Case Study: Stroud Elementary School

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Success with Cachelink for Improving Internet Experience

About Stroud

Stroud Elementary is a public school for students in kindergarten through sixth grade and is located in Modesto, CA. The school recognizes the importance of adopting technology in the classroom and implemented a Technology Pilot Project. Headed by Stroud Webmaster Russell Ewick, this project designs and implements site-wide electronic access to online resources and Internet access for resource-based learning.

Challenge:

Russell Ewick, technology specialist and Webmaster for Stroud Elementary, works with students on 13 workstations in his classroom. In his lesson plans, students are required to access the same Web pages, such as encyclopedia and world book online sites to conduct research. With students accessing the same sites, they were experiencing slow download time, sometimes waiting up to 20 minutes for a page to load. Because of this slow download, Ewick was spending significant time creating a variety of lesson plans (such as dividing the class into two separate learning sections) to accommodate for the glitches.

As the Internet has become more essential in today’s classroom, Ewick needed a solution that would allow his students to work more effectively and efficiently on their computers. Ewick deployed the Cachelink software from Mangosoft Corporation. Cachelink is a software-based, LAN-wide Web cache product designed to significantly improve the performance of Internet and intranet access. Cachelink speeds access to commonly viewed Web pages 40X faster than a T1 connection and 150X faster than a 56K connection.

Cachelink Solution:

Ewick installed Cachelink on 13 PCs in his classroom and the installment process was quick and easy. He has seen a significant increase in productivity from the students as well as saving time in each class.

"The minutes saved in downloading a site add up quickly, adding hours to my students work week. Cachelink is an affordable solution that has significantly improved my classroom performance on the Internet," Russell Ewick, Technology Specialist and Webmaster, Stroud Elementary School.

Cachelink works by combining the "browser cache" (the memory computers use to download web content) from a group of PCs into one big cache that all the students can share. Once this happens, each downloaded page is accessible by anyone in the workgroup MUCH faster than if they had downloaded it themselves. Students no longer have to wait for a site to download; it’s available instantly and therefore allows them to work instead of wait. Ewick has simplified his lesson plan building as well as create a smoother learning environment in the classroom.

"Installing Cachelink was simple and we experienced results almost immediately. All sites are working faster and more successfully without any glitches,” Russell Ewick, Technology Specialist and Webmaster, Stroud Elementary School.

Bottom Line:

Ewick is planning to install Cachelink on additional PCs throughout the school and will be discussing the expansion of Cachelink with the Technology Committee next year. In addition, this summer Ewick will be heading a teacher-oriented workshop at the County Office of Education in Modesto, CA, where he also plans on incorporating Cachelink. With limited budgets in public schools, the affordable Cachelink solution provides a more productive Internet learning environment for students.