MaSSSoftech

OSKALOOSA, Aug 16, 2009 (The Oskaloosa Herald - McClatchy-Tribune Information Services via COMTEX) -- They could be called cutting-edge majors.

At William Penn University this fall, three new majors are being introduced. With programs focused on software engineering, computer science and information technology, future graduates will be better prepared for the "real world" after graduation.

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Judy Williams, assistant professor of applied computer science, said the applied computer science classes encourage students to work together in groups. Williams said this is all part of acclimating students to real-life work environments. More often than not, those with computer science backgrounds are faced with the needs of their clients.

"There are very few cowboys who program in a cave all by themselves," joked Williams. "Basically, on the job, people are working in teams, so you might as well get used to it." Williams, who has taught at William Penn since 1981, said the university has had a long-standing relationship with computer technology. Penn graduated their first applied computer science students in 1983, said Williams.


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"I think we've been on the cutting edge," she said.

From the very beginning, Penn's approach to computer science has been an applied one, rather than one based on theory. This means computer science students at the university have taken a more hands-on approach from the beginning.

Williams said that, with these new majors as with past computer science programs at the university, communication is key. She said students are instructed on how to translate computer jargon to language understood by the average person, including future clients of theirs.

"We decided, at Penn, that we would provide these liaison people that could communicate both ways," said Williams. "They need to know how to make the customer happy." Over the years, Penn's applied computer science programs have adapted to the ever changing world of technology, said Williams. An advisory committee to the university, professors from other schools and Penn alumni all help their computer science programs stay current, Williams added.

By the mid-'80s, applied computer science students at Penn knew they were not at all behind the times.

In 1986, Williams took a group of students to the Special Interest Group Computer Science Education conference. Once there, Williams and her students quickly realized they were ahead of the curve. Most schools at the time taught computer science using lecture courses only.

"In 1981, we had our first micro-computer lab," Williams said.

With the three new applied computer science majors, separate computer labs will be provided for students in the Musco Technology Center on Penn's campus. This will be especially needed, once students begin taking the upper-level courses in these majors, said Williams. Many of these courses will include tweaking certain security measures within a computer network. With the new labs, students won't do any of this kind of testing on the computer network used by the entire Penn campus.

"Our idea is, over here we could have our own stand-alone network," said Williams.

------ Herald City Editor Andy Goodell can be reached at news2@oskyherald.com To see more of The Oskaloosa Herald or to subscribe to the newspaper, go to http://www.oskaloosaherald.com. Copyright (c) 2009, The Oskaloosa Herald, Iowa Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Information Services. For reprints, email tmsreprints@permissionsgroup.com, call 800-374-7985 or 847-635-6550, send a fax to 847-635-6968, or write to The Permissions Group Inc., 1247 Milwaukee Ave., Suite 303, Glenview, IL 60025, USA.

Healthcare Management Systems, Inc. ® (HMS) announced today that it was selected by Delta Memorial Hospital to supply a full suite of financial and clinical solutions for the hospital and its rural health clinic. The new HMS system will provide much needed integration for the critical access hospital in Dumas, Ark., and will also include advanced clinical technology to help them achieve an electronic health record (EHR) for their patients.

“We are looking forward to implementing a hospital-wide information system that will enable us to provide more efficient patient services while ensuring all revenue streams for the hospital are captured,” says Cris Bolin, administrator for Delta Memorial Hospital.

Delta Memorial had been working with a financials-only hospital system from APS, as well as disparate pharmacy and laboratory systems, and found that they were in need of an enterprise-wide solution that would grow with them.

“We were looking to acquire a new system that would integrate our hospital, rural health clinic and home health agency, improve the quality of patient care and meet the federally mandated government regulations which will require us to provide electronic health records,” says Paula Smith, information technology director for Delta Memorial Hospital.

“HMS’ commitment to patient care quality and customer service and their ability to provide us with the vast amount of clinical and financial tools that will ensure greater efficiency is what led our hospital board in their unanimous decision to choose HMS,” Smith concluded.

“We are honored to have been selected by Delta Memorial to provide the technology and service solutions that will enable the organization to achieve their goals of providing quality care to the patients and families they serve while more efficiently managing their operations,” says Steve Starkey, senior vice president and chief operating officer for HMS.

About HMS

Healthcare Management Systems, Inc. ® (HMS) is a Nashville-based healthcare company that develops, sells and supports integrated clinical and financial hospital information systems and services. Founded in 1984, HMS counts among its customers nearly 650 community hospitals; behavioral, rehabilitation and long-term acute care facilities; and multi-entity healthcare organizations nationwide. With the HMS system, caregivers are able to increase their efficiency in delivering quality care with an emphasis on improving patient safety. For more information, please visit www.hmstn.com or call 800.383.3317.

By Bloomberg News

Aug. 17 (Bloomberg) -- Baoshan Iron & Steel Co., Angang Steel Co. and rival Chinese mills will likely report slumps in first-half earnings from this week. Things will get better, Credit Suisse Group AG and JPMorgan Chase & Co said.

Baoshan, China’s largest mill, may record a 98 percent profit slide for the first six months, and earnings will rebound to $1 billion in the second half from a loss a year ago, Credit Suisse said. Infrastructure projects and “explosive” steel demand will end a year of earnings declines, JPMorgan said.

“We expect profitability to improve as a result of contract price increases” and lower costs, said Jing Ulrich, JPMorgan’s chairwoman for China equities and commodities in Hong Kong. “Demand is particularly strong from the automobile, infrastructure and real-estate industries.”

Steel output reached a record and prices have soared 29 percent since the government announced a 4 trillion yuan ($586 billion) stimulus package in November to revive the economy. Record passenger car sales and a surge in construction have spurred demand, while costs of raw materials have dropped.

Angang, a unit of China’s second-largest steelmaker, may post a first-half loss of as much as 2.99 billion yuan today, according to an earlier company forecast. Last November, Baoshan Steel’s parent, the world’s third-largest mill, said output, sales and profit plunged as the company faced its “most difficult” period since its founding 30 years ago.

Shanghai-based Baoshan Steel, reporting on Aug. 28, has risen 60 percent this year, compared with a 58 percent gain in the benchmark Shanghai Composite Index. Liaoning province-based Angang has surged 76 percent in Hong Kong trading. Wuhan Iron & Steel Co., the fifth-largest mill, soared 84 percent.

Further Stock Gains

Profit for mills this quarter may rise between 30 percent to 50 percent from the three months ended June, said Wu Kan, a Shanghai-based fund manager at Dazhong Insurance Co., which manages about $285 million. “If the results match or beat market expectations, steel stocks would rise further,” he said.

Baoshan Steel has raised prices for three months since July, and Wuhan Iron & Steel, Hebei Iron & Steel Group and Jiangsu Shagang Group Co. have announced increases in the past month.

China won a 35 percent cut in iron ore prices from Fortescue Metal Group Ltd., and will ask the biggest producers Vale SA, BHP Billiton Ltd. and Rio Tinto Group for a similar reduction, the China Iron and Steel Association said today.

Profit Jumps

Credit Suisse raised 2009 earnings estimates for Baoshan 53 percent to 7.2 billion yuan on Aug. 7, and predicted a second- half profit of almost 7 billion yuan. First-half income likely dropped to 186 million yuan from 9.64 billion yuan a year ago.

Angang Steel’s earnings will jump to 2.5 billion yuan for the six months ending Dec. 31, according to the brokerage. Baoshan and Angang lost a combined 6.2 billion yuan in the second half of 2008.

Baoshan Steel and Angang Steel declined to comment.

Baoshan fell 7.6 percent today to 7.44 yuan in Shanghai, and Angang fell 5.6 percent to HK$15.26 in Hong Kong. China’s stocks dropped today after metal prices slumped and investors worried this year’s rally was overdone.

Demand will improve in the second half, the China Iron & Steel Association said July 31. The nation’s 71 largest mills posted a combined profit of 3.55 billion yuan in June, the second gain after seven months of losses, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology said July 29.

Rising Usage

Capacity use at Chinese mills have exceeded 90 percent for reinforcement bars, up from 70 percent earlier, said Zhao Xiange, a Shanghai-based analyst with Shenyin Wanguo Securities Co. For hot-rolled coil, the rate is 80 percent, he said.

China’s industrial output gained 10.8 percent in July from a year ago, the National Bureau of Statistics said Aug 11. Car sales soared 70.5 percent, the biggest jump since January 2006.

“Profit margins for some steel production have reached records,” said Wanguo’s Zhao. “Steel prices will rise in the second half because of demand driven by the stimulus.”

China’s steel revival will push global prices higher, UBS AG said last month. Posco, South Korea’s largest steelmaker, raised its 2009 output target by 6.4 percent last month.

Steel prices in the U.S. rose 13 percent in July, the first gain in a year, after distributors began restocking, Purchasing magazine said July 31.

Beware Correction

The rapid gains in Chinese prices have prompted users to run down inventories, said Umetal Research Institute’s analyst Hu Yanping. Hot-rolled coil prices fell 6.4 percent for the week ended Aug. 14, the first decline in six weeks.

“Traders dare not restock on concerns prices had risen too fast,” said Hu. “There may be a correction for a few more weeks. After that, prices will move up again with the positive fiscal and monetary policies still in place and also because the global environment is slowly warming up.”

Baoshan Steel and the larger mills may post bigger profit gains than their smaller rivals in the second half because flat product prices, which have lagged behind long products, may catch up, Wanguo’s Zhao said.

Flat products, such as cold-rolled coils, are used in cars, appliances, ships and pipes. Long products are used in construction.

--Helen Yuan. Editors: Tan Hwee Ann, Teo Chian Wei.

To contact the Bloomberg News staff on this story: Helen Yuan in Shanghai at hyuan@bloomberg.net

Call it innovation on steroids. Or innovation at warp speed. Or just the innovation of rapid innovation.
The Journal Report

See the complete Business Insight report.

But the essential point remains: Technology is transforming innovation at its core, allowing companies to test new ideas at speeds—and prices—that were unimaginable even a decade ago. They can stick features on Web sites and tell within hours how customers respond. They can see results from in-store promotions, or efforts to boost process productivity, almost as quickly.

The result? Innovation initiatives that used to take months and megabucks to coordinate and launch can often be started in seconds for cents.

And that makes innovation, the lifeblood of growth, more efficient and cheaper. Companies are able to get a much better idea of how their customers behave and what they want. This gives new offerings and marketing efforts a better shot at success.
[bi_cover] Harry Campbell

Companies will also be willing to try new things, because the price of failure is so much lower. That will bring big changes for corporate culture—making it easier to challenge accepted wisdom, for instance, and forcing managers to give more employees a say in the innovation process.

There will be even better payoffs for customers: Their likes and dislikes will have much more impact on companies' decisions. In globally competitive markets, they will ultimately end up getting products and services better tailored to their needs.

Already, this powerful new capability is changing the way some of the biggest companies in the world do business, inspiring new strategies and revolutionizing the research-and-development process.

"In the U.S., we do the vast majority of our concept testing online, which has created truly substantial savings in money and time," says Joan Lewis, global consumer and market knowledge officer at Procter & Gamble Co.

Finding the Link

What does all of this experimentation look like in practice?

Consider Google Inc., which runs 50 to 200 search experiments at any given time. In one case, Google asked selected users how many search results they would like to see on a single screen. More, said the users, many more. So Google ran an experiment that tripled the number of search results per screen to 30. The company found that traffic declined.

What happened? On average it took about a third of a second longer for search results to appear—a seemingly insignificant delay that nonetheless upset many of the users. The greater number of results also made it more likely that a user would click on a page that did not have the information he or she was seeking.

In an environment where experimentation is this quick and efficient, many traditional practices make less economic sense. For instance, current research-and-development efforts are often driven by considerations that the company's technicians think are important but customers really don't care about. Mobile-phone companies, for one, had a reputation for piling on features that added more cost and complexity than value.

Real-World Results

But it's not just Web-based companies that are taking advantage of technology to run crucial experiments.

Even retailers—who might seem to have tremendous logistical challenges implementing rapid experiments across lots of stores—can tap this new approach, thanks to the rise of sophisticated tracking systems that make measuring customer behavior more agile and less expensive.

These systems—which track everything from purchases at the cash register to how products move through the supply chain—allow stores to cheaply collect terabytes of data on their customer interactions, the performance of products in the field, employee productivity and other factors. Traditionally, companies have simply rooted through all of that data to look for patterns and trends; they've mined their data. But some retailers are beginning to realize that they can get much better results by using their digital systems to run experiments.

Take Wal-Mart Stores Inc., which frequently runs comparative in-store experiments with signage, displays and shelf layouts to see what influences shopper decisions. Wal-Mart can test different arrangements in a number of stores for a week or so to see which approach boosts sales the most. If different sign colors or unusual merchandise juxtapositions increase—or depress—relative sales, the stores can quickly share the information and implement the same plan. That said, store managers also have the ability to make decisions at their store to meet individual customer needs.

Other companies, meanwhile, have blended digital technologies and conventional systems to test out ideas. For instance, Harrah's Entertainment Inc. uses advanced information systems to analyze data from its Total Reward Card and field experiments throughout its casino and hotel network.
The Speed of Change

* The Evolution: Technology is allowing companies to test new ideas at speeds—and prices—that were unimaginable even a decade ago.
* The Effect: Innovation, the lifeblood of growth, is growing more efficient and cheaper.
* What's Ahead: Innovative companies will shift away from traditional research-and-development methods. Managers will change the way they solicit ideas. And much, much more.

Gary Loveman, the chief executive who brought the experimentation mindset to 70-year-old Harrah's, quips, "There are two ways to get fired from Harrah's: stealing from the company, or failing to include a proper control group in your business experiment."

Experiments to Come

Where will all this lead? Experiments will become far more pervasive and persuasive as information technology improves and testing grows faster and cheaper. More companies—and more enterprising individuals who work in them—will recognize that experiments don't have to be time-consuming and expensive, and they will propose more tests that exploit those economies.

Increasingly, the more innovative companies—the Googles and Harrah's of tomorrow—will shift away from traditional research-and-development methods. Five years ago, for instance, a leadership team might have reviewed two or three "big" innovation proposals from consulting gurus; executive teams today might compare the outcomes of 50 or 60 real-world experiments to decide which ones to act upon.
For Further Reading

See these related articles from MIT Sloan Management Review.

* The Era of Open Innovation
By Henry W. Chesbrough (Spring 2003)
Companies are increasingly rethinking the fundamental ways in which they generate ideas and bring them to market—harnessing external ideas while leveraging their in-house R&D outside their current operations.
http://sloanreview.mit.edu/x/4435
* Institutionalizing Innovation
By Scott D. Anthony, Mark W. Johnson and Joseph V. Sinfield (Winter 2008)
Building an engine that produces a steady stream of innovative growth businesses is difficult, but companies that are able to do it differentiate themselves from competitors.
http://sloanreview.mit.edu/x/49216
* An Inside View of IBM's 'Innovation Jam'
By Osvald M. Bjelland and Robert Chapman Wood (Fall 2008)
IBM brought 150,000 employees and stakeholders together to help move its latest technologies to market. Both the difficulties it faced and the successes it achieved provide important lessons.
http://sloanreview.mit.edu/x/50101
* The 12 Different Ways for Companies to Innovate
By Mohanbir Sawhney, Robert C. Wolcott and Inigo Arroniz (Spring 2006)
Companies with a restricted view of innovation can miss opportunities. A new framework called the "innovation radar" helps avoid that.
http://sloanreview.mit.edu/x/47314
* Creating New Markets Through Service Innovation
By Leonard L. Berry, Venkatesh Shankar, Janet Turner Parish, Susan Cadwallader and Thomas Dotzel (Winter 2006)
Many companies make incremental improvements to their service offerings, but few succeed in creating service innovations that generate new markets or reshape existing ones.
http://sloanreview.mit.edu/x/47213

All of which guarantees huge changes for corporate cultures. Challenging conventional wisdom, for one thing, becomes immeasurably faster, cheaper and easier. And there's a subtle shift in how people view innovation. People don't talk about running experiments months into the future—they're into immediacy, because they see that they can test ideas right away, and the company culture starts to actively encourage speed. A provocative hypothesis proposed during a morning meeting might graduate into a full-blown experiment by day's end.

Even if a test doesn't produce a workable idea, there's usually something important to be gleaned from it. "Genius is born from a thousand failures," says Greg Linden, an entrepreneur who has been an innovator at both Amazon.com Inc. and Microsoft Corp. "In each failed test, you learn something that helps you find something that will work. Constant, continuous, ubiquitous experimentation is the most important thing."
Giving Up Control

This new environment also has big implications for managers. Simply put, bosses must be prepared to give up some control. With testing so cheap, easy and accessible, there's less need to ration it as they have in the past. Managers used to directing the company's innovation efforts must give their workers the freedom to come up with ideas on their own and pursue them without lots of red tape.

Some of the best experiments come from outside the chain of command. At Amazon, for instance, innovators initially developed the company's recommendations feature—which suggests other products customers might want—without explicit approval from higher-ups.

Not only do we expect managers to solicit and welcome more ideas from lower down in the ranks, we expect that lots more people will be invited to review experiments and make changes. Customer-service and maintenance people, say, might chime in on experiments proposed by manufacturing or distribution.

That might seem hard to believe, given the turf battles that can arise over new ideas. But when experiments become more abundant—and easy and inexpensive to change—those proprietary issues won't come up as much. Think of the difference between improving and sharing presentations back in the day of transparencies and 35mm slides versus PowerPoint presentations, which can be modified with a few clicks of a mouse.
[EXPERIMENT] Harry Campbell

As more people get involved in experimentation, companies will also need to change their focus in education and training efforts for innovation. Instead of just getting workers to creatively interpret large volumes of data, companies will need to help them develop the skills to rapidly design provocative experiments. Passive analysis will be subordinate to active experimentation.

Another crucial development down the road will be "scaling." Digital technology, as we have seen, allows companies to test new ideas quickly and easily. But the technology also lets companies easily scale those ideas—or implement them rapidly and cheaply throughout the whole business. We predict that as companies realize the power of this idea, they will focus on experiments that not only can be tested rapidly but also can be put into wide effect just as quickly.

The most obvious example of scaling is a Web site. Companies can test out a new feature with a quick bit of programming and see how users respond. The change can then be replicated on billions of customer screens.

But that kind of scaling becomes rapidly possible in the bricks-and-mortar world, too, as more business processes become digital—supply-chain management, customer-relationship management and so forth. When a retailer identifies a better process for screening new employees, the company can embed the process in its human-resource-management software and have thousands of locations implementing the new plan the next morning.

We think the future of innovation and the future of experimentation will continue to evolve, thanks to the improving economics of digital technologies. As a result, the next decade of innovation in the global marketplace will be even more tumultuous than the last. That's a great opportunity for innovators—and even better news for customers and consumers world-wide.

--Dr. Brynjolfsson is a professor of management at the MIT Sloan School of Management. Mr. Schrage is a research fellow at the MIT Center for Digital Business. They can be reached at reports@wsj.com.

Samsung has come up with a new feature packed multimedia phone that is bound to rock the youth. Called Omnia, the handset series is for work and play.

samsung-omnia-i8910-hd-in-india

Omnia i8910 is the first series of Samsung’s 60 Fifth Edition handset, to be launched in India. It has a remarkable camera with an 8 megapixel capacity and a superb HD video recording (720p @ 30fps) ability.

Omnia HD is a power packed phone that has a big enough 3.7 inch AMOLED screen with a 360 x 640 pixel resolution. This cell phone also has an ARM Cortex A8 processor which runs at 600 MHz.

Featuring a 3.5 mm audio jack and DNSe 2.0 (Digital Natural Sound Engine). It has a Virtual 5.1 channel Dolby surround sound.

Omnia i8910’s UI is the Samsungs proprietary Touchwiz. Priced at Rs 33,990/-, the phone has some more cool features like a QWETRY keyboard and looks chicer than N97.

Information Technology law update: Microsoft ordered to stop selling Word!

By Izaz Ali

Microsoft has been ordered to stop selling Microsoft Word, within 60 days.

Judge Leonard Davis a US District Court Judge for the Eastern District of Texas gave the ruling and restricted the Microsoft Corporation from selling, offer to sell, and/or importing in or into the US any Infringing and future Word Products that have the capability of opening a .XML file.

Microsoft Corporation was also ordered to pay $290m for infringing an i4i patent covering a document system that relies on the .XML custom formatting function.

Izaz Ali (Izaz.Ali@lawdit.co.uk) Izaz is a commercial lawyer who specialises in information technology law and intellectual property law with an emphasis on IT, escrow, online and off-line contracts, and the buying and selling of online businesses.

Students return this week to new age of learning tools

By Vanessa Miller (Contact)
Saturday, August 15, 2009
Monarch High School senior Wes Snyder, 17, right, gives a tour of the athletic facilities to incoming freshmen and their parents Wednesday. The new students, from left, include Elise Kinney, Bridget Radley and Megan Radley, all 14.

Monarch High School senior Wes Snyder, 17, right, gives a tour of the athletic facilities to incoming freshmen and their parents Wednesday. The new students, from left, include Elise Kinney, Bridget Radley and Megan Radley, all 14.
Information technology instructor Maureen Curno, right, helps Jackie Esler, a new sixth-grade science teacher, with access to the school district’s Web site during a technology training session at Arapahoe Ridge High School last week.

Photo by Marty Caivano

Information technology instructor Maureen Curno, right, helps Jackie Esler, a new sixth-grade science teacher, with access to the school district’s Web site during a technology training session at Arapahoe Ridge High School last week.
From left, incoming Monarch High School freshmen Bridget Radley, Lizzie Johnson and Elise Kinney, all 14, walk through the Louisville school during a tour for new students Wednesday. When Boulder Valley students start school this week, they’ll return to classrooms with upgraded technology, like interactive white boards and high-speed Internet.

From left, incoming Monarch High School freshmen Bridget Radley, Lizzie Johnson and Elise Kinney, all 14, walk through the Louisville school during a tour for new students Wednesday. When Boulder Valley students start school this week, they’ll return to classrooms with upgraded technology, like interactive white boards and high-speed Internet.
Back to school

Start dates for students in the Boulder Valley and St. Vrain Valley school districts:

Tuesday: Boulder Valley transition day for sixth- and ninth-graders

Wednesday: First day of school for the rest of Boulder Valley’s middle and high school students; first day of school for all St. Vrain Valley students

Thursday: First day of school for Boulder Valley elementary students and half of the Boulder Valley kindergarten students

Friday: First day of school for the remaining half of Boulder Valley’s kindergarten students

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BOULDER, Colo. — Boulder Valley students’ lives these days are teeming with the latest and greatest technology, and now — after years of district upgrades — so are their classrooms.

When students and teachers across the Boulder Valley School District return to school this week, they’ll have more digital tools at their disposal than ever before. Any teacher in any school, for example, will be able to pull up any educational video or slideshow on their computer through an on-demand-type communal database aimed at streamlining teaching materials and eliminating paper and plastic products.

“We used to use VCRs and DVDS and send them from building to building,” said Dave Williamson, Boulder Valley’s chief information officer. “No more. All that now is housed centrally in a big video library.”

That same system will deliver cable TV to most classrooms in the district, he said, and dramatically improve student and teacher Internet access.

“That used to be slow and hampered,” Williamson said. “Now things are going to be much, much better.”

One of the more glamorous technology advancements that some schools have boasted for a while and other schools will debut this fall are intelligent white boards that are a far cry from the black boards and chalk of yore. They work like giant iPhones, allowing teachers or students to touch the board, drag icons and access the Internet in an instant to look up news articles, world maps or anything else relevant to the subject at hand.

“I love smart boards,” said Alex Young, 13, an eighth-grader at Boulder’s Southern Hills Middle School.

“You can do anything on them,” her friend and classmate Caitie Reck, 13, agreed. “They’re a lot nicer than a projector, and they’re fun.”

Even tests are changing shape. Many of today’s Boulder Valley teachers nowadays are quizzing their pupils using clickers rather than pencils and paper. Students are assigned clickers and then asked multiple choice questions that they can answer with their devices.

“The new technology lets teachers check in more with how many kids are getting it,” said Southern Hills parent Pat Gilbert.

‘This is just getting started’

Most of the district’s latest technological classroom advances that will make a noticeable difference this fall are a product of Boulder Valley’s new “wide area network.” Crews installed the 70-mile fiber optic network — paid for through the $296.8 million bond initiative passed in 2006 — over the past year with the goal of digitally connecting all of the district’s 55 schools.

“It’s not something you see physically, but students and teachers will notice a significant difference in their ability to do things — like access the Internet,” said Williams, the district’s information officer.

The network has increased the Internet-connection speed from 1.5 megabytes a second to 10 gigabytes a second, and it’s allowed the district to convert all of its phones to “voice over internet protocol” — meaning calls are made via the Internet rather than traditional phone lines.

Boulder Valley used to have several separate phone and Internet connections, each with its own service fee. Reducing the number of connections not only improves reliability but saves the district thousands of dollars each year, Williamson said.

“And this is just getting started,” he said of the new technology’s benefits.

As part of this year’s upgrades, the district has installed ceiling-mounted projection systems and speakers in most classrooms allowing teachers to transmit whatever is on their computer screens to projection boards that all students can see, Williamson said.

“I think, in some ways, Boulder Valley is catching up to the curve,” he said.

Training Boulder Valley’s thousands of staff members will take time, he said, but eventually the new technology will make a “fundamental difference” in the way students learn.

“It will take a healthy dose of staff development,” Williamson said. “But it’s certainly going to affect the way they teach in the long run. No doubt in my mind.”

Green technology

Not all of the district’s new technology is being used on teaching aids. Money from the district’s bond initiative also has funded high-tech energy savers that have helped many Boulder Valley buildings go green.

Most classrooms now have individual thermostats to keep sunny rooms from wasting heat and shaded ones from wasting air conditioning. Many rooms also now have motion sensors that automatically turn lights on and off when people enter or leave.

Some classrooms even have lighting ballasts that automatically dim the electrical lights as the sun brightens a room, district bond spokeswoman Susan Cousins said.

“That’s intended to be something that building occupants don’t even notice,” she said.

A few schools — like Manhattan Middle School in Boulder — are using solar panels, and other buildings have been uniquely designed to capture daylight with “light shelves,” larger windows and skylights, Cousins said.

In the bathroom, many toilets have been converted to low-flow tanks or dual-flush operations. Dual-flush technology, she said, allows a person to push the flusher one direction for a lot of water and another direction for a little.

When it comes to keeping students safe, bond money and a federal grant has enabled Boulder Valley to upgrade its security technology by installing automatically locking doors in some buildings and downloading building floor plans into an online database.

'This makes it all easier’

Students are reaping the benefits of new technology outside the classroom, as well. High-schoolers regularly use the Internet for research and study help, of course, but many teachers also send home assignments via e-mail and provide online resources to study aids.

“My Spanish text book was online so I didn’t have to carry it around,” said Fairview High sophomore Maia Raeder, 15.

Southern Hills parent Renate Brummer, of Boulder, said she’s been amazed at some of the new tools at her daughter’s disposal.

“The smart boards are fantastic,” she said. “They allow teachers to explore everything very visually and in a quick manner. You don’t have to deal with the colored chalk and the dry-erase boards.”

Brummer said her seventh-grader has shared about how she can flip around digital images of protractors during geometry lessons instead of having to hold up rulers while trying to calculate measurements.

“This makes it easier, by all means,” Brummer said.

And while district officials and national education experts are predicting technology will continue to become more and more central to classroom instruction, Brummer said she’s still pressing the importance of traditional reading, writing and calculating skills to her child.

“You can’t take a laptop into King Soopers to write a shopping list,” she said.

And, Brummer said, even with all the new tools in the world, students still depend on good instruction to gain long-term knowledge.

“Technology alone doesn’t make a good school,” she said. “It’s secondary to the teachers and the principal and the parent involvement.”