Wireless Internet Access is Coming to the Westwood Regional School District

The use of technology in the classroom has become a common practice and one that is constantly evolving as advances come along. Westwood Regional School District Technology Coordinator Ryan Kenny gave an overview on what the district has done on the technology front and where it's going.

One area that Kenny focused on during the school board meeting last week was the prospect of having wireless internet access at . He said the middle school would be the "test bed" for providing wireless internet access in all district buildings. Cabling for the wireless connections began March 1.

One of the reasons Kenny gave for the wireless connectivity is that standardized tests will be taken on computers in a few years.

Director of Elementary Education and District Technology Rory McCourt explained, "The math and language arts assessments to match the common core standards are going to be in place in the year 2014 and they're going to be web based in some way. They're not going to be paper, pencil any more. So what that means is we're going to have to test entire populations of students in some way on computers."

While wireless internet access isn't required for that type of testing, officials said it would allow for greater flexibility. McCourt said some students could be in a computer lab taking the test while others could be on laptops in their classrooms. He added that at this point no one, including those at the state level, knows what the web based testing will look like.

In addition to providing district upgrades, Kenny said officials have been working on ways to teach students about how to properly use technology both in school and in their everyday lives. He said they plan to kick off a cyber curriculum, called CyberSmart! district wide in September. To accompany the start of the lessons, which are meant to teach children how to behave appropriately in the digital world, there will be parent nights and a newsletter for parents.

Also coming, Kenny said there will be an e-mail server upgrade, a possible upgrade to Windows 7 and an update to the district website since Schoolwires has released a new version of its software.

Kenny explained that over the past year, there have been several improvements to technology use in the district. He said Genesis, which is a place where parents of students at can log on with an e-mail address and password to check the students' progress, launched in December. The portal allows parents to see information such as attendance, homework, discipline problems and schedules.