“Nepean School is a school for children with a physical disability or significant health impairment. Technology provides exciting opportunities for our students to access learning and communicate. We recently chose to invest in iPads as they offer our students easy access, they are light, portable and the range of apps available is amazing.

We purchased 15 iPads for use across the school, we set up a 1:1 program in one of secondary classes and the remaining iPads are available to be used across the school. The kids just love them! They are used across the school in Literacy, Maths, Art, Science, Communication, Leisure, Music, Homecrafts programs and more! Our younger primary students have really enjoyed practising literacy skills like spelling and reading, whilst our older secondary students use email and Safari to search the web. Teachers had the opportunity to ‘play’ with the iPads and explore the apps and plan for ways they could be used with their students.

We ran some introductory sessions for parents and shared with them the apps we had selected for our iPads. Families have found it very helpful to have the same apps on their iPads at home to support their child’s learning. We have also put regular iPad hints, tips and app reviews in our newsletter. The students just love working with the iPads! They have been so well received we recently purchased another five!

At the end of Term 1 Northcote High School deployed 520 Lenovo ThinkPad X220 notebooks for years 9 & 10. To ensure the large project was successfully managed and implemented, there was a great deal of planning and collaboration between the staff at Northcote, students, parents and Network Neighborhood.

"The roll-out of 520 devices in 2 days was successful as a result of smooth planning and efficient processes. The key was effective communication between our IT department, 1:1 Learning Leader, staff, students & parents. Careful planning - such as placing asset stickers on the box of the laptop as well as the laptop itself - meant that they were scanned into the system in no time during the deployment process. Students are enjoying the independence of having their own device at all times and are actively engaged in classroom activities and group work making use of the device as a learning tool."

Mooorolbark College started the 1:1 journey with the participation in the Yarra Valley eLearning Community in 2006 with 7 local secondary schools. This saw the College implement a 2:1 initiative for years 7-8. Over the last five years the college has worked on building our infrastructure with the support of Network Neighborhood to prepare for a 1:1 deployment over years 7-12. During term 1 the College deployed 443 Lenovo X220 Notebooks to the existing fleet bringing the College to a 1:1 ratio across years 7-12.

"The deployment of 443 Lenovo X220s into the College fleet was extremely successful as a result of extensive planning and the streamline processes developed by the technical team. To ensure the solution being deployed addressed the needs of the college and the key stakeholders (teachers, students and parents) had input into the roadmap and eventually the devices to be deployed. The College is continuing on an exciting and engaging eLearning journey with a solution that provides access to technology within the teaching and learning environment and equipping students with the skills they will need in the 21st century and their integration into this 24/7 global community."

"Network Neighborhood has helped successfully develop and implement a one to one program at East Doncaster Secondary College. Through providing a secure online portal to the parents of students, East Doncaster Secondary College is able to easily direct all iPad sales and personally owned iPad configurations to a single point. Parents are able to select from three popular packages which include, the iPad of choice, a case, bag and iTunes voucher. Should additional accessories be required, they can also be purchased during the process.

All students are then able to receive their new device, pre- configured with wireless access and any personally owned devices are manually configured by a technician provided on the day. The process has a minimal impact on existing technical support and works as a complete deployment strategy to assist with achieving a goal of one to one."

Michael Fitzgerald, Assistant Principal East Doncaster Secondary College