Aurora’s school districts are putting their weight behind netbooks for students with help from the Title I stimulus
By AARON COLE
The Aurora Sentinel
Published: Wednesday, October 7, 2009 3:56 PM MDT
AURORA | Small, cheap, tough and perfect. That’s how local school districts are describing netbooks for educational use.
Netbooks — small notebook computers with a 10-inch screen or smaller — are turning into the preferred method for school districts around Aurora to get more computers in more students’ hands.
Cherry Creek recently purchased more than 250 of the personal computers, bringing their total up to 500 netbook computers this year.
Chief Information Officer Ben Startzer said the district would purchase even more of the low-cost netbooks over the next year, eventually bumping that number up to around 1,000.
“Really we see them as affordable and reliable options,” said Startzer.
Similarly, Aurora Public Schools uses 1,100 of the computers at its schools and plans to purchase 600 more this year, according to Ivan Duran, director of APS technology.
That push started a year ago when the district tested about 100 of the small computers at one of its schools to see if the computers would be effective tools in the classroom, Duran said.
Based on that initial success, Duran and the district purchased more, and he says he plans on hitting the 2,000 to 3,000 mark sometime this year.
The local increase is mirrored nationwide. Industry researcher IDC reported in June that the netbook market is projected to grow 60 percent each year from 2008 to 2013.
A Dell spokeswoman said while sales numbers aren’t made public at the company, sales of the netbooks to school districts have risen significantly since the start of the year. The computermaker currently supplies more than 1,000 districts across the country with the netbooks.
Duran said studying the use at other districts prompted APS to purchase the computers last year.
“We did see them as a lower-cost option for teachers to get this technology in the hands of students and really have a direct impact,” he said.
Netbooks have taken off in recent years mainly because of the small price attached to the computers. Most netbooks fall within a $400 to $500 price range, with several models under the $400 threshold.
Comparatively, laptops average around $800, making the netbook purchases ideal for most within the district.
Although underpowered compared to many notebooks and desktops, netbooks are suited mainly for word processing and light Internet duty.
Duran said APS students use the machines for word processing; however, web-based applications allow for the small books to venture into different applications such as photography and video applications. Many of the netbooks are equipped with built-in cameras for students to videoconference.
Netbooks at APS run on Linux Ubuntu, which is a free, open-source operating system distributed on the Internet. That helps keep costs down, Duran said, and the district mainly uses web applications that are freely distributed and require no licensing fees.
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“GIMP is the GNU Image Manipulation Program. It is a freely distributed piece of software for such tasks as photo retouching, image composition and image authoring. It works on many operating systems, in many languages.”
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