2014-2015 marks the beginning of a new school year. As we grow and change, so does the technology around us, and consequently, this year Edina High School is continuing the eLearning² program.

Jack Salaski, the technology specialist and eLearning² program coordinator, led this effort along with Director of District Media and Technology Service Steve Buettner. DMTS is made up of about thirty-six staff with eleven teaching paras, sixteen serving on the DMTS team, and nine media specialists. The first days of school are inherently stressful, and introducing a new technology initiative can be tricky. Because of this, the DMTS staff is working 24/7 to help make it all a bit easier.

EHS gave the option for students to check out Google Chromebooks if they don’t have their own device. The beginning of this this year, on Aug. 27th, 100 Chromebooks were given out. On Aug. 28th, 38 were given out.

“It’s nice that I can see my documents or assignments on both my phone, or my laptop at home, thanks to the new eLearning² program,” said junior Riley Christianson.

However, at the beginning of the first week of school, students and teachers experienced technological issues that caused Moodle to be slow, and sometimes even non-responsive. Now in the third week of school, the internet is faster and more efficient.

“It’s not the Internet that is slow, it’s Moodle that’s slow,” Buettner explained.

In other words, it’s not the Internet that is slow, it’s the fact that there are thousands of students a day on the server, and that no matter how many cords are plugged in to help the speed of the internet, there will always be technical difficulties.

“The internet was slow at first, but now it loads everything really fast,” said Christianson.

Another complaint has centered around the issue of being required to log in to different Wifi networks every time you reconnect to Edina’s network. At EHS, there are three Wifi networks to connect to: “Edina-Open”, “Edina-Secure”, and “Edina-Devices.” Many students have been logging in as a guest by using “guest” as both a username and password, however by doing so they have not yet authenticated themselves, which means there are restrictions to dif²ferent apps they would like to visit. Once students authenticate themselves with their own username and password, those restrictions disappear. Buettner explained that the district wants students to authenticate so they can track internet usage.

“It’s all about safety,” he said.