Eastwood Local Schools and Oregon City Schools are taking steps to upgrade their Wi-Fi technology, which will make the Internet available to more students in the district.

According to Matt Routson, technology director, Eastwood is currently installing wireless hubs in all schools. The hubs will allow the 1,600 students to use netbooks anywhere in the schools and maintain a consistent wireless signal.

“We have 320 netbooks in the district in all of the schools,” Routson said. “The Wi-Fi hubs will help facilitate Internet use in the classroom. We have had some issues in the past with the signal so the hubs will fix those issues.” The district received $10,000 in grant money from the state and is using another $10,000 to pay for the hubs, Routson said.

“We will now have an actual controlled network which will allow guests to use the Wi-Fi, but they will not be able to access our files and servers,” Routson said. “It was important to us to do this. We want the technology available and to be able to put it into our students hands. We want our students to be able to use the technology at school that they are used to using every day at home. Outside of school, they are using cell phones and their computers. We don’t want them to ‘power down’ with pencils and papers at school. We want the students to enjoy and learn in school.” In the Oregon City Schools, Nathan Quigg, technology director, is also busy expanding the district’s Wi-Fi access.

“We are currently working on providing wall-to-wall Wi-Fi at Clay High School,” Quigg said. “Currently, we have Wi-Fi hot spots, wireless access points (WAPs), in all of the buildings but, now we are working on providing wireless throughout the high school.”

The district is using a $115,000 emergency technology grant through the state to upgrade the high school’s Internet access.

“In the first month of the school year we will be buying 65 iPads,” he said.

“Our goal is to expand wireless, go wall-to-wall, in the middle school this year.”

Upgrading to wall-to-wall Internet availability is important to the district, Quigg said.

“It is important because the future of technology over the next five years is the concept of ‘the Cloud’ and being able to store all content in the cloud. Roughly 90 percent of our kids walk in the school doors with web-enabled smart phones. They basically have a computer in their pocket. We need to give them access, a gateway to the Internet.”

The new K-5 Genoa Area Elementary School will also have Wi-Fi when it opens this fall.

According to Bill Nye, treasurer of the Genoa Area Local Schools, students in K through fifth grade will have access to Wi-Fi at the new elementary school.

“The new elementary building will have Wi-Fi when it opens,” Nye said. “We have discussed putting it in our other buildings but it is not available yet. We have discussed it so it is a possibility in the future.”

The district will hold a dedication ceremony for the new elementary building Aug. 14, beginning at 2 p.m. in the stadium, followed by a tour of the building.

Comments (0)

Subscribe to this comment's feed