WEBVTT

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This is the brief on the evolution of school

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technology. We're diving into Gary Ackerman's

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research on how schools finally stopped bleeding

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cash on rapidly aging computer labs and crack

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the code on sustainable tech, turning a massive

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money pit into a seriously exciting financial

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rescue story. First, let's look at the problem.

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From 1980 to roughly 2000, schools were absolutely

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trapped in this brutal cycle of obsolescence.

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They'd blow massive capital on pricey personal

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computers that literally turned into dysfunctional

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paperweights in under five years, forcing the

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whole cycle to repeat. Think about it like buying

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a massive fleet of brand new company cars only

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to watch every single engine inevitably die at

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the exact same time. It's a total nightmare.

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Second, the strategy. Post 2000, instead of replacing

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everything all at once, schools moved to a rolling

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replacement cycle. They started swapping out

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just a small fraction of their worn -out tech

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each year to actually stabilize costs. But this

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naturally leads to a huge new problem, right?

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How do you make a continuous replacement cycle

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affordable? Finally, the mechanism. Schools stopped

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obsessing over powerful individual devices and

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pivoted entirely to the network. Bolstered by

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eRate, which is a financial support program specifically

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for school network infrastructure, they just

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bought cheap internet -only devices. Honestly,

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Why buy a wildly expensive supercomputer for

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every student when a cheap, simple window to

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the cloud does the exact same job? Ultimately,

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by trading heavy, expensive hardware for the

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cloud and rolling updates, schools have finally

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broken the costly curse of the five -year tech

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graveyard.