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Subject: Chapel Hill Technology Advisory Committee

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  • From: Terri Buckner <tbuckner AT ibiblio.org>
  • To: Chapel Hill Information Technology Advisory Committee <chtechcomm AT lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: [Chtechcomm] Program wires students to school
  • Date: Mon, 28 Nov 2005 10:26:28 -0500

Great job Bob!


Program wires students to school


Northside site of pilot Wi-Fi initiative

BY NICKI JHABVALA
STAFF WRITER
November 28, 2005

After a year of discussion, Wi-Fi is coming to Chapel Hill — at least for students housed in the Craig/Gomains units in the Northside neighborhood.

The Chapel Hill Town Council recently approved a pilot project to give the students access to school resources on the Internet using the Connect 2 School program through the Chapel Hill-Carrboro School district.

“The town has been researching the viability of a citywide wireless initiative for many months and they are still continuing to do that,” said Ray Reitz, the head of information technology for the school district.

“This is kind of an offshoot from that project to see if the town could connect more public housing additions in our town.”

Wireless access has been limited to some users who have the resources and equipment to use the wireless signal.

At a meeting earlier this year, comments were read from a letter written by a University student who had tutored school-grade students.

In the letter, the student claimed that students who have access to the Internet are in a much better position to learn and have a much greater interest in doing so.

“The idea presented was that if we could provide greater access to Internet resources that students would be the beneficiaries of that,” said Bob Avery, the director of information technology for Chapel Hill.

Avery said the schools had been offering students loaner computers to help connect to school resources, but difficulties arose when students lacked Internet access.

The council’s Monday meeting resulted in the Town Council deciding to place a wireless access point on Craig Street and provide students living in the Northside housing units with personal computers and wireless access adapters, if needed.

Council member Jim Ward noted that Craig/Gomains’ status as a low-income area was attractive to the council for the site for the pilot project. “This is a way of giving them access that maybe economically advantaged kids have routinely.”

“It’s particularly important that we model our project (here) so that we are demonstrating that we are trying to make this resource available to everybody regardless of their economic needs,” he said.

The funding for the project will come out of the Information Technology Department’s existing budget. By keeping the Internet access restricted to only educational purposes, officials said the costs will remain relatively minimal for such an endeavor.

Reitz said if the pilot is successful, the town will look to provide access to other public housing areas, as well as other neighborhoods.

“If there’s a capability to go beyond that, we’ll certainly look at that, but right now, we’re not trying to predict the outcome. We’re just going to try to learn from the process.”
http://www.dailytarheel.com/vnews/display.v/ART/2005/11/28/438a992134b05





  • [Chtechcomm] Program wires students to school, Terri Buckner, 11/28/2005

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