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DHS will have a 1:1 student-technology ratio this fall along with strengthened WiFi
By: Truman Stovall
Changes were made over the summer to the district’s arsenal of technology. Students will have more access to the internet than ever in the classroom, especially in the high school.
It was made possible through grants, whereby the Dexter schools administration was able to “[purchase] Chromebooks for all of Creekside and Mill Creek… [and] move their macbooks to the high school,” Superintendent Chris Timmis said.
Executive Director of Instruction Mollie Sharrar added that “additional laptops and carts in the high school will allow both teachers and students increased access to technology where they will be able to save and share documents easily. Hopefully, this will facilitate increased collaboration with the use of Google Classroom, Google Docs and Google Hangouts.”
A system for distribution will likely be ready by the first day.
“Teachers will probably check out a cart at the beginning of the year,” DHS Principal Kit Moran said. “It’ll have a barcode – it’s their cart for the year. Only half of them have printers, so we’ll prioritize classrooms that need them.
“Some classrooms don’t need carts, like Mergler, Mackinder, Mendez, and Stockwell; They have desktops already. English and social studies teachers will need one; Math teachers maybe not as much.”
Since there aren’t enough carts for every class (anywhere from 34 to 40), some carts may go unclaimed and be used like carts were in years before. Teachers without a personal cart still need one from time to time for a class period, so they will still have the option to set aside a time for one of them.
Or they may just borrow them from the teacher next door. All of this will be worked out by the administration.
Many students will consider the new and improved WiFi, which is promised to be stronger and better suited to handle both the demands on the new laptops and students’ mobile devices, the cherry on top.
Moran believes that, in the future, the school’s access to technology, when it can be used to help kids learn and prepare them for jobs and higher education, is “kind of cliché, but limited by our imagination.”
