School updates technology

By Johnny Li

Two years ago, the school received a one-time discretionary block grant for projectors. Since then school technology coordinator and math teacher, Mark Clevenger, has worked to upgrade the technology at the school.

“I saw a need to help because the district’s attitude was ‘we’re on our own’ so we either do it ourselves or it all falls apart,” Clevenger said.

The majority of the teachers said that they wanted projectors on carts for each department, but the grant was large enough that a projector could be mounted in every classroom. Retired Washington teacher, Ronald Ulrich, designed the mounting system for the projectors and is heading up this project. Students and parents volunteered to install the projectors on the weekends. Most teachers are pleased with the new technology and the conveniences it provides.

“I’m very glad that we have the projectors now, but I’m not forgetting the fact that we should have had them years ago,” English teacher Teri Hu said.

In addition, a new software program accompanying the projectors allows teachers to continue using their computers through their personal monitors, while displaying something else, such as a movie window, through the projectors.

With the remaining funds from the grant, the school also purchased new servers and Clevenger helped to install them around the campus. Prior to this, there had only been one server running all the processes, including log ins and assigning IP addresses, but there are now seven new servers sharing the workload.

Furthermore, a recent $104,000 grant from Microsoft, due to their loss in a monopoly lawsuit, allowed the school to purchase new computers and licenses of Adobe CS4 Master Collection for every classroom. The Adobe Master Collection contains all the Adobe programs, including Adobe Acrobat, Photoshop, and Dreamweaver.

“The new technology will take some time to learn, but as the teachers start to learn more and more how to use it, they will appreciate it,” Clevenger said.