While students enjoy some degree of relaxation over the summer, ITS works hard to improve Choate’s technology. Since June our devoted staff members in Brownell have made changes all over campus that affect Choaties’ daily lives.

New this year is the proximity sensor system which allows Choate students into dorms on campus. This security system has redefined the Choate Card; now the card serves as a student ID, debit card and key into dorms, making it, as RTA Jeff Mead ’08 says, “a much bigger deal to lose it.” The barcode technology now used for money transactions has made the accounting system more fluid for ITS, but the new card is also for student convenience. Eventually, says Andrew Speyer, Director of ITS, “we will look into using the card for attendance on bus trips, washing machines, vending machines, maybe even local vendors.” Using the Choate Card at Half Moon or soda machines would be extremely convenient, although that will be an innovation for later down the road.

Math classes were cancelled last Saturday to give math teachers a day to be instructed in the use of Smart Boards. St. John Hall there are new Smart Boards, mounted projectors and speaker systems, plus two thin clients in the first floor hall. With Smart Boards students can watch teachers use calculators and teachers can email students worksheets displayed and drawn on during class. This year Mr. Phelan’s class will use tablet pcs with DyKnow software, allowing for an interactive but paperless math class. The science center also was given a cart of tablets while the library acquired new laptops which run on wirelessly on Citrix, the same software the thin clients use.

The school also got sixteen new “Blade” servers for Citrix, making more efficient use of fans and electricity, part of Choate’s commitment to sustainability. The Internet also got faster this summer; from 20 mbs last year to 30 mbs this year, although because of “packet shaping” this increase in speed will “primarily be noticed on websites devoted to academics—CHIP, Blackboard, etc.—not Youtube,” says Head RTA Andrew Dominguez ’08.

Yet to come is a renovation of the PMAC Main Theater, which will soon enjoy the use of permanent recording equipment and a huge projector. According to Andrew Speyer, students “would be able to capture, store, edit, and broadcast events in the theater,” possibly starting with this year’s Spring Musical and Commencement. This exciting technology opens the potential for telecasting footage to another location such as Getz Auditorium. The same touch-screen technology that is in Getz will be installed in the PMAC starting this winter break. Says Andrew Speyer “In the future we may put theater productions and sports games online,” something Andover and Exeter Academies already do.

ITS has also slightly changed the way it fixes technology issues this year by adding prefects to the body of RTAs. Now all students in dorms can go to their prefects for help with computers. If the prefects are unable to solve the issue, they can communicate with RTAs via the newly established “Tech Wiki” and dorm blogs on CHIP. All prefects attended a training session before school started to prepare them to help students, which Mr. Speyer says was “just the beginning…we’ll do it again next year.” Andrew Dominguez likes having the prefects on board too: “it makes RTAs’ work more efficient; now we can solve problems en masse and save time. We don’t have to find problems, prefects do that now.”

As Andrew Speyer said in his video-cast to the students over the summer, you can email comments and suggestions to him.