Towers of Learning
Monday, August 29, 2005
Grant ensures district-wide wireless access
By Sandy Mazza, Staff Writer
Whittier Daily News
Picture this: You're a teacher at the front of a classroom, with 20 seventh-grade students watching you, expectantly.
You hand out laptop computers to each of them and give them an online assignment.
But only half of your class is able to access the Internet. The other half can't because the network can only log on a certain number of users at one time.
Edwards Middle School teacher Denis Cruz faced this reality nearly once a week last year.
"They'd be so excited. It'd be their day for the computers, and they wouldn't be able to get on," Cruz said. "It was a huge frustration. They were very disappointed."
Jamie Mayhew, director of technology and information services for Whittier City School District, fielded several angry calls per day from teachers last year after scenarios like the one Cruz described took place in their classrooms.
In response, Mayhew applied for and received a federal E-Rate grant to pay for new wireless phone and data systems, including high-speed Internet access, in her district's 12 schools.
Now, installation of a new network is nearly complete and will be ready for student use at the end of September.
Though many schools throughout the state are going wireless to combat slow Internet speeds and frequent network crashes, Whittier City School District chose Trillion Digital Communications to install a Wide Area Network (WAN) system to connect its 10 elementary and two middle schools.
The installation will be one of the first of Trillion's WANs in California; it will be followed by districts in Barstow and Fresno.
Wireless technology is so new, the State Department of Education does not yet keep track of which schools use it, department officials said.
A uni-pole now towers over Orange Grove Elementary School, where installation was completed Thursday. The silver pole, anchored to the playground's blacktop, is about 30 inches in diameter at the bottom and 120 feet high.
At the top of the pole, a beam shoots out to a pole at Dexter Middle School, which then beams to Edwards Middle School, Longfellow Elementary School and Lou Henry Hoover Elementary School.
The Wide Area Network connects phone and data systems, including the Internet, throughout the district.
"The poles are more aesthetically pleasing than wire cages --that's what Downey put in," Mayhew said. "No one else in this area has as high a high-speed wireless Wide Area Network as this. This is linking all of our schools together without having trenches dug and wires put in."
The E-Rate grant will cover 80 percent of the cost of the system. The district will foot the other 20 percent of the bill.
The grant is through The Universal Services Administrative Co. and aims to increase connectivity within schools and libraries. It is paid for by telephone customers.
Cruz, who teaches language arts, is looking forward to increasing his students' writing and revision skills with an Internet education tool called MyAccess.
"I can do computer lessons on revision and using computer editing tools, and I can hook the computer up to a projector so the class can see the lesson," he said. "It's a great, powerful tool."
@tagline: Sandy Mazza may be reached by calling (562) 698-0955, Ext. 3026, or by e-mail at sandy.mazza@sgvn.com.
