As technology grows around the world, it is also growing in our school. With the new school year, new technology accompanies it. The Director of Technology in our district, John LaPierre (JL) gave MDO some insight on some of these new changes.
Madison Dodger Online: What new technologies have been added to the district, specifically in the high school?
John LaPierre: The biggest thing we’re doing are the Google chrome books. There will be 11 chrome book carts in total in the high school each with 25 chrome books on them and they’ll be distributed to teachers who we’ve trained and worked with over the summer. So that’s the biggest thing you guys will see in the high school as for new technology. We’ve also done some stuff with the network to increase the speed on the backend to get ready for these chrome books coming in. So that happened over the summer also.
MDO: Is every student going to be able to go on the chrome books?
JL: For this year there will just be the 11 classrooms with the chrome books in them. But every student will receive a Google account username and password. So everyone will have access to the Google suite in every classroom. And teachers are going to have accounts too. Not everyone will have a chrome book this year but district wide we have 30 carts going out between the high school, junior school, and the three elementary schools. We’re hoping in the next three years, if the funding is there, to have one for each student. That’s a 2-3 year goal.
MDO: Are there any other new technologies in the school?
JL: This year, the main investment the district made were for these chrome books because we think the chrome books themselves, getting those out to the students, and all the tools that the Google chrome suite gives students and teachers is a big investment but something we want to really get into. We’ve done other things like replacing all the old LCD projectors that were in the classrooms that were dim. As far as major technology initiatives, the chrome books are what we did for this year.
MDO: What prompted the district to make these changes?
JL: It’s a national trend and what we want to do is get the technology into the hands of the students. We feel like everyone is used to going to technology when they need something done. We spent about a year researching and trying different devices. We did some pilot programs with the chrome books last year. We also visited two or three other school districts to speak to them and we look constantly at national trends and we talked to some experts and that’s what led us to the chrome book initiative.
MDO: Do a lot of other schools have chrome books?
JL: Yeah, it’s a huge thing right now. We were in Hillsboro and they’re about a year ahead of us. They actually worked with Google and they came in and helped them get started. We saw the way it transformed the school when they brought these devices in and we thought it was great. From talking to other people chrome books seem great and a direction a lot of schools are going in.
MDO: Are there any more changes expected to happen this year?
JL: This is the main initiative this year but you can see the BYOD being pushed. Bring Your Own Device, that’s the phrase. We’re going to allow the students to come in and connect to our network so they don’t have to be using their own data plans.
MDO: Are there any other programs in MHS being compromised for the cost of these Google chrome books?
JL: There are always things that need to be done in a school district so we get together as a team and decide what makes the most sense. We have to spend our dollars in the wisest way we can and I think we’ve done that. There are always things that can be done and things that we want to do but we try to work together because you’re looking at the 5 buildings, facilities, fields and technology and just a certain amount of dollars. I think we’ve thought of a good plan that’s really going to move the district forward.