our last refresh of devices we replaced macbooks with ipads. The macbooks were then repurposed into carts at middle schools, made available to grade 5s in a 5/6 split, and as for the rest we asked for ideas. That post and comments are available at – http://www.prn.bc.ca/ts/?p=2199 . Last time we completed the process to reassign these devices late in the fall. Public comments from staff helped to determine that the priority was for primary classrooms for those macbooks. We then later asked for specific requests and filled them.
So in keeping with the philosophy that the “best mind in the room is the room” we’d ask for your public comments on this blog post for ideas for extra ipad minis to be distributed. These ideas as well as district goals will help us determine priorities for distribution. At a later date a form will be made available for requests. We will have several hundred available.
Fine print… Please note these extra 4 yr old ipads are 16GB minis and have been updated to iOS 9.3.5 and will not be able to take a newer OS. There may immediately be compatibility issues, for example the Swift Playgrounds app needs iOS10+ to be installed and cannot run on these devices. The devices that get granted become school owned and the schools will need to bear any costs related to them (carts, apps, repairs etc). These devices haven’t made their way on to our End of Life specs but the OS limitation will cause issues in the near future. They will not be available for sale.