Technology in the classrooms and in the building!
Horace Mitchell School finished its latest third grade addition in the spring of 2011. The new addition boasts 6 classrooms outfitted with the state-of-the-art 21st century classroom tools. Each classroom is equipped with the latest 800 series SMARTboard (interactive whiteboard) from SMART Technology with an ultra short throw LCD projector from Epson, powerful speakers on either side of the SMARTboard, each room also has an Epson Document Camera to use in the classroom.
This model model classroom setup has been emulated throughout the school. At the end of the summer 2012 all classrooms got equipped with either ceiling or wall mounted projector as well as documents cameras. More and more SMARTboards also made their way into the walls of the school. Slowly year after year we have been able to replace outdated SMART boards and old projectors with the newest and latest in the family of SMART technologies. We now have 7 more classrooms set up identical as the 6 classrooms in the third grade wing. They all have the 800 series SMARTboard, short throw projectors, powerful speakers and Epson document cameras.
The latest technology is to use a projector that turns any flat surface interactive. You can use your regular whiteboard, write on it and also use it as an interactive surface, so far I have only heard praises and the teachers are loving this feature. We have 11 lucky classrooms that get to use this exciting piece of technology, each room is also equipped with powerful speakers as well as their favorite Epson document camera. 7 of the classrooms are using the Epson Brightlink 595WI, the other 4 classrooms are using the SMART LightRaise 60Wi projector. We have finally reached our goal to transform all of our classroom to a marvel of technologies. Additionally we have 4 apple TV’s and one classroom setup of SMART Senteo student response system, we also have additional LCD projectors and other multimedia tools to sign out.
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| The first Apple Computer sold 1976 for $666.66 |
Our computer lab here at Mitchell School is boasting with 24 shiny 21.5" iMac's from 2009, they are equipped with a 3.06 Intel Core 2 Duo processor. The students sure love coming into the lab working on their research and writing assignments!
In addition to the lab, Mitchell School's 370 students does a great job sharing 4 Laptop Carts with a total of 80 laptops. 3 of the carts has 60 MacBook Airs from 2013, the laptops are equipped with a 1.3 GHz Intel Core i5 processor and a 120 GB flash drive. 1 cart has 25 MacBooks from 2009 these laptops are equipped with 2.4 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo processor.
We love our iPads and we share them graciously. We have one iPad cart with a classroom setup of iPads (2nd generation from 2011), they are sure in hot demand. We have additional 12 iPads (4th generation from 2013) that are being used as centers in Kindergarten classrooms and are totally integrated into the daily tasks of their classrooms. Another set of 12 iPads (mix of 2nd Generation and 4th generation) are in use in the first grade classrooms. The first grade teachers are using the iPads to pilot a new app called Seesaw that will help creating electronic student portfolios that can be shared with parents.They are also using Kahoot for quick on the spot assessments. All the teachers received brand new 13" MacBook Airs in 2014, They weigh nothing and are lightning fast to work on!
In addition to the lab, Mitchell School's 370 students does a great job sharing 4 Laptop Carts with a total of 80 laptops. 3 of the carts has 60 MacBook Airs from 2013, the laptops are equipped with a 1.3 GHz Intel Core i5 processor and a 120 GB flash drive. 1 cart has 25 MacBooks from 2009 these laptops are equipped with 2.4 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo processor.
We love our iPads and we share them graciously. We have one iPad cart with a classroom setup of iPads (2nd generation from 2011), they are sure in hot demand. We have additional 12 iPads (4th generation from 2013) that are being used as centers in Kindergarten classrooms and are totally integrated into the daily tasks of their classrooms. Another set of 12 iPads (mix of 2nd Generation and 4th generation) are in use in the first grade classrooms. The first grade teachers are using the iPads to pilot a new app called Seesaw that will help creating electronic student portfolios that can be shared with parents.They are also using Kahoot for quick on the spot assessments. All the teachers received brand new 13" MacBook Airs in 2014, They weigh nothing and are lightning fast to work on!
On the backend, the server room is humming with an Apple Xserve that is running OSX Leopard with 3 HP Pro Curve Switches attached to it. This set up easily supports all our user accounts and workstations. The whole school is equipped with a modern Cisco wireless network. In the summer of 2015 we finally took the leap into the world of fiber optics and now have a super robust wireless fiber network with speeds up to 100mbs. We are using Konica Minolta combined Copier and Printer machines that can do all kinds of trix except for singing!
We are all working hard at becoming a totally paperless school, teachers are using Google Docs for most of their writing and communication, and students are also utilizing this tool for sharing poems and stories electronically with their teacher instead of printing it out and hand it in. Google Classroom is slowly but surely making its way into our classroom environment as well.
We have come a long way from construction and portable classrooms in the fall of 2010. It has been a fun and interesting journey to update the school to the demands of a 21st century school. Here is a snapshot of what things looked like in the fall of 2010:
The Computer Lab consisted of 20 eMac from 2002 with the PowerPC G4 capable of running both OS9 as well as OSX. 1 Laptop cart with 20 iBook G3 Snow Laptops from 2001. Every Classroom had between 2 to 3 iMac G3 from 1998 running on OS9 and connected to the OS9 server network (OS9 discontinued year 2001). The School had 3-4 of projectors to share and all classrooms shared 3 Smart Boards. On the back end we had 2 servers, one running OS9 and supported only the classroom iMac’s from 1998, the other server ran OSX (introduced 2001) and supported the rest of the school.
