High School's Tech Upgrades Roll Downhill

As Watchung Hills Regional High School integrates new technology and updated equipment into classrooms, many older computers become redundant in those classes.

So what to do with them?

According to a report of a review by the school's board of education Technology Committee given by Paul Seelig at the Oct. 3 board meeting, the new computers created a rolling upgrade for nearly one-third of all classrooms.

For example, the board decided to replace 52 computer workstations in the photo lab and computer graphics classrooms that were three- to six-years old—ancient technology for the high-processing needs of photo, video and graphics work.

Consequently, once the new iMac computers were ready for students, the older computers were reconfigured, upgraded for wireless Internet connections, and Dr. Seelig said most were reconfigured and set up for staff members' use or placed on portable carts for student needs.

Similar recycling was undertaken with 52 new Dell tower computers used in the school's "Project Lead the Way," with 35 of the recycled computers going to the  science labs for use in workstations running data acquisition of experiments in labs. Five went to guidance for students to research colleges, scholarships,etc.

Dr. Seelig said 38 Mac Pros intended for staff use were distributed by the end of last week. The computers they replaced computers will also be reconfigured for student use, or for spare parts.

The school has also added 15 computer-ready overhead projectors for classrooms, 58 Dell netbooks for student carts, and 60 iPads for teachers, who have been charged "with taking the iPads and evaluating theirs uses as they see it and to take a look at the applications that are out there to figure out which will be best to use in a school environment."

After Dr. Seelig's report, board Vice-president Harold Grossnickle noted the complexity of the project and said he was "impressed by our personnel and what they were able to do with this project." He complimented the school's IT Department, Math Department Supervisor Michael D'Allessio, and Director of Operations Roland Juliano for their help.