CACHEBOX floats Martins Ferry’s boat
ApplianSys is pleased to announce that Martins Ferry City School District in Ohio has deployed a CACHEBOX solution giving the district access to learning content much faster than its 500Mbps internet connection would allow.
Google Classroom is central to Martins Ferry’s online curricula and it has fully adopted a 1:1 Chromebook scheme. But with a 500Mbps connection and 1,500 students in need of often simultaneous internet access, the district could not handle peak-time demand.
Lessons became disrupted which led to disengaged students for long periods. Content, especially from Google, was slow to arrive, putting student learning outcomes at severe risk.
With Martins Ferry already paying $3k per month, Technology Coordinator Bruce Hotlosz knew a bandwidth upgrade was too expensive. So, at a Tech Directors gathering, he was delighted to learn of a more cost-effective solution from Shawn Dakin of Newcomerstown. When the pair discussed connectivity issues, Shawn immediately recommended CACHEBOX.
With CACHEBOX, Martins Ferry has been able to offload up to 59% of overall student content demand, effectively avoiding the need to upgrade. And with CACHEBOX serving content from local cache at lightning-fast LAN speeds, the district no longer worries about slow content.
“Once deployed, Martins Ferry immediately saw great improvement: vital classroom content arrived up to 12 times faster through caching,” says CACHEBOX Consultant Alastair Scobbie. “That same amount of content would have taken 90 minutes to download if only using Martins Ferry’s internet connection!”
About
Martins Ferry City School District in suburban Martins Ferry, Ohio, aims to develop responsible and respectful young adults who are critical thinkers with 21st century knowledge and skills. The district relies on Chromebooks as part of its 1:1 scheme to provide students with the competences needed to achieve this vision.