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Kennedy boasts new technology [UPDATED]
Published 9:18am Tuesday, August 31, 2010 Updated 9:21am Tuesday, August 31, 2010Kennedy Secondary School is about to open its doors to students on Sept. 7. Inside, students will be greeted with all sorts of new technology.
The first thing they may notice is that the entire building is now connected to a wireless network. The building has two networks — one is the school network for students, faculty and staff, and the other is a limited-use, public Wi-Fi system for visitors to use.
To connect the whole building to the Internet wirelessly, about 70 wireless access points have been mounted to the ceiling throughout the building, technology specialist Jesse Thorstad said. Anyone could walk through the building with a laptop or wireless device and never drop their connection, he said.
There are several new pieces of technology in classrooms. Nearly every classroom has a projector mounted on the ceiling. These can be used for projecting images from computers for presentations or to show movies from the DVD player connected to it. An A/V cart no longer has to be rolled into classrooms to show video.
There is also a system on the network that allows the image from a television screen to be projected onto the big screen from the ceiling projector, making it easier for students to see and hear, Thorstad said. For instance, if a social studies teacher wants to show election results coming in on election day, he or she could display a television channel on the big screen in front of the class rather than the TV.
“Those enhancements are really going to be able to change the way teachers teach,” he said.
The sound from anything displayed through the ceiling projector now comes out through speakers on the ceiling, he added. That includes the teacher’s voice, which will transmit through the speakers from a microphone they will wear as they instruct.
“A lot of research shows that having the teacher’s voice throughout the room is beneficial to all students,” Thorstad said.
The district also ordered 175 new computers for teachers and computer labs, as well as nine interactive white boards, which connect to a computer and allow the instructor to teach through the computer screen on the board, using it like a touch screen.
The new computers are Apple iMacs, and they will allow users to switch between Windows and Mac, enabling the use of many software programs. The upgraded models will allow teachers to keep up to speed with the district’s transition to full use of new technologies, including utilizing Internet tools like Google Apps. Some of the applications teachers will use are Google Docs, which allows word documents to be opened and edited online by anyone with access to the account, and Google Calendar, which organizes events and activities in a day-by-day calendar that can be edited through a Google account.
Secondary school students will also be offered a Google account for e-mail (called Gmail), allowing them to collaborate with classmates and teachers on word documents and other projects.
“We are much more able, the way we’re set up now, to harness the major resources the Internet has to provide for us,” Thorstad said. “For students to be able to work on projects when they’re off the school grounds or when they’re in other parts of the school just brings their learning into a whole new realm of collaboration.”
The classrooms also have controlled lighting now — the rooms are “smart,” Thorstad explained, meaning a room knows when it has occupants. Lights turn on automatically when someone enters the room and if the room is empty with the lights left on, they will automatically turn off after a few minutes.
“It’d be a really exciting time to be at school,” he said.
