Newsmaker Q&A: New investments keep Weld schools connected

For the Weld RE-4 School District, 2014 stands to be a momentous year.

With the announcement of a new fiber connection for two of its schools and Chromebooks for student testing, the district is making big investments in new technologies. Trevor Timmons, the district’s director of technology, shared why he thinks they’ll pay off.

Question: What drove the decision to build a fiber-optic connection between Severance and Windsor? How will this affect the district?

Answer: The Weld RE-4 School District is made up of eight schools – six in Windsor and two in Severance. Several years ago, before Severance Middle School and Range View Elementary were built, the district worked with the town of Windsor to jointly install fiber-optic cables throughout the town. This allowed the district to connect all of its Windsor-area schools at a high speed (the town’s facilities also are interconnected using the same fiber route). Windsor High School and Windsor Middle School connect to the district office at 10 gigabytes per second while our Windsor-area elementary schools connect at 1 gbps. These speeds can be easily increased by simply swapping out devices at each end of the fiber.

By contrast, Severance Middle School and Range View Elementary connect to the district office at a combined 1 Gbps using a leased line. Installing our own fiber will provide a significantly faster connection, facilitate connectivity to potential future schools in the area and pay for itself several times over when compared with the current lease cost.

As technology has become more readily available, learning has evolved. It is not uncommon to find teachers or students using high-speed Internet connectivity to research or collaborate with others. They routinely use bandwidth-intensive resources such as YouTube or Google Earth to allow students to explore topics in greater depth. It is critical that our community of learners has ubiquitous access to these resources; at present, it is difficult to achieve this type of access consistently at SMS and RV.

Q: Where did the $600,000 come from for the connection? How does that amount compare with the rest of the district’s technology budget?

A: Seeing this project as a high priority, the Weld RE-4 Board of Education approved a one-time transfer of $600,000 from district reserves for this project at its December board meeting. The total cost of this project is roughly equivalent to the rest of the district’s technology expenditures this year.

Q: Of all the different tablets out there, why did the school decide to go with Chromebooks? How do you plan to incorporate the new hardware into the curriculum?

A: Chromebooks are quickly becoming popular in K-12 schools across the country because of their comparably low price point, ease of management and reliability. A Chromebook with the management suite can be purchased for about half the price of an iPad, and requires less setup and ongoing support than most other devices. Chromebooks are based on a web browser, so there is very little software that needs to be installed.

It is important to note, however, that Chromebooks are not suitable for all situations. There is still a need for both robust computers that can run necessary software and tablets that allow user-friendly point-and-touch functionality.

The primary purpose of purchasing these mobile devices is to allow our students to participate in new online state assessments without impacting what they already are doing in their school computer labs. If we did not purchase assessment devices, the existing school labs likely would be usurped for testing, preventing their use for ongoing learning.

Q: In an era where technology changes much faster than district budgets how does the district decide which new technologies to invest time and resources in?

A: This is difficult. The district monitors new technologies by reviewing the annual K-12 Horizon Report and through open communication with teachers and other districts. The Horizon Report is an annual publication listing trends and predictions in K-12 education; it is a collaboration of the New Media Consortium, the International Society for Technology in Education and the Consortium for School Networking.

Q: What are the next big tech pushes we can look for from your district?

A: We are planning to add additional devices (Chromebooks) to support both assessment and learning this summer. In addition to the new equipment, the district plans to significantly increase our external bandwidth (Internet connection speed) from 80 megabytes per second to 500 mbps to support new devices, online assessments and increased use of the Internet. This increase will bring the district in line with the State Educational Technology Directors Association recommendation to have an external connection speed of “at least 100 mbps per 1,000 students/staff.”

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