Envision Technology Advisors Helps Build Rhode Island’s First Fully Virtualized Charter School

PAWTUCKET, RI – On Wednesday, September 4^th, 2013, Rhode Island’s first fully virtualized charter school opened its doors to students. Located at 135 Weybosset Street in Downtown Providence, The Village Green Virtual Public Charter School uses a “blended learning” model of on-line curriculum and in-classroom teaching. Envision Technology Advisors was proud to have been the technology partner selected to help build this innovative new school.

“I am incredibly proud of what we were able to accomplish at The Village Green School,” says Todd Knapp, Envision’s CEO. “With this project, we’ve helped to build something wonderful for our state by creating a platform that will give RI students a competitive edge.”

Having been involved in the project at its early stages, Envision was able to provide strategic direction during the build of the school and through all aspects of the technology that would be used, including server, desktop and user-facing infrastructure, phone systems, network data wiring, electrical, security software, and more. Additionally, Envision deployed wireless throughout the school’s entire building to ensure that students and teachers had reliable, secure access to the online resources they would need.

Dr. Robert Pilkington, charter school designer, operator and Head of School at Village Green says, “The system which Envision designed and deployed is one which can handle the demands of an entire student body and faculty being on-line and working in the virtual curriculum simultaneously and the Envision system does so without any compromise in functionality. By doing their jobs well, Envision allowed me to do my job better.”

For the students at Village Green, mobility is especially important. Their time in the school includes both self-paced, online lessons and assessments taken at their own private workstations within larger lab spaces, as well as small group and face-to-face instruction in one of the building’s numerous breakout rooms. Students must be able to access their individual profiles and software no matter where in the school they are, a requirement Envision fulfilled through their expertise with Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI) with VMware and by deploying a virtual desktop/thin client system for Village Green School. Virtual Desktops give the students, and educators, at Village Green the flexibility to always have the technology they need available to them without being tied to a specific desk at all times.

“The Village Green Virtual Public Charter School is really a blueprint for how technology can be most effectively used in our public schools,” states Envision’s COO, Mike Ando.

“What Envision has helped to architect at the school from an infrastructure standpoint, including the deployment of virtual desktops for all students and the wireless connectivity throughout the school, is a big leap forward from what we’ve seen at other schools,” adds Jeff Wilhelm, Envision’s CTO. “I certainly expect more schools to follow Village Green’s lead and I encourage them to contact Envision to discuss how they may be able to best use technology like this in their own environments.”

You can learn more about Envision’s role in the technology solutions deployed for the Village Green Virtual Public Charter School at www.envisionsuccess.net/village-green .

About Envision Technology Advisors
Envision Technology Advisors provides a range of technology consulting services to the New England area and beyond. Envision’s specialties include desktop and data center virtualization, cloud services, enterprise data solutions, network consulting, website design and development, and business strategy consulting. With offices in Pawtucket, RI and the Greater Boston area, the company has been named a “Best Place to Work” for five straight years. For more information, visit www.envisionsuccess.net.

Leave a comment