Virtual Computer Lab Available (10/9/2009)

The Technology Department at CIU20 is pleased to announce the availability of a virtual computer lab for use by teachers and students within the IU20 service area. The virtual computer lab has 30 computers available that can be accessed from any internet browser. Users will have access to software applications and computing power that may be beyond the reach of their home computers or public computers that they are using to access the virtual lab. Internet use on the virtual computers will be filtered by the CIU20 filtering software and will be monitored as well, as required by the CIU20 Acceptable Use Policy and the Children’s Internet Protection Act (CIPA). 

Classroom teachers may reserve the 30 lab virtual computers for use during a class period by contacting the CIU20 Technology Department. Teachers can use the virtual lab to try out software before they purchase it or to demonstrate software to students or administrators prior to purchasing the software for use in their classroom. Contact the Technology Department for details on having trial software installed on the virtual computers; it’s quick and easy.

Students who are accustomed to using expensive computer software in school may now be able to access the same software from home by connecting to the virtual computer lab. Files stored by students on personal drives can be accessed by the virtual computer and local printers can be used to print documents that are being worked on. Completed files can be saved back to the student’s personal drive for transportability.

Instructions for connecting to the virtual computers will be provided to school officials via district contact meetings which are held routinely at CIU20. Students will be given a generic login which they can use to connect after school hours and teachers will be given unique logins as they reserve the lab for whole-class use.