The Yukon-Koyukuk School District (YKSD) encompasses nearly 65,000 square miles and serves ten villages, of which eight villages can only be reached by air or river travel. 85% of its students are home schooled and the district faces high teacher turnover (30 – 50%), high internet costs ($16k per month per site), and cultural differences with their primarily Alaskan native communities.
A team of Pure Storage volunteers provided IT infrastructure and teacher technology support to the Yukon-Koyukuk School District in Alaska. This project was a collaboration between Team4Tech and the Consortium for School Networking (CoSN). Cumulatively, volunteers provided more than 11,000 hours to:
- Create online books with Book Creator,
- Design professional looking publications with Microsoft Sway,
- Craft engaging videos with WeVideo,
- Problem solve with basic robots called Ozobots,
- Build lego robotics with Lego WeDo 2.0,
- Design 3D items with Tinkercad and then how to calibrate and print them on a 3D printer,
- Create, fly, and program lego drones called Flybrix.
During the teacher technology workshops, the team of Pure Storage volunteers covered some of the most complex workshops ever prepared for by Team4Tech volunteers. The Pure Storage team engaged the teachers on various maker technology software and hardware. The IT team helped patch servers, replaced broken hard drives, upgraded server updates, and scanned systems for security issues.