The Infrastructure for Technology area of the Texas STaR Chart provides detailed guidance for implementing appropriate technologies in order to improve school districts and individual campuses. Specifically, focus is given to the student to computer ratio, as well as to specific LAN and WAN technologies that are in place at the district and campus levels.
As the internet and emerging web technologies have replaced many desktop dependent programs, more and more focus has been placed upon the bandwidth a district purchases from an Internet Service Provider. In the past, many schools operated on a single T-1 line, but as more robust content took the place of text only web pages, the need for bigger pipes coming into our schools was obvious. Distance learning has also been a proponent of the faster internet connections which are now commonplace in our schools.
The STaR Chart and its many Long Range Plan for Technology correlates are one component of an integral system for ensuring that public schools are able to purchase technology infrastructure equipment such as switches, routers and network cabling that will ensure students benefit from a connected classroom and are truly enabled to be 21st century learners. Once strengths and weaknesses in technology are identified by teachers and administrators on campus, the district’s technology department is required to submit an e-plan for technology for the following one to three years. Once the e-plan has been submitted, district technologists can begin to submit and accept requests for proposals and requests for bids that eventually lead to the district spending it’s technology dollars on infrastructure equipment, wth partial funding through the e-rate system of the schools and libraries division of the US Department of Education.
Infrastructure is an area I find overwhelming and tedious. Understanding what is required to have all campuses up and running with internet connections and distance learning seems like a huge undertaking, not to mention, expensive.
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