IRVINE — William Kim began scribbling on his dry erase board as soon as a decimal subtraction problem popped up on a screen in front of the classroom.
The sixth-grader at Portola Springs Elementary School quickly looked up at the screen again, narrowing his eyes, to make sure the numbers he wrote down on the board were accurate. When he was done, Kim selected an answer from four choices on the laptop screen on his desk.
When the time was up, his teacher, Ashley Deason, showed the correct answer on the big screen, along with how many students got it right. Kim, who chose the correct answer, pumped his fist.
Deason is among about 170 Irvine Unified School District teachers whose students have one-to-one access to Google’s Chromebook laptop computers. That means there’s a Chromebook for every student in these classrooms.
Over the last five years, the district has expanded its one-to-one program, increasing the number of Chromebooks from 7,500 to more than 34,000. At least 57 percent of the students now have access to a Chromebook whenever their teachers want them to during school hours, which allows students to learn at their own pace and based on their needs, district officials said.
“You can revolutionize teaching,” Deason, 27, said, adding that technology helps fill an experiential gap between young teachers like herself and veteran teachers.
After the aforementioned review quiz using an online tool called Kahoot!, Deason directed students to watch a video about division on their Chromebooks. She records such 10- to 15-minute videos at home.
She then called several students to the front of the classroom to work closely with them, while the rest of the class studied on their own wearing headphones.
“You can be in two places — one teaching on video and one with a small group,” Deason said. “It’s great how I can target kids struggling.”
She said students tend to focus more while studying on video, which they can stop and rewind.
“It’s like being one-to-one with your teacher,” said 11-year-old Santiago Becerril in Deason’s class.
Many students said they prefer working on a laptop to books and pen and paper because they can keep all their work in one place without having to carry them around in a heavy backpack.
Also, they say working on Chromebooks makes it easier for them to work with other students. For example, they can write and edit on the same Google Doc simultaneously or instantly share the document with other students afterward.
“I really enjoy having a Chromebook because it gives me the freedom to work on my own,” six-grader Kate Abalos said.
The district’s Educational Technology team, known internally as EdTech, oversees the one-to-one program, which gave out about $500,000 in new Chromebooks this year.
Teachers enrolled in the program are required to attend two workshops where they learn and share tips on how to incorporate Chromebooks and services such as Googe suites into their classrooms.
Those who participated in a recent workshop said they’ve seen more interaction among students, like teaching one another, with the introduction of the one-to-one program.
“Technology connects people if it’s used correctly,” said Greg Guy, who teaches social sciences at Northwood High School.
The EdTech team, which has grown from just two staffers to 14 in the last four years, doesn’t fix computers or solve technical problems like regular IT folks do. Instead, it helps teachers use technology in their classes, director Serena McKinney said.
She said the team’s goal is beyond just showing teachers and students how to use digital tools. Its focus is on improving how much students are actually learning, McKinney said.
“It’s not even about the devices at that point,” she said. “It’s more about the way and how they’re appropriately used to meet the needs of these students.”
The district chose Chromebooks, instead of Macs or PCs, because they are much cheaper, quick to start up and durable, McKinney said. With ample services available online now, full-featured laptops aren’t as necessary as they once were, she said.
Mike Morrison, a history teacher at Rancho San Joaquin Middle School, said the one-to-one program closes the gap between students who have multiple computers at home and those who have less.
“I don’t even know all the possibilities,” Morrison said. “I’m going to find out.”
