Rolling Hotspots/ Hotspots on Graduated Wheels
In today’s society, the usage of internet and technology is rapidly growing across the globe. Internet access has enabled students to expand their memory as well as improve their general knowledge about anything they want to know. Also, internet has changed the way of living. I believe that students’ usage of internet is highest amongst the entire mankind in fields of technology¬¬. There are many areas in United States of America where the poverty line is below the national average. The school officials thought to improve the education rate as well as to empower and secure the future of the students. They came up with an idea that would help students to learn online and get connected to the world. Eventually, some schools started to implement the program called “Wi-Fi on Wheels.” This program was designed to help students of the rural areas and the low-income students to be able to gain access over internet 24/7. Darry Adams, the superintendent of CVUSD and Dr. Ron Duerring, the superintendent of Kanawha County Schools were the pioneers to put hotspots on the school buses and park around the places to give access to students and make their students career more successful and secure.
The students of Coachella Valley Unified School District, CA (CVUSD) and Kanawha County School, were ranked first for lack of education and knowledge of whereabouts of the events happening in the world. After a successful start of the program in this areas, the students are now connected to internet at their home, during transit to school, and at school. This program has benefitted them in a positive way, because students are now able to expand their research and learn more effectively. Also the graduating rate and college acceptance rate has increased rapidly after the launch of the program.
According to the school’s superintendent, Darry Adams states that, “Only about 60 percent of the student population has internet access at home.” He also states that he got this idea from commercials of cars. He somehow came to know that the cars can now be equipped by internet,” [and] “so I thought, ‘Why not put it on a school bus?’” As per this date, Adams said that, “Now the entire school is online.”
Darry Adams made his dream and first priority to get entire students population online. In an interview with superintendent and a PBS SoCal reporter, he states: “We wanted to ensure that students had 24/7 access to the Internet. Because learning does not stop at the end of the school day.” His one thought that learning does not stop at the end of the school day was touched by many national officials, students, teachers, and other schools. This approach has given many other schools to start the same program for their students and give them the knowledge and access to internet at their doorsteps.
CVUSD started this program with installing high speed internet and larger area coverage routers in three school buses and used this buses for commuting for the areas where students had no internet coverage. This buses were also used for commute to field trips, and sporting events. These school buses were parked overnight at the areas where internet access is otherwise not available. In “Wi-Fi on Wheels,” Darry Adams says, “trailer parks and tribal reservations were among the district’s first choices as locations to provide Wi-Fi via its buses” (qtd. In McCrea 18).
The purpose of the investment in rolling hotspot is not only to provide internet access to students from their way to and from school, but also to help those students to increase their interest in education and help them to discover and learn more about their career or thoughts going in their world. With almost half of the student’s population not able to gain access to internet, Adams felt that CVUSD pupils were at a disadvantage in today’s tech-centered world. Adams stated in the conference with the school board that, “In the 21st century, if you don’t have access to information you’re going to be at a disadvantage. Access denied is education denied.”
With allowing the school buses to be parked on side of the road or in between the neighborhood, some officials of the program thought and proved that access to internet is not private and it is used by other individuals in the community and this results in decrease in speed of internet and misused in many. So to resolve this problem, CVUSD came up with a solution that reduces the misuse and excess usage of internet and cost reduction of back-up generators in the buses. The internet routers were powered through solar panels that allowed the routers to run and not to drain the battery of the bus or to refuel the bus by leaving it turned on. Students have a specific protocol installed on their laptops or mobile devices and have a confidential and unique username and password that allows them to login and access the internet. This ensures that only students can have access to internet. Many other schools provide free internet to the students at their home with partnering nationally and globally to provide network to students.
Cradlepoint, the global leader in cloud-delivered 4G LTE network solutions for distributed enterprises, announced that Kanawha County Schools has chosen Cradlepoint to support in-vehicle connectivity for the county’s 158 school buses. The school officials believe that Wi-Fi access will offer students the resources that they require to succeed and not to worry financially as well as stay late at school’s library or go to their regional library to connect to internet.
Dr. Ron Duerring, superintendent of Kanawha County Schools states that, “Students can spend upwards of 45 minutes to an hour on the bus each day. Between extracurricular activities and responsibilities at home and work, often times these students are up late at night and in the early morning trying to complete their school assignments” (qtd. Cradlepoint n.p.). Dr. Duerring believes that buses that are capable of sharing internet with other users using routers, will provide secure, monitored, and a reliable learning environment that gives the students their flexibility to meet both their personal and academic commitments made to their teachers, themselves, and their parents and friends.
As internet is provided by school, the research and the study shows that students are now able to maintain their focus more on education as well as work on their homework while riding the bus. This gives the opportunity to the students to work during evenings and learn and complete their homework while riding the school bus. Through this expansion of technology to students, students now take online courses and learn at their own time during a day instead of learning at a fixed time. Billy Hudson, a Vanderbilt professor of medicine and biochemistry as well as director of the center for matrix biology states that, “This is an experiment. It’s not about Sheridan; it’s about rural America” (n.p.).