he bulletin board at Edison Middle School reads, "Technology: Follow this successful path to your dreams."
But teachers and students are finding traffic jams on that dream path.
The school's Internet connection, like that in many other Green Bay public schools, is just too slow and small. Watching video or downloading large files can slow or halt work on other computers throughout the district.
"It is really maddening sometimes," said Sue Ludvigson, library media specialist. "We are really limited in what we can do."
The school district, the city of Green Bay and Brown County plan to spend about $7 million to improve their Internet access with a joint fiber-optic network. The network also could be used for videoconferencing and swapping information between buildings.
The price tag is high, but officials think it's worthwhile — mostly because they are already shelling out thousands each month to lease fiber-optic lines from private companies. The Brown County Board approved bonding for $3.1 million in November in its 2007 budget. The school district plans to ask voters for more than $2 million in a February referendum, and the city will consider bonding for around $800,000 this spring.
Freezing up
Alex Willems, 13, spent an hour last week researching the Internet about the New York Stock Exchange. It was the assignment of the day in teacher Linda Seigworth's computer class.
"We looked up some stuff about record highs in the stock market," Willems said. "The computer is usually pretty good, but it freezes up sometimes."
As a computer teacher, Seigworth cringes when describing the problems. She has to tell children not to click on some Internet pages because they could stop the entire system.
"I tell the kids to save their work every few minutes because the network could crash," she said. "We live in a global economy today, and kids need to learn the technology."
Many new teaching opportunities are available through the Internet, but many require larger bandwidth connections than Green Bay schools provide. For example, any video on the Web is off limits at Edison except with special permission from the district office.
Only Green Bay's high schools have the kind of Internet connections they need to access higher bandwidth features, and sometimes they have trouble also. And the district's elementary school buildings have roughly the same Internet capacity as some residential lines — half a T1 line, according to computer technicians.
Fiber future
If the funding is approved, the fiber network will be extended to almost all city and county buildings. That would help city mechanics track maintenance on vehicles and help the fire stations share training information.
Brown County would run fiber connections to far-flung locations like the NEW Zoo in Suamico and the jail in east Green Bay. It would also connect the Neville Public Museum, Austin Straubel International Airport in Ashwaubenon, the Land Conservation offices, libraries and Syble Hopp School.
The city is developing a request for bids on the fiber installation. Construction could begin in 2008 and last about two years, said Mark Delaski, city information technology director.
"You're talking about drilling under the river and installing miles of fiber cable, so there's a lot of work," Delaski said.
The network would have a useful life of at least 20 years, which is what makes it a bargain. Brown County estimates it will save almost $4 million over that time by building its own network.
"The cost savings to our city by working together with the schools and county would be significant," Mayor Jim Schmitt said.
The project may include "dark fiber" or cable connections that could be used in the future for networking with other counties and other public buildings.
Source: greenbaypressgazette.com
