Inklings Editorial

Nobody ever said taking care of 408 new laptops was going to be easy. Despite the litany of troubles that has come along with so many new computers, Staples’ IT staff has performed admirably in fixing them. And with only four members, that is no small feat.

It is the district’s responsibility to increase the amount of staffers in the IT department. Not only does it owe an increase to the overworked members of the tech staff— it owes it to the students and educators at Staples, as well.

Natalie Carrignan, director of instructional technology, Reinaldo Santana, head technician, and their colleagues should be commended for the countless hours they put into trying to fix the computers’ problems.

With the vast increase in number of COWs and other new pieces of equipment that the staff has had to deal with—without any commensurate increase in hiring— the entire community should recognize their performance.

But there is another lesson to be learned from all of this.

No amount of technology can compensate for instructional time, which made it all the more frustrating to teachers when the new COWs, which were supposed to have saved time and resources, ended up consuming over a third of a class period in some cases just to get set up.

The benefits of computers in the classroom are undeniable. Teachers can have their students do projects that would have once been unimaginable, and students can be more productive in a relatively short span of time. But placing so much trust in technology can be risky.

Missing entire class periods because computers would not log in is simply unacceptable.

While the district’s dedication to providing its schools with the newest technology available deserves to be complimented, it needs to provide adequate measures in the future to ensure that episodes like this one do not happen again in the future. Hiring more technology staffers would be a good start.