Cost per square foot. Cost per student.
Physical versus virtual.
The savings could go into educational services
Facilities costs for US education
Comparison of the costs of virtual facilities for education and the costs of physical facilities. This might also be instructive for companies that lease a lot of office space.
Universal campus (Kitely)
Free
Facilities costs for US education
- US school districts spent more than $14 billion on constructions in 2014.
- Spaces4Learning
- 36th Annual Maintenance & Operations Cost Study for Schools
- Maintenance & Operations Costs per student = $823.84
- Maintenance & Operations Costs per square foot = $5.09
- School Facilities COST CALCULATOR (includes building costs)
- Total annual ownership costs per sq. ft.=$15.90
- NCES Total expenditures per pupil also included $1,266 in capital outlay
- Total annual cost per student= 1288+824 = $2112.
- What do students learn from a building?
- Example of facilities costs in virtual worlds after the break.
Kitely cost estimates (example)
- Kitely is an installed virtual world that gives users the ability to create objects and program them.
- The Kitely organization plan lets the school manage its digital campus.
- The school uses batch registration to register its students and faculty.
- Specifics of registration determine where the person can go and what they can do.
- The school's digital campus operates as an independent grid.
- It has its own login page.
- Only registered users with the right password can enter.
- I am assuming the school would use the organization plan.
Assuming a Standard Organization
- Standard organization
- "Standard Organizations – can have up to 400 users and 40 worlds, for $99.95/month."
- Typical schools would need more than that according to NCES:
- National Center for Education Statistics (NCES)
- Kitely offers custom arrangements if needed.
- But online schools do not need to fit a catchment area.
- Instead, they might be organized by interest area.
Cost estimate
- Per month (with rounding):
- Organization fee = $1200 annual cost for organization
- 40 advanced worlds @ $40/month $1600
- 1600 *12 = $19,200 annual cost for worlds
- 19000+1200 = $20200 Total annual cost
- Advanced world size: 1024 meters (3359 feet) on a side.
- 3359*3359 = 11,282,881 square feet.
- 11282881*40 = 451,315,240 square feet in 40 worlds.
- 19200/451315240= 0.00004254232 dollars per square foot.
- Clearly cost per square foot is irrelevant here.
- Cost per student is still relevant:
- 20200 /400 = $50.50 dollars per student in Kitely
- Physical campus:Total annual cost per student= 1288+824 = $2112.
- That's over $2000 to go for education instead of for building and maintenance.
Web-worlds costs
- Web-worlds are web sites and so have a price structure for web sites rather than grids.
- Maintenance: At least $400 per year.
- Creation: At Least $12,000. (Compare this to the cost of building a building.)
- Total first year cost year $12,400
- Subsequent years might have much lower costs.
- The startup costs could be less for a school that could use existing "template" places.
- Both web-worlds that I would recommend have templates for classrooms,
- These templates include equipment such as slide and video projectors.
11282881*40 = 451,315,240 square feet in 40 worlds.
19200/451315240= 0.00004254232 dollars per square foot.
Clearly cost per square foot is irrelevant here.
- Web-worlds are web sites and so have a price structure for web sites rather than grids.
- Maintenance: At least $400 per year.
- Creation: At Least $12,000. (Compare this to the cost of building a building.)
- Total first year cost year $12,400
- Subsequent years might have much lower costs.
- The startup costs could be less for a school that could use existing "template" places.
- Both web-worlds that I would recommend have templates for classrooms,
- These templates include equipment such as slide and video projectors.
Schools also provide child care
- Time for unbundling: Child care can be provided by neighborhood microschools.
- These may need no facilities beyond parents' houses.
- Child care does not require teaching skills.
- Teaching skills and instructional content can come from the digital school.
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Visit me on the web
- Drop by my web offices Weekdays: 12:-12:30 pm Central time (US)
- I am available for free consulting on any topic in this blog.
- Cybalounge and 3DWebWorldz (Orientation room)
- I will be in both places, so you may need to speak to get my attention.
- Web-worlds, 3D virtual worlds running in a browser. Summary
- And we can visit the Writer's Workshop on the Web
- Don't register -- enter as guest.
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- Selby Evans in Kitely and Hypergrid, Thinkerer Melville in Second Life.
Thanks, Selby. This is quite useful.
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