MONROE - Students at Monroe High School may have an expanded course offering for technical college credits as early as the second semester of this school year.
The Monroe school board unanimously approved spending $31,193.79 to purchase an interactive two-way, video-endpoint access, so students can take classes from Blackhawk Technical College.
Getting into the distance-learning arena was an important step in Monroe Business Administrator Ron Olson's view.
Olson said Blackhawk Technical College has more courses moving to Janesville and taking courses at night isn't always the best time for students at the high school.
"It's something a lot of other smaller school districts have already invested in because they don't have as many classes and programs that we have," Olson said. "This is our first dip into the water to see if we like this."
The video-endpoint access and mobile cart is being paid for by the district's referendum that was approved last year. Voters in the district approved increasing the budget for operational costs by $1.5 million each year for three years and boosting money for security and maintenance by $460,000 for three years.
The district had a new phone system installed over the summer for $218,000, which was also paid for with money from the referendum. The phone system included $14,000 per year in maintenance, and another $70,000 worth of switches with the federal e-rate program covering 70 percent.
Monroe High School Principal Chris Medenwaldt said the high school could have the system set up for the second semester. Medenwaldt said, depending on the course, students could earn high school and college credit.
Olson said by the end of October or early November, the high school may be ready to enable the Cisco video-endpoint access with a server to drive the video-collaboration software for distance learning. This would handle the additional license teachers would need to have for mobile phone extension from their homes. When teachers make calls from home, their classroom's phone number will appear on the caller ID of the parents.
"We had $500,000 budgeted for the phone project and with the endpoint access and mobile cart we will still be well under $400,000 of the $500,000 we budgeted," Olson said. "We know we may have more additions and finalizations to the phones over the next two years. If other issues come up with the phone system, we have money, or if we try it (access-end point and mobile cart) and we really like it, we could consider it at other (school) buildings."
Olson said the initial plan for the district was to have the access-endpoint technology and servers at each school to use as another learning tool.
"We didn't think that made sense at this time," he said.
Monroe District Administrator Rick Waski said the video-streaming capability and communication in the distance-learning classes will become more efficient.
The Monroe school board unanimously approved spending $31,193.79 to purchase an interactive two-way, video-endpoint access, so students can take classes from Blackhawk Technical College.
Getting into the distance-learning arena was an important step in Monroe Business Administrator Ron Olson's view.
Olson said Blackhawk Technical College has more courses moving to Janesville and taking courses at night isn't always the best time for students at the high school.
"It's something a lot of other smaller school districts have already invested in because they don't have as many classes and programs that we have," Olson said. "This is our first dip into the water to see if we like this."
The video-endpoint access and mobile cart is being paid for by the district's referendum that was approved last year. Voters in the district approved increasing the budget for operational costs by $1.5 million each year for three years and boosting money for security and maintenance by $460,000 for three years.
The district had a new phone system installed over the summer for $218,000, which was also paid for with money from the referendum. The phone system included $14,000 per year in maintenance, and another $70,000 worth of switches with the federal e-rate program covering 70 percent.
Monroe High School Principal Chris Medenwaldt said the high school could have the system set up for the second semester. Medenwaldt said, depending on the course, students could earn high school and college credit.
Olson said by the end of October or early November, the high school may be ready to enable the Cisco video-endpoint access with a server to drive the video-collaboration software for distance learning. This would handle the additional license teachers would need to have for mobile phone extension from their homes. When teachers make calls from home, their classroom's phone number will appear on the caller ID of the parents.
"We had $500,000 budgeted for the phone project and with the endpoint access and mobile cart we will still be well under $400,000 of the $500,000 we budgeted," Olson said. "We know we may have more additions and finalizations to the phones over the next two years. If other issues come up with the phone system, we have money, or if we try it (access-end point and mobile cart) and we really like it, we could consider it at other (school) buildings."
Olson said the initial plan for the district was to have the access-endpoint technology and servers at each school to use as another learning tool.
"We didn't think that made sense at this time," he said.
Monroe District Administrator Rick Waski said the video-streaming capability and communication in the distance-learning classes will become more efficient.