Georgia schools invest in new technology, paperless strategies

Investing in new technology infrastructure could have a big payout for Carroll County schools, as they expand their potential. According to Times-Georgian, the school district recently received an $80,000 grant to invest in new technology and expand its Internet access and related systems.

"The purpose is to promote digital learning and to make educational use of such a high-speed connection," Dennis Thompson, chief technology officer for the school system, told the news source. "Which is great, but a lot of school systems were wondering how they were going to pay for the equipment to handle such a fast connection. The infrastructure we currently have – our firewalls and content filters, those kinds of things – won't support that amount of bandwidth."

Part of any technology upgrade should include the foundation for future improvements. For schools, this could be a migration to paperless operations. Eliminating paperwork from administrative offices and classrooms may seem like a big step, but it can streamline workflow, reduce costs and even improve learning opportunities for students.

A paperless strategy was part of Carroll County School System's plan as well.

"It's really become widespread this year," said Josh Bingham, instructional technology specialist for the system. "A math classroom at Mt. Zion Middle has gone completely paperless, with the teacher sending out assignments and students turning them back in on iPads. A math class that's paperless – that's pretty amazing."

By investing in the conversion services, document management software and related tools needed to support the many needs of a school, learning facilities can optimize the flow of information, reduce the costs of learning materials, and even help students gain access to new and exciting solutions for studying and interacting with their teachers and each other.

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