Barnsley council is making sure that its kids have access to new
technology and the Internet.
IT is seen by Barnsley Metropolitan Borough Council as the key
to lifting the town from its coal-mining past into the digital age,
writes Mike Simons. The council has rolled out one of the
biggest National Grid for Learning projects in the country.
It links 107 schools and provides 36,000 school children with
Internet access and e-mail addresses that will follow them from
nursery to secondary school and beyond.
The project won last year's Local Government IT Excellence
Award, which at about £8m did not come cheap.
John Jones, head of corporate IT services at the council, said
the aim of the project was to create a "potential workforce that is
second to none".
The need for a whole hearted commitment to the project was
clear. In the last decade the area has seen the destruction of its
coal mining and glass industries. Just a year ago less than 1% of
the local population had access to personal computers.
However, the initial objectives were modest - to allow each
child an hour of IT access each week as part of the normal
curriculum. A secondary aim was to ensure children encountered the
same desktop environment with every school move they made. The
council did this by adopting Microsoft's Office 2000, ahead of its
commercial launch.
Barnsley was able to roll out computers to 80 of the 107 schools
in the project within 10 weeks, using technology which required
only a single installation of software in each school, which was
then automatically distributed to the rest of the machines.
A key part of the project is the ability to control cost of
ownership. All machines at the council's 107 schools are
controllable from a single desktop. IT managers at the council can
even tell how much disc space is available on each machine, which
helped effective network monitoring.
"We're offering our school children a greatly increased ability
to work and build on their knowledge by efficient and effective use
of the Internet and intranet offered by the National Grid for
Learning," said Jones.
Know of any innovative public sector projects? If so, e-mail
Mike
Simons
Project partners
- Barnsley Metropolitan Borough Council
- Department for Education and Employment
Future developments
- Bringing libraries, community centres and homework clubs
online
- Development of a shared intranet among Barnsley
schools
- School-to-school videoconferencing