The Technology Committee would like to thank the school board for their support. The past 2 years the work that has been done without significant budgetary support, and to have a designated budget of $75000 for the foreseeable future has allowed this committee to operate with a different set of parameters. With that in mind the committee has prepared the following budget recommendation.
- Current Leases: Middle School Mobile lab (final payment of $9700) and Teacher HP lease from 08-09 (year 3 of 4 year lease $9800) $19500.00
- Switches and access Points $7500.00
- Professional Development $5000.00
- Teacher Laptops and portable labs
- 30 Teacher machines and 2 Admin Machines 3 Mobile labs with 20 workstations each $25930.25
- Sound Amplification (6 classrooms) $6264.00
- LCD Projectors $7000.00
- Interactive Whiteboards $3000.00
- Total $74,194.25
As you can see, a good portion of the budget is tied up in the current lease payments. These payments have been made over the past 3 years (since Rural Education Achievement Program or REAP went away) from PPEL funds rather than the grant dollars. I’ve included a quick description of each of the purchases we propose.
Switches and access points/Infrastructure - as we work to expand our technology “footprint” we have to make sure we can support the technology we implement. Our current network functions with a 1GB (gigabit) fiber “backbone” to CISCO switches that operate at 10/100 MB (megabit) speeds. We have 4 switches that are POE (power over ethernet) capable which makes adding wireless access points easy as you don’t have to wire power to the AP, just have network cable to it. As speeds continue to increase, and the demands of our network will be for more and more video content, streaming and otherwise increasing our network speed will be necessary. We will need to replace our current wireless system, as well as the switches around the building. The budgeted amount represents a portion of the project to be done each year, I am currently working with vendors for potential solutions and financing options.
Professional Development - PD is a must for our teachers as we can’t just put the technology in the teacher’s hands and say, “Go forth and create!” We will work with outside consultants as well as AEA and local instructors to support one another through Professional Development. The committee would like to see the board revisit the 1 to 1 initiative for the 11-12 school year, so the vision in mind for teachers is that of using the 10-11 school year as preparation to teach in a 1 to 1 environment.
Teacher Laptops and Portable Labs - with an eye to increasing student access we would like to lease machines for teachers and students to use at the High School. Our current lab situation puts our student to computer ratio in the High School at roughly 3 students per 1 computer. The committee is committed to 1 to 1 as an end goal, but the reality of the constraints of the budget do not allow that initiative under our current funding streams. The committee would like to see additional computers available to students through the use of mobile labs. The three labs in this proposal would be configured as 20 workstation labs for use by the High School. 7-12 Teachers would be using machines similar in configuration to the lab machines, so they have a better understanding of what the capabilities are and problems that the students may encounter. The 30 machines used by the teachers will be distributed among the other teachers and computer lab areas. Here is a quick description of this impact.
30 New machines used for teachers
- HP computers from the teachers :
- 8 Notebook computers will be redistributed to Elementary teachers
- 22 Tower computers will update the HS lab (which will be reconfigured)
- The HS lab computers will be moved to the Library Lab
- The Library lab computers could be sold, or used for parts for the other machines like them we are using around the building.
3 Computer Mobile Labs of 20 workstations - these are new technology to the building and really are not replacing anything. Their designated building will be the high school.
Sound amplification systems - research shows that all students are impacted by a hearing loss at some point during their time at school. Audio enhancement provides an even distribution of sound throughout the classroom, not just those with a hearing deficit. The Des Moines Register ran an article about this in late April talking about the West Des Moines schools and their implementation of the Red Cat system. Promethean, Institute for Enhanced Classroom Hearing, & SMART Technologies are all companies and authors that have researched and shown this to be a way that learning can be impacted at the younger grade levels especially.
LCD Projectors and Interactive Whiteboards - With the learners in our classrooms and the emphasis of interactivity in the Iowa Core, LCD projectors will become more and more common in our classrooms. At present we have 8 classrooms with fixed mounts, and 7 LCDs on mobile carts in the building. Currently we have plans to install 3 more projectors and orders have been placed for the High School. The current budget would provide us the means to instal projectors in more classrooms for the fall. Some of these classrooms could be coupled with interactive whiteboards, but the committee feels that this is a technology that will best be suited for teachers that want to volunteer to implement in their classrooms.
Each of these proposals align with points of emphasis and vision in the Earlham Community Schools Technology plan.
