I would like to welcome you to my little town in Mt. Olivet Kentucky, population 349 per the 2016 US census.

Technology has impacted our community in radical ways in recent years, and it was all set in motion with our arrival in a new school just five years ago. First of all, the switch alone from Deming High School (1927) to the new Robertson County School (2013) enhanced our environment drastically. Just the building itself being structurally sound gave us peace of mind going to school every day. And from a school with just one outdated computer lab to a school with two updated computer labs and projectors in every room, the internet is now a more accessible learning tool. This was a dramatic change for the better, but the most notable change came with the addition of Chromebooks to the classroom.

A Chromebook is a laptop run by Google on which all of your data is stored online. We now have one of these for every student in the school. This means we have the internet at our fingertips, allowing us to accelerate our learning at a speed never before possible. We use these to some extent in most of our classes, whether for research, participating in online educational programs, answering questions as a group, taking exams, or even typing school reports. The Chromebooks have had an amazing effect on our school and our students.

Though the impact of the Chromebooks is great, we also use the internet in other ways. Our science class has used Google Expedition to take a virtual reality trip inside a cell. Our English class has used Skype to talk to someone halfway around the world in Africa. This demonstrates how the use of technology can help you gain a better understanding of the world around you.

Although the internet is a massive tool for learning, it is not the only way technology has impacted our community. Our agriculture department recently received two grants: one for a state-of-the-art drone, and the other for a solar panel array. Our class will use the drone for crop mapping and the solar panels will help power some aspects of the school. Innovative learning at its finest is happening right here, right now at Robertson County School.