The Columbia School District is continuing to roll out its implementation of a 1:1 computer program in every school.
Technology Coordinator Marvin Adams spoke about the project during last Thursday’s Columbia School District Board of Trustees meeting, held at Columbia Elementary School.
“Deployment of the 843 Chromebooks was a joint effort including IT, maintenance and teacher volunteers,” Adams told the Board. “This could not have happened so fast without everyone working together for a common goal. The first Chromebooks were delivered on Oct. 5 and were tagged and processed by Oct. 31. Our target was complete deployment before the Thanksgiving break.”
Adams gave credit to the teachers and staff that helped make the implementation possible.
“Maintenance put the charging stations together and mounted them on the walls,” he said. “They alo removed nearly 900 boxes from the IT building and moved the carts from Columbia Primary School and Columbia Elementary School to Jefferson Middle School. They always found a way to get done what needed doing. Teachers Ashlee Montgomery, Danielle Whittington and Angela Johnson for CES and Haley Green from CPS unboxed machines, tagged and marked about 40 percent of them.”
The efforts of his IT team in the Columbia School District were also highlighted as Adams spoke.
“Chris Davis joined the machines to the cloud-based Google management console and Aleise McGowan organized the management console by classroom so we can manage app deployment. Joe Roney has been working almost constantly with the teachers at CPS and CES, preparing them to work in the 1:1 environment.”
Adams presented deployment statistics that included 36 charging stations mounted at Columbia Elementary School. All 18 classrooms have 28 machines each. At CPS, 14 classrooms were finished by last Thursday; four kindergarten, six first grade, and four second grade. Others have two charging stations with 28 machines. Five charging stations are on the way for two second-grade and two kindergarten classrooms and were expected to be completed by this week.
“Carts have been moved out of CES and CPS and will be moved as soon as CPS deployment is completed,” Adams said. “Carts will be deployed at JMS to sixth-, seventh-, and eighth-grade English and eighth-grade math. The remainder of CES units are being processed and CPD units will be processed when they are received next week. Processing involves inventory transfer, minor repairs, updates and transferring in the Google management console. Counting all the carts currently at JMS and those we will be moving from the other schools, we will have 13 carts at JMS. This will leave us one cart short to service all classrooms so one will roam between two teachers.”
Superintendent Jason Harris spoke about the project and then lauded Adams for his efforts.
“When I interviewed for this position, the Board challenged me to look at creating a 1:1 environment,” he said. “It is an environment where students have a computer for themselves and the teacher has one, to create a 21st Century learning environment. This year, with the help of Ms. (Lisa) White, we were able to secure a computer for every student. Part of that was about securing the dollars, but you can’t just put any computer out. You have to have the network and so many things that make that happen. Hopefully, at this time next year, we will have in place everything to finish out the remainder of the project with the middle school and high school where every student will have a computer, which in a community the size of ours and in a school district our size is very rare. All of this could not be possible without Marvin Adams. His foresight to get us where we are is extraordinary.”
Harris then honored Adams with an award for his efforts in helping lead the District through the transition.
“You’ve gone above and beyond the call of duty to make sure that students, staff and parents have the best of technology,” he said.
The Columbia School District Board of Trustees will meet next in regular session at 5:30 p.m. Tuesday, Dec. 12, a change in schedule from the normal Thursday meetings.
Pictured Above: Columbia School District Technology Coordinator Marvin Adams addresses the Board. | Photo by Mark Rogers
