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Dalton schools receive more than $500,000 grant [New Vision (Uganda)](New Vision (Uganda) Via Acquire Media NewsEdge) Faster and more reliable Internet and network connections will be available soon in all Dalton public schools, thanks, in part, to a grant awarded this week to the school district. Gov. Nathan Deal said that 103 local education authorities will be awarded more than $36.7 million from the Connections for Classrooms, a collaborative funding effort between the Governor's Office of Student Achievement, the Georgia Department of Education and the One Georgia Authority to help ensure classrooms across the state have the high-speed broadband access required for digital and blended learning. Dalton Public Schools will receive approximately $524,000 of those funds, according to Howard Langford, director of technology and telecommunications. "We submitted our application to the state to focus on the obsolete networking equipment that we have in all of our locations — with the exception of Dalton Middle School, which is our newest network," Langford said. "The money will allow us to improve infrastructure in areas like firewalls, routers and anything to do with Internet accessibility." The funds will be available when an update later this month from the state entails how they can be dispersed throughout the system. "When the money gets here, we know exactly what will be ordered, and improvements can begin being installed almost immediately," said Craig Harper, chief administrative officer for the school system. "This will allow us to have a faster and more reliable system." According to administrators, the improvements allow for the implementation of a network infrastructure that, down the road, can support very high-speed Internet. "You will be talking about a significant, drastic improvement in quality of service — in terms of connectivity, reliability and speed — because we are able to do this first level of improvements," Langford said. The Connections for Classrooms grant was a competitive process, open to all public schools in the state. COPYRIGHT (c) 2014 NEWVISION. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. Provided by SyndiGate Media Inc. (Syndigate.info). |