State of Technology: Ripon Unified School District

Prepared by Jacob Bradshaw Technology Specialist

Ripon High School Ripon High is considered the site with the lowest amount of technology in the district. Average age of a teacher's laptop or desktop is 5-7 years. The number of overhead projectors rivals that of digital projectors. The projectors out there range from 5-12 years of age. These older projectors also cause issues with our attendance software, in that they require the displays to be set at a resolution that is not optimal and cannot be changed without administrative rights. An example of this is in Leedys room, her projector is the oldest in use. It requires a resolution of 640x480, one that the computer does not support natively. Our Aeries requires 1280x720. She cannot enter grades on this computer because the options needed to not fit on the screen. Student computers besides units in the lab are non existent. Now it is understandable that some classes might not have student computers such as a math class or a PE class. There should be at least 2-4 computers in say an English or History class. The most heavily used and underpowered piece of technology on the campus are the computer labs. The G7 computer lab is at the bottom of the list with the oldest computers in use on campus. These computers at Gateway Computers purchased July 16th, 2001. On average, we have lost about 3-4 computers a semester. The lab has turned into a game of whack-a-mole is keeping up on the issues that crop up with these older machines. The units that have failed have been replaced by either computers brought over from other sites or new replacements have been purchased 5 at a time. It is a patchwork lab. The second lab in age is the Library lab. It was originally from the Ag lab and was purchased in October of 2002. This lab is running as well as it can. It is used as a class lab and only has about 20 computers where students have to either pair up or switch out with other students to get their work done. This is the only lab on campus where a teacher can reserve or request time in there for their students. The third lab in age is the B4 lab, this is the keyboarding and web design lab. These computers were purchased in August of 2007. This is the only full lab that runs without issue and only needs small software updates and fixes.. It is aging but has 2-3 more years on it. The last lab is the Ag Lab and it is the newest lab. It was purchased in April of 2010. As with the B4 lab this lab is also runs without issue and only needs minor software fixes and updates throughout the year. This lab, if not replaced has another 3-5 years on it. Weston In the past 2 years, Weston teachers received new teacher laptops to replace the aging lab computers that were distributed to the teachers from the 2005 lab. These computers were purchased in 2010 by the PFC. All teachers received a new computer from this set. Weston also purchased a new computer lab using Title I funds and distributed the old lab again to the classrooms. The new lab was purchased in 2011 and is fully up to date.

Student computers in the classrooms are a collection of iMac purchased in 1998, the first Mac lab purchased in 2005 to the most recent lab disbursement from last year(2007 iMacs). These older machines are starting to fail leaving some teachers with just the 2007 iMacs. Parkview The PFC recently purchased 5 MacBook Pro computers for teachers to replace the older Dells that were purchased in 2004 and 2005. The rest of the teachers are still using Dell laptops and desktops from 04, 05, and 06. They also have Projectors and Elmos for use in instruction. Each classroom has on average has 2-3 student computers which were purchased in groups in 2008 and most recently in 2012. The more computers in a classroom the more chances a student has to take AR tests and other educational tools. Parkviews lab was purchased in 2009 and it running the most recent operating system software. This is a good lab and gets the job done. An update in the future might be necessary to keep up with the surrounding sites. Ripona At Ripona all teachers received new MacBooks in 2011, they also got Elmos and projectors to use. This is an upgrade from some of the older mac and PCs that they were using. The upper grades also received handheld tablets and student response systems. Each teacher received their own tablet to operate their computer remotely but only got one set of response systems to share at each grade level. They have very few student computers at the site. They have maybe 3 or 4 classrooms with 1 or more student designated computers. Students have to do all their AR work in the lab which might take away from valuable lab time. The lab is the oldest Mac lab in the district. 23 iMacs were purchased in early 2009, 6 were purchased in late 2009 and 6 were most recently purchased in summer of 2011. Having at computer with units purchased so far apart has the issue of the experience being so different from computer to computer. Colony Oak Colony PFC purchased MacBooks/iMacs for all the teachers at the site. They also have purchased projectors, remote tablets, and ELMOs for use in their classrooms as teacher aides. The only recently installed a new computer lab in 2011. Their previous lab was a county donation of about 30 Dell computers from 2002. These computers were either discarded or distributed and only a handful went to rooms around campus.

Student computers are very much nonexistent. The computers that are out there are about 10-12 years old and are beyond their use for any real school work other than educational games. Some of these computers are the units from the lab. Ripon Elementary 12 new laptops were purchased for teachers at the site to replace their laptops from 2006 and 07. Every teacher at the site has a SMARTBoard with projector and slate tablet for use with instruction. Ripon El is the one site that has no student computers that are functional on the network. The computers that are in there are iMacs from 2000 and have no ability to do anything other than to play very old computer games. The lab is very new and up to date. It was purchased in the summer of 2011. ---------------Each elementary site houses one Mac Mini server for student storage and lab maintenance. The number one reason a computer becomes slow and unusable is with software updates put out both by Microsoft and McAfee to keep the computers secure. McAfee out virus scanner is a very resource intensive program and requires a lot of memory and processing power. Because of this older machines with low amounts of RAM tend to run very slow and some to the point of being useless. Snapshot of the Future Weston Weston is in dire need of student computers in the classroom. Christine Merchant has about 9 computers that she uses on a daily basis for her kids to do work and papers. These computers are old, purchased between 2002 and 2007. They find this very beneficial to have computers in the room to do quick jobs without having to take everyone to the lab. Adding a mobile iPad cart to the site to move from room to room as needed. Parkview Parkview is in need of more student computers in the classroom. This could be handled with the purchase of a new lab and distributing the existing lab computers to the classrooms to bring the numbers up to 2-4 depending on grade level. Colony Oak Purchase new computers for student use in the classroom. Ideal computer per classroom is 2-4 depending on grade level.

Adding a mobile iPad cart to the site to move from room to room as needed. Ripona Updating the lab and distributing the computers to the classrooms to give more computers in classrooms for student use. Ideal for classroom is again 2-4 depending on grade level. Adding a mobile iPad cart to the site to move from room to room as needed. Ripon El Purchase 2-4 student computers per classroom depending on the grade level. Adding a mobile iPad cart to the site to move from room to room as needed. Ripon High School High school teachers are in need of new laptops and projectors ceiling mounted for security. Future technology in the classrooms might be Apple TVs and iPads for instructional use. This would however need to have more research done on which teachers would embrace this technology and use it on a daily basis. Updated labs, G7 needs a complete overhaul on all aspects of the room. Mounting the projector to the ceiling, replacing the entire lab and disbursing the 18 newest computers to other areas of the campus for use as student computers. They also need new desks in the class, the existing desks are not made to todays technology, they have glass surfaces that old CRT monitors sat under projected up to the user. The built in power strips on the desks are also failing and some are even connected to each other to provide power to the rest of the desks. B4 is fine currently, it might need a replacement is 2-4 years. It currently has no major issues and runs as it should. Ag lab is the same way, it is newer and needs no replacement currently. Library is in need of a replacement and discard of the oldest computers. We would also want to add a class set of computers to accommodate a full class in there to do research and other class activities. We may also look into building out a second classroom lab in the B3 room to accommodate more classes in a lab then just one class at a time in the library. This snapshot should be seen as a bare minimum and more of a jumping off point for teachers to expand on and create a digital learning hub for future technology needs.

Newer teacher computers New lab 30+ comp old student computers 1-2 per Weston

Not enough or old student computers 0-1 per

Ripona

new projectors/tablets

Newer teacher computers

Dated lab

Old teacher computers Some student computers 2 per Aging lab A few new teacher computers

Parkview

Little or no student computers 0-1 per

State of schools(Current)

Ripon El

New teacher computers

New lab 30+ comp

new smartboard/projectors/tablets

New Lab 30+ comp New Teacher laptops New Elmos/projectors/tablets Not enough or old student computers Colony Oak

Not Enough Labs

Outdated Labs 3 labs 20-30 per lab

RHS

Old Staff technology

little or no student computers 0-1 per

Brand new laptops for teacher New high tech labs

Updated student computers 4 per RHS

Weston

projectors and smartboard

More student computers 4 Per

New student computers 4 per New lab 30+ Expanded tablets for teachers Ripona

Parkview

Updated lab

Future Snapshot

updated student computers 4 Per Ripon El

Colony Oak

New student computer 4 per