News

Bottineau Public Schools and Dakota College adds more technology for the upcoming academic year

By Heather Milbrath

08/20/2013

Many students have begun their back to school shopping and are gearing up for the end of summer. While back to school shopping is an old tradition, many things have changed within education.

More and more students are seeing laptops and tablets as a necessity for school. Schools are doing their part to keep up with changes in technology as well. Both Dakota College at Bottineau (DCB) and Bottineau Public Schools (BPS) have been working this summer to install new updates for the soon to be arriving students.

DCB

Jacob Nelson, the Desktop and Network Support Technician at DCB says the college has made many new changes.

“This year is an exciting year for DCB.” Nelson said. “We are starting a pilot laptop program for our nursing students. We purchased 30 laptops for the purpose of this pilot program and we’ll be collecting data from the instructors and students on how well the program has done.”

The idea behind this pilot program is so the students would not have to buy their own laptops. This will not only help the students save money, but also help cut down on the number of IT complications, because all these laptops will meet system requirements.

These laptops can be used by the nursing students in and out of the classroom. If this pilot program is well received by the students and instructors, Nelson said there are plans to expand the program.

“There’s a possibility DCB will move toward a laptop college and provide all on campus students with their own laptops.” Nelson said. “This is also beneficial for IT as we would not need to maintain desktop computer labs anymore.”

Another update for the college was the purchasing of 30 classroom clickers. These clickers are handheld devices that students can use in a lecture as a response system.

According to Nelson, an instructor would create a series of questions, the students would answer the questions using their clickers, and then the instructor would display the correct answers as well as how many peers got the questions right.

This system allows for instant feedback to students, and helps students get a feel for how an instructor writes questions.

BPS

BPS has also been updating their technology within the school. Kody Backman, technology coordinator at BPS, said that he has begun the process of replacing all the old computers at BPS. Because this will be a spendy undertaking, Backman has to slowly replace them and he started by buying 30 iMacs this year. Backman also said that over the past couple years BPS has shifted toward becoming more mobile and now has nearly 250 mobile devices to be used by students and staff.

Backman is also in the process of setting up another business computer lab that will house 20 computers. This new lab will be used for multimedia classes for learning web design, video editing and other graphic skills. In addition, this new lab will have dual displays, which gives students more area to work with.

The big technology project at BPS for this summer was an upgrade to the wired network. Over the past couple of years, BPS has increased its number of wireless machines and Backman is hoping to increase the speed of connection throughout the school. Backman has also been working on adding a new type of directory system. This system will allow a student to log into any school computer and see his or her own personalized desktop. This desktop would contain all of his or her files, lowering the potential for losing data.

“With this setup students will be able to store their files from the third grade until they graduate.” Backman said. “Depending on the student’s interests, this could lead to quite the portfolio of work being available to them (and a perspective employer) when they leave.”

VIDEO SYSTEMS

A program that is in place at BPS and DCB is classes offered over a video system. At DCB, it is called the interactive video network (IVN) and at BPS is it ITV. BPS has one ITV classroom that offers classes for juniors and seniors. These classes are taught by other instructors in the state, and the students watch the lectures on a TV in the ITV room.

DCB has eight IVN classes, where students can take classes that are offered at any other campus in the state. ITV and IVN is a great tool for students who attend school in smaller towns because they can still take a variety of classes.