Tech makeover across the board

The Valley View Education Foundation accomplished two technology goals with one fundraising campaign when the school opened a retooled computer lab filled with 35 flat-screen, dual-processor iMacs on Friday.

The iMacs were a significant upgrade to the computer lab itself, and Valley View Elementary classrooms benefited, too, because the eMac computers that had been in the lab could then be shifted into the classroom, said Dan Abboud, the president of the school’s foundation.

The foundation’s primary objective this year was to upgrade the computers in the classroom — 5-year-old iMacs and some 10-year-old Apple computers. The foundation decided shifting the lab’s eMacs, which are only about 3 years old, into the classroom was a good way to do it, Abboud said.

“We thought we could redo the lab all at once and distribute computers from the lab into classrooms,” Abboud said.

Using $20,000 that the foundation raised over the last two years and another $20,000 that the foundation raised through its “Campaign for Excellence” during October and November, the foundation came up with the $40,000 it needed to buy the new flat-screen iMacs. To generate support, the foundation created color brochures that explained to Valley View families what their donation was going toward and how much money was needed.

In the brochures, the foundation asked each family to give $100.

Principal Carla Walker said she thought the marketing effort had been effective in bringing the remainder of the necessary funds in so quickly.

“The brochure was very impressive,” Walker said. “I think it made the difference.”

Before acquiring the new computers, the classrooms at Valley View had 10-year-old Apple computers that were on their last legs, and iMacs that weren’t capable of running programs like Flash, said Shelley Owen, who runs the computer lab at Valley View.

The batch of older classroom iMacs couldn’t run certain Internet-based programs, so their use was limited, Owen said. Now that the eMacs are in the classroom, students can use more programs there, Owen said.