Hazelwood Upgrades IT Systems
It has been a very busy year in the IT Department atHazelwood College, undertaking the largest upgrade since the school first opened in 2002. Some of the changes are very visible to the user, such as the installation of over 100 ‘developer’ Desktops in all of the classrooms. Studentsin the school now use the latest versions of Microsoft software – Windows 7 Professional and Office 2010. Other improvements in the school were less visible to the user, improved wireless networks and the installation of a fibre optic network to join our three previous networks together to form one high speed fibre powered network. New laser printers were purchased for student use, projectors were installed in the classrooms that didn’t previously have them, and to drive all this new improved hardware two new ultra high specification servers were installed. Still to come is the final phase of our upgrades which will include the installation of sound systems in all the classrooms to compliment the projectors and the introduction of new hardware such as visualizers to specialist rooms such as Technology.
All of this couldn’t have been possible without the help of the Transition years. Over the year they removed all of the old retired equipment and cleaned down rooms to prepare for the new desktops. They were then upgraded to administrators and installed to new desktops onto the network. They learned about how computers are controlled and managed in a network environment, installed antivirus, antispyware and firewalls on the new desktops. As part of this upgrade they removed the internal sound and video cards from the old desktops and installed them to the new desktops and rewired the languagelab.
As reward for all their hard work in April we went on a two day hike to and from the Black Valley in Co. Kerry. We set out from Muckross House in Killarney in some glorious sunshine in the direction of Ladies View. A tough climb up the side of Torc Waterfall took us to the old Kenmare Road between Torc and Mangerton Mountains which we followed to Ladies View where we stopped for lunch. Once fed we dropped down to valley floor to hike into the Black Valley. Despite some valiant efforts to stay dry crossing some streams all was lost when the some brave souls had to go for a river swim. That evening in the hostel cooked Spaghetti Bolognese for 20 under the watchful eyes of MsDaly (thanks). Next morning after a feed of 80 sausages we headed for the Gapof Dunloe and to the finishing line of Kate Kearney’s Cottage. All in all over the two days we walked 30kms.
