Technical Education

Computer technologies have been a part of K-12 education for a number of years now, but we seem to have kept it segregated from regular academic content. There are classes that teach computer usage, word processing and web-page design but we have been slow in actually using technologies as a tool to teach and apply traditional academic coursework. At this point it is fairly common to use computers to take attendance, add a projector and we can use computers as glorified overhead projectors, but only a select few are using technologies to actually help students interact with course content and improve their skills and understanding.

In the development of this web-based curriculum we have worked to produce a web environment that will fulfill two fundamental objects: 1) Allow students to interact with a course content independently (makeup or self study) 2) Provide a framework where teachers can use these webpages to increase their effectiveness to more clearly disseminate coursework information. One outcome of these courses is to train up people to be the future work force. Laptop Repair Denver (www.laptoprepairdenver.com) is a prime example of the types of businesses that benefit from our program. Students that learn computer repair, electronics, and CAD drafting skills at the highschool level will be one step ahead of those that do not.

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Business Services

Network services are configured on corporate local area networks to ensure security and user friendly operation. They help the LAN run smoothly and efficiently. Corporate LANs use network services such as DNS (Domain Name System) to give names to IP and MAC addresses (people remember names like “nm.lan” better than they remember numbers like “210.121.67.18”), and DHCP to ensure that everyone on the network has a valid IP address.

DHCP eases administrative burden by automating the IP assignment of nodes on the network. Adding or removing nodes from the network doesn’t create problems with IP address retrieval; the DHCP service handles this automatically. Authentication servers are another network service, they allow every user to have their own account, and everything they do on that account is logged under their user name. This means that not only are users accountable for anything they do while on the network, but also it increases security as anyone wanting to access the LAN must have a registered user name and password.

Doing network administration without having user accounts to track user activity (illegal or otherwise) or DHCP to automate IP assignment to nodes, or DNS to simplify IP address access would be troublesome indeed. Enabling these few network services automates complex and time consuming administration to the network, and thus eases downtime for network administrators.

E-mail, printing and network file sharing services are also network services. They are seldom not used in a LAN environment, as they allow users to access any printer connected to the network, files on the server or other nodes connected, and streamline data transfer within the network. They require users to have permissions to access the resources shared, and are simple to configure security and access rights for, with the directory service- also a network service.