Technology+Infrastructure+Management



On Tuesday, November 3, 2009 I was able to do a walkthrough/sit down (broken leg adaptation) of the Village Elementary School network with Dennis Crowe, District Director of Technology, and Joanne Gauley, Technical and Instructional Media Specialist. ** Village's Network History: ** Village School upgraded its wiring about 5-6 years ago. It did this by using people who were already in the district so the professionalism probably wasn't what it should have been. The wiring was changed for a CAT 3 wire to a CAT 5 wire. The people servicing the school put in new IP (Internet Protocol) Telephony capabilities which allows the power to run over the wire itself. The Internet Protocol used to exchange voice, fax, and other forms of information that have traditionally been carried over the dedicated circuit-switched connections of the public switched telephone network. Using the Internet, calls travel as packets of data on shared lines. The challenge in IP telephony is to deliver the voice, fax, or video packets in a dependable flow to the user. ( http://searchunifiedcommunications.techtarget.com ) I think our district has done this very well. When they dropped the wires into the classrooms there was just one ethernet/cable hook up and it wasn't put in a very well thought out position in the rooms. From this unit the wire ran to the phone in the room and then another cable ran from the phone to the computer. So unless you had a rather long cable to run to a laptop it was virtually impossible to use any type of technology that needed a connection to the internet. I am happy to say that just this year our whole building went wireless. So now we get connected rather quickly to the internet from anywhere in the building. ** Summary of the Tour: ** The technical part of the tour of our technology goes something like this: At Village we have somewhat of a star topology with a bit of a twist. Our data comes to us through a MDF (Main Distribution Frame). It then goes to an IDF (Independent Distribution Frame) before it is sent back to the MDF and then to our computers. We use Ethernet and have 100mbps between buildings in our district which runs through fiber optic cables which is new over the past couple of years. We use multi switched that connect us and our cables have been changed to CAT 5. The network operating system for the most part is Mac OS. A few teachers, myself included do have pcs that we use off and on. The office in our building also uses pcs and I believe uses Vista. Although our school has no encryption for the wireless network, which means anyone can come into the building and get onto the network, we do have a firewall that is placed at the central office. We used to use MSLN (Maine State Library Network) which in my eyes was an incredible filter as far as content on the internet. The firewall now is though Time Warner which is our provider at this time. Village School does have a file server where the kids can save any work they may be doing. All the teachers/ed. Techs also have the ability to use the file server, and I know some do, however Dennis always tells us that we should probably use a thumb drive or some such device. The computer lab in our school is hardwired for 28 computers. There is a wireless connection in the computer lab but that is placed there for the library and nearby classrooms. The other classrooms each have one jack that allows them to hook up the phones and then the computers through the phone. There are also 10 wireless access points place throught the school that allows anyone to get where they need to go. ** My Impressions/Feedback: ** I am overall very impressed with the technology that we have in the building. I am sure we could have better without looking further into it, but compared to where we were even last year with both the network and the equipment we have taken great steps. I know that part of this impressiveness comes from the technology staff our district has put together and the work they do both on the equipment and for the staff of all our buildings. We are able to have the kids take many assessments online giving us, for many of the tests, instant feedback. We have also been given many sites and some professional development for some of those sites that we can use in the classroom with the kids. BrainPop and Gizmo along with Reading Street, which our reading curriculum, and many others to name a few. Along with the kudos to the technology department I definitely have to give the same praise to the administration in my school. As Dennis, the District Director of Technology said during the walkthrough, he has never seen an administrator that both wants the kids to have and understands that they need the technology to enhance their education. Dennis also said Brian, our principal, goes to great lengths to find the means to obtain, if at all possible, the technology that the kids at Village School need. For these reasons I take my hat off, I applaud, I do all those other catch phrases that mean I am impressed with our Technology Department.


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Notice the We __Will__ Survive picture. Survivor winner Bob Crowley worked I my district before he won that competition. This was at one of our staff parties. I'm not sure of it is an omen that they put this picture near the technology corner.