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060305 District seeks high-tech upgrades
Never give a sucker an even break
More information and faster. It's what every school district wants for students, teachers, administrators, and parents.
But Bedford Central School District has found itself behind the eight ball in
terms of upgrading to a complete network that could serve the local and global
educational community. The district has been limping along year to year with
leasing and service con-tracts, piecing together a haphazard system that
intermittently connects students to information, classrooms to classrooms, and
teachers to teachers and administrators.
This snapshot of the district's cur-rent technology status was presented to the
Bedford Board of Education on Wednesday by Jim Doherty, director of technology
for the district, followed by a presentation of the IBM Global Services study
and recommendations to the district.
"We are not in the technology business," said Mr. Doherty. "We are in the
teaching and learning business, where we need to give teachers, students, and
parents better tools so students can learn better."
Mr. Doherty briefly outlined the history of technology upgrades in the district
starting with the phone system that was installed in 1985. Dial-up for Internet
access was introduced in 1998 and remains today as opposed to a cable or DSL
connection. Teachers started using Internet pro-grams such as PowerSchool, a
Web-based student information system that provides real-time information to
administrators, teachers, and parents. It is an administrative tool that lets
parents access to their children's grades, and students can track their own
progress.
United Streaming was also introduced into the classroom just this past year. The
online program allows students video-on-demand access' to a comprehensive K-12
digital video/video clip library. Video conferencing enabled 10th-grade global
studies students to talk to their counterparts in England.
The popularity of using the Internet now outweighs what the network can support,
said Mr. Doherty.
"What happens, because of the slowness of the [dial-up] network, is it delays
getting the videos and other information into the hands of the teacher," said
Mr. Doherty. "Teacher access to student information is slow, and there are
delays in attendance reports. Now the network is negatively impacting the
learning process because access to the Internet during the day, when everyone is
using it, is slow. It has lost its effectiveness as a teaching tool."
Teachers Drew Patrick and Bill Hunter, both secondary teachers, expressed their
frustrations with the system.
"We spend a significant portion of the period getting online to let students get
information," said Mr. Patrick. "We are forced to refrain from using a resource
that holds great potential but is now unable to be
implemented because of the time factor."
Mr. Hunter said that his students wanted to access United Streaming to enhance a
project they were working on. "They couldn't get the streaming to download fast
enough," said Mr. Hunter, who finally downloaded the video at the end of the day
and transferred it at home to disk and then brought it into school the next day.
"I went through a lot of steps to get information to students."
Tying up the phone lines because of Internet use has been frustrating to parents
and teachers who need to connect during the day, said Mr. Doherty. "The bottom
line is we need real-time, reliable access to student data to improve
instruction."
Consultants Rafail Portnoy and Salvatore Isolano of IBM Global Services advised
a new broadband net-work supporting wireless and telephone service for the
entire district.
"What we recommend is a high-speed fiber-optic network to connect the entire
district," said Mr. Portnoy. "This system will position you for a variety of
other applications both on the main campus as well as remote."
Mr. Portnoy said the district could lay the groundwork and phase in the new
technology over a period of time.
How will the district connect all the schools?
"You are in an advantageous position of being located near the Lightpath network
that Westchester County utilizes," said Mr. Portnoy. "You can connect with a
mini building tower. This will drive the cost down considerably"
Five years ago Westchester County contracted with Lightpath, a high-speed,
fiber-optic network linking schools, libraries, municipalities, and hospitals,
to be able to share information faster. The service is a telecommunication
division of Cablevision Systems Corporation Mr. Portnoy pointed out the
advantages of connecting with the fiber-optics company. "The wireless will
always be on, with hot spots in all instruction areas," he said.
`You can have links to public libraries, virtual classrooms, teleconferencing,
high-speed data exchange, attendance reporting, security with lines to police,
disaster recovery"
The system would also support access to critical data for teachers for mapping
curriculums to the Web, staff development, and facilitate a closer interaction
with parents, said Mr. Portnoy.
And the cost?
It would be $4.2 million to $4.7 million, which includes a 5 to 10 percent
contingency.
"These figure do not include costs for construction
or electrical service," said Mr. Portnoy. "Two and half mil-
lion dollars is the cost of the equipment and the rest is for services. The
bandwidth itself could cost about $429,000 per year."
The district's assistant superintendent for business, Mark Betz, said funding
could come from many sources.
"We have some money geared for this summer that was passed in the budget," Mr.
Betz said. "It will go toward starting some of the infrastructure stuff. We have
to come up with a plan on how to phase the system in. The money could come from
a bond, but there are other sources. We don't have that laid out here at this
time."
Board member Mark Slivka pointed out that eight years ago a technology bond was
turned down by the voters.
"What is different about this system if we end up going to a bond?" asked Mr.
Slivka.
Mr. Betz said that eight years ago the district wasn't able to see where the
technology would end up. "But now we are accelerating toward the use of a system
that has to be more organized and more globally structured," he said. "This
[IBM] study says you need to use the system in a certain way. We are clamoring
to get better access to this stuff." He added that when the bond was defeated
eight years ago, the district phased in new technology with
smaller purchases of computers and other components at different times.
Mr. Doherty recommended forming subcommittees for instruction, staff
Development, data, and infrastructure.
"We can do some short-term improvements for the teachers right away" said Mr.
Doherty. "We can make the Internet a bit faster in the classroom. This would not
be a Band-Aid, it would be part of this long-term architecture for the network.
Its a piece we put in over the summer that's not terribly expensive."
Board member Mark Chernis asked about what staffing would be needed to operate
the high-tech system. "This is a complicated thing; it's not some-thing that you
put up and it takes care of itself," he said. "I estimate at least four to six
full-time employees who know how to baby-sit this kind of equipment. If we spend
money and set our expectations, and we don't have the people who are trained to
run it, what if it fails?"
Mr. Doherty said, "Our staff will be trained to run the system, and if a problem
comes up, we will call in the experts."
The board didn't come to a decision about staying in contract with IBM Global
Services.
Mr. Betz took the long view on the proposal for a new technology system. "Not
doing this means instruction will come to a halt in the way that students learn
and teachers teach," he said. hahahahahahaahahaa
Yes Mark... Western Civilization will end as we know it if the suckers don't pass this turkey.-jpg