Dell Develops Portable Computing Labs to Aid Oklahoma City’s Districtwide Technology Efforts

Oklahoma City Public Schools (OKCPS), the city of Oklahoma City, and the Oklahoma City Metropolitan Area Public Schools Trust are working with Dell to install two mobile computer labs at each of the district’s 79 schools, giving educators much-needed flexibility to juggle computing resources during a comprehensive building improvement project. MAPS for Kids, a $690 million sales tax and school bond initiative, will allow every OKCPS student to attend a new or renovated school by 2012. It will also provide academic programs for building 21 st century skills. OKCPS selected Dell to provide a $3.5 million solution comprised of 1,920 Dell Latitude D620 notebook computers, which will be integrated with mobile carts. Each cart acts as a portable computer lab, featuring 12 notebooks and a wireless access point…

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Texas District Improves Security with ConSentry Solution

ConSentry Networks, a provider of secure LAN solutions, has announced that the Mount Pleasant Independent School District (TX) is using the ConSentry LANShield platforms to detect and stop unauthorized activity and to prevent the spread of malware. The Mount Pleasant School District is a K-12 school system that encompasses about 5,000 students and 900 employees spread across eight sites. Although the district’s LAN was protected at the perimeter by an intrusion prevention system (IPS), as well as by anti-virus software, the district had no way to control user access on the LAN or to monitor and control how network resources were used. The school district also needed a better way to contain malware since IPS devices are too expensive to deploy throughout the internal LAN segments. A three-year search for an easy-to-use, affordable LAN security solution that could track and control traffic on the network ultimately led to ConSentry Networks…

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Discovery Education One Place Attracts Districts, Forms Partnerships with Online Service Providers

States, regional centers, and districts nationwide are signing on to become users of Discovery Education One Place, an innovative service that offers easy, convenient access to online teaching resources through a single entry point. One Place, which launched this fall, is also attracting new partnerships with leading K-12 online service providers that will give access to their educational resources on the system. Major schools districts that have subscribed to One Place include Palm Beach County School District (FL) and Fontana Unified School District (CA). Alabama Public Television has also signed up for One Place, and will offer it on its online digital resource library, APTPLUS, a service available at no cost to all K-12 public, private, and faith-based schools and homeschoolers in Alabama, as well as schools of education at every college and university across the state. Additionally, Discovery Education continues to add to its list of leading K-12 online service providers that offer educators and administrators a rich array of educational resources. Its newest partner is Thomson Gale, a world leader in e-research and educational publishing for libraries...

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Is the Green, Digital 'School of the Future' Our Future?

Imagine a public high school where books, pens, pencils, libraries, and even combination lockers are a necessity of the past. Teachers in this school do not use blackboards. In fact, this school does not have teachers; it has “educators.” Students do not attend this school, but “learners” do. Seems a little futuristic because it is, as the name of this school suggests. Since September, 170 teens—all freshmen—have attended the “School of the Future” in a working-class West Philadelphia neighborhood. The class has an almost 99 percent minority population, and approximately 85 percent of the students come from low-income families, according to Microsoft’s website. The high school will continue to add grades until 2010, when it will have a full ninth- to 12th-grade student body. A report on CNN’s website over the weekend about this school caught my attention and left me amazed and wondering if public schools of the not-so-distant future will be similar to Philadelphia’s School of the Future. It came as no surprise when I learned that Microsoft is associated with the School of the Future. Microsoft shared its personnel and management skills during the three-year planning process, but the Philadelphia School District paid for the school’s construction. Labeled as one of the most advanced high schools ever constructed, the public-private partnership school touts a progressive and researched-based curriculum that incorporates technology and environmentally friendly, or green, architecture…

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