Technology Push
Mar 1, 2008 12:00 PM, By Mike Kennedy
Keeping up with technology in the central office, the classroom and all points in between can improve school and university operations.
For the thousands of schools and universities building new facilities or remodeling existing space, construction-management software can help administrators and the key participants involved in a project — architects, contractors, vendors — stay up to speed on the status of a project and identify potential problems before they become too troublesome to solve. Information about a project is conveyed immediately, cutting down on bureaucracy and paperwork, and making each participant in the project more accountable about completing their responsibilities.
In libraries and cafeterias, schools and universities use technology to keep track of their inventory — who's buying food and how much, or who's borrowing which books or other materials.
Unwired
When the 1990s technology push began, connecting to the Internet in most cases meant wiring schools and classrooms to a schoolwide or systemwide network. The technology of today has schools seeking to untether themselves from wires and serve mobile computer users with wireless Internet connections. NCES statistics show that in 2005, about 45 percent of the schools with Internet access used wireless connections, and about 15 percent of public school classrooms had wireless connections.
Wireless connections can be less costly because wiring typically involves finding ways to hide wires in walls, under floors or in ceilings. Wireless computers unleash students from the cords that limit where they can work. It allows the learning environment to be more flexible and mobile.
At the forefront of the conversion to wireless connections to the Internet is the Philadelphia school system. In 2007, the 170,000-student system announced that it established wireless access to the Internet in all of its classrooms. About 75 percent of the $40 million cost of the system was covered by E-rate subsidies.
Wireless networks also can be set up quickly. In Greensburg, Kan., where a tornado in May 2007 destroyed most of the city, including its schools, workers installed a wireless computer network in less than one day to serve the 14 temporary buildings that comprise the makeshift replacement school.
Safety alerts
Technology's ability to enhance security was shown again last month when gunfire erupted in a classroom at Northern Illinois University (NIU) in DeKalb.
Minutes after the shooting began at NIU, the school posted an alert on its website, sent e-mail messages to students and staff, and voice messages to students' residence hall phones warning them of the gunfire. More than a dozen messages were disseminated this way in the hours after the incident. They warned the community to stay away the King Commons, where the shootings occurred; let people know when the campus was again considered safe; and urged students to call their parents.
Such messaging systems have become more common on college campuses since the April 2007 shooting massacre at Virginia Tech. In the aftermath of that massacre, many said that if university officials had sent out a campus alert immediately after the first reports of a shooting, the second, more deadly wave of violence could have been prevented or diminished.
Many of the new messaging systems on campuses also enable colleges and universities to send text messages to cell phones; that feature was not available last month at NIU. Because cell phones have become so common and text messaging has become a routine way for many students to communicate, the ability to reach students this way is critical when information has to be disseminated widely and quickly.
A thousand points of security
Technology also enables schools and universities to provide security to remote parts of buildings and campuses that used to go unmonitored by either security personnel or cameras.
Many campuses have relied on video surveillance for a long time. Such systems provided more security than having no cameras, but were hardly ideal. Old videotape systems often provided grainy, indistinct images. Saving and searching tape archives to unearth the necessary information was cumbersome and timely, if archives were even available.
Now, advancements in computer networks and digital technology have enabled security staff to overcome many of those drawbacks. Instead of just a few cameras at the most strategic “trouble spots” on a campus, schools and universities can afford to think volume and install hundreds of surveillance cameras.
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