FLASHBACK FRIDAY: Back in October 2013, Guilford County Schools suspended its three-year $16.8 million Amplify tablet rollout due to 1,500 broken screens and one melted charger. But by February, the tentative agreement was back on for 2014-2015, and EdWeek caught up with Guilford administrators this week to assess the first half of the school year. According to Guilford reps, the deployment of nearly 18,000 Amplify devices to 28 schools has occurred largely without incident. Breakage rates are down, and focus is now being placed on the integration of tech into classroom instruction, reports Robin Britt, Guilford's director of instructional technology. However, this is where Guilford has drawn a small line with Amplify, electing to not purchase Amplify's curriculum for middle-grades English/language arts. "We see [the device] as a way to break out of the mass production, one-size-fits-all model," Britt told EdWeek. "We see it less as a curriculum tool and more as a student-independence tool."
