Technical problems at Career Tech

When you think of the newest technical high school in the Valley, what images spring to mind? Students on shiny new computers accessing the Internet to help them with projects? Perhaps it’s students bringing laptops from home to access wireless at the school. Maybe even using a school e-mail address to talk to teachers.

If these are the images you have, they would not mesh well with what is going on at Mat-Su Career and Technical High School.

When this school was designed, one of the main thoughts was that students would be able to take classes that allow them to have a head start on their chosen careers. Currently, the computer classes at CTHS are falling behind the rapidly advancing technology. Students taking technical applications classes are leaning with Microsoft products from 2007, even though the 2010 version is out. Students in desktop publishing classes are using outdated versions of applications like Photoshop. For a school that prides itself on its advanced technology, it certainly isn’t raising the bar.

Outdated technology is often eclipsed by the computers that are used to run them. One of the biggest problems is a program installed on most of the computers called Deep Freeze. When a student logs off the computer they’re using, it is restored to its original settings. This means that if a hapless student saves a file on the computer, it’s erased. This means that any malicious programs are wiped off the hard drive as well, but it also means students must go through a labyrinth of files in order to correctly save their work. It would be better for teachers if they could turn Deep Freeze on and off. Then they would have more control over what was on their computers.

One way I feel CTHS computers could be more useful is if streaming videos were allowed. Currently, students and teachers are not allowed to view videos online. As the Internet becomes more and more a part of teaching and learning, allowing videos will become necessary.

This is especially important at CTHS because of the Promethean boards in every classroom. Promethean boards are interactive white boards that, among other things, can play videos, let students and teachers write and display web pages. These are useful pieces of equipment that are used in my classes every day. Not allowing something as simple as video to be played, especially by teachers who wish to show educational videos, is ridiculous.

Not allowing the streaming of videos is part of a larger problem at Career and Technical High School — the web filters. As an easily distracted, student I understand that web filters are a necessary evil. If students were allowed free access to the web nothing would get done. The current site blockers are just as bad. The filters at CTHS block not only social networking sites and websites that aren’t appropriate for school, but also web sites that are useful and even necessary for doing school work.

Want to go to Google images? Can’t. News sites like NPR? No again. What about educational sites? Well as I mentioned earlier, if they stream video you’re out of luck. Even if there’s other useful information, you cant access it at all. This makes researching projects extremely difficult, especially if you don’t have Internet at home. I hope people will realize these filters are frustrating for students and teachers, and the programs will change soon.

One way the school could become more like the technical school people boast about is opening wireless to the entire student body. We live in a time where Internet access can be found anywhere, from hospitals to fast food restaurants. Wireless Internet can be accessed on mobile phones, some MP3 players and computers. It seems logical that CTHS would offer wifi for its students. Allowing students to access the Internet would encourage them to bring home computers so they could work on projects. The Career and Technical high school is even short on computers. Students bringing their own could be useful.

I understand that allowing the entire student body to access the wireless Internet could be expensive. It would mean new routers, more broadband and other problems for our systems operator. This brings me to another problem with the Internet at CTHS: how slow it is.

At CTHS, it is a fact acknowledged by everyone that the computers move at a glacial pace, especially the Internet. When you do decide to use the Internet on a school computer, it takes so long that more often then not you’d rather just give up. If the school allowed it’s students to have free Internet access it would be a reason to modify the system to not only make it accessible to everyone, but faster as well.

My last suggestion to improve technology at Career and Technical High School is to have school e-mail addresses for students. Because e-mail is, of course, blocked, student have no way to access any files they might send to their e-mail or important information. Having a school e-mail address would be very useful for students. Kids working on school work on their computers who want to print it out at school could send the document to their e-mail and access it there.

If a student is having difficulties with an assignment they could access their teachers. Students could even e-mail each other. Having an e-mail address you could actually access would be useful for everyone.

For all my criticism of CTHS’s computer network, it does have it’s strengths. The AutoCAD program used by the building pathway is something that is not offered at other schools. Cisco equipment is also something you’re not likely to stumble across at other high schools, but it is used by the A+ classes. The school allows students to become certified in many different programs that will help them get jobs and college.

Though the school still has a long way to go when it comes to catching up to current technology, it is advanced and this does not go unnoticed. I just want technical education at my school to be the best it can be, and this is what I think it takes.

Sophie Harris is a Junior at Mat-Su Career and Technical High School.