ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1997, Roanoke Times
DATE: Tuesday, February 11, 1997 TAG: 9702110060
SECTION: CURRENT PAGE: NRV-5 EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY
DATELINE: PULASKI
SOURCE: PAUL DELLINGER STAFF WRITER
Students throughout Pulaski County are expected to be using new Microsoft Works software throughout the school system by April.
Superintendent Bill Asbury said the new instructional software, which is starting to replace the system's original WICAT learning system, is needed to catch up with the computer technology explosion since the system's original computers were installed.
The transition will be made during this year's second semester. The new software will be installed on existing computers. For now, no new hardware will be required.
"The instructional use of the computer labs will continue. The type of software we use and the instructional strategies we employ, however, will gradually begin to change as we retrain the computer lab managers, apply new software and orient our teachers," Asbury said.
The new software will help meet such new state Standards of Learning requirements as teaching students, by the fifth grade, to create documents through world-processing as well as simple databases and spreadsheets.
When voters approved a $2 million bond issue in 1990 to put computer labs in every school, Asbury said, they helped prepare county students for the computer age.
By late 1991, he said, 286 computers, 11 file servers and associated software had been installed, allowing students access to more than 2,500 hours of computer instruction by grade 12. At that time, the WICAT system was one of three integrated learning systems on the market, Asbury said.
But times have changed.
"The computers served us well," Asbury said. "Even now in 1997 they are still up and running, and are able to perform certain applications very well."
But faster computers with ever-increasing memory now perform applications that did not even exist six years ago, when "Internet access was not even a buzz-word," Asbury said. "In terms of the computer age, the computers we purchased six years ago are now the equivalent of Model-T Fords in the automobile market."
Software programs available today have also passed through several evolutionary states with the technology exploding in uses for education, government, business, medicine and other fields, he said.
"We have definitely received our money's worth from our initial investment," he said. "We will continue to reap rewards from that investment in the years to come." The existing computers can continue being used for tasks that do not require great speed or memory.
The new software will allow students to learn expanded computer applications, and will make Internet access available to all students and staff through a wireless wide-area network to be phased in this spring, he said.
"We will build upon the success of the 1990 bond referendum and continue to develop programs that are suitable for our children and our community, as we exit the 20th century and enter the 21st," Asbury said.
LENGTH: Medium: 60 linesby CNB