Polk County News
Polk County Itemizer-Observer • November 8, 2017 7A
Program may mark the start of new partnership
By Jolene Guzman
The Itemizer-Observer
DALLAS — Saturday’s
Dallas Make-a-thon was
about more than building
prototypes.
It’s possible it was the be-
ginning of a partnership be-
tween the city of Dallas and
OnlineNW, a high-speed in-
ternet service provider
based out of McMinnville.
Thompson Morrison, a
representative of both Inno-
vate Oregon and OnlineNW,
said the company is looking
for another community to
offer its high-speed internet
service.
The investment is steep
for OnlineNW, so before
moving in, it looks for signs
that a community would
support it and develop the
businesses that would need
the service.
OnlineNW has estab-
lished such partnerships
with the cities of Dayton and
Willamina, and now is look-
ing at Polk County as its next
area of expansion.
“It’s very, very expensive
for us to build fiber in a
community,” Morrison said.
“The purpose of building
fiber isn’t to allow people to
stream Netflix. You don’t
need fiber to stream Netflix,
but you do need fiber if you
are building the businesses
of tomorrow. We can’t make
that investment in a com-
munity unless we are confi-
dent that the businesses
will be created that will
need the fiber we are build-
ing.”
He was encouraged by the
turnout for Saturday’s Make-
a-thon — and for the enthusi-
asm among the participants.
“Gosh, there seems to be
a lot of energy here,” he said
Saturday. “It’s phenomenal.
I’ve been so impressed with
the community leadership
that has been here, and from
the businesses.”
Morrison said OnlineNW
has had initial conversations
with city representatives, in-
cluding AJ Foscoli, the city’s
economic development di-
rector, and LaCreole Princi-
p a l Ja m i e R i c h a r d s o n
through Innovate Oregon’s
education programs.
He said the company is in
the process of a market eval-
uation and pre-engineering
assessment to see what it
would take to build a net-
work in Dallas.
“We are hoping to make a
decision in the not-too-dis-
tant future,” Morrison said.
Maker: Program attracted 50 participants
Continued from Page 1A
“At the core of this, it’s not about
the technology,” Morrison said. “At
the core is the creativeness that is
used to solve a problem, the deep-
er learning that comes out of that.
The type of dynamic that comes
out of it, the learning happens in a
very collaborative, fast-paced way.
It’s accelerated.
“That’s why these kids and these
adults by the end of the day,
they’re thinking, ‘how did we do
that?’”
Innovate Oregon, an initiative of
the Technology Association of Ore-
gon, was created to find the best
ways to train workers to be creative
problem solvers who can work in
teams to come up with solutions
quickly, Morrison said.
That starts with education and
looks a lot like what was happen-
ing in LaCreole’s Innovations Lab
on Saturday, Morrison said.
“The traditional model is I don’t
move until I have everything
planned out because I’m afraid of
failure,” he said.
“Design-thinking” — like what
was encouraged at the make-a-
thon — allows for failure. It’s ex-
pected even.
“It’s from failures that we learn.
That allows us to try again being
smarter,” Morrison said. “Failure is
an essential part of the process.”
Innovate Oregon, with partner
OnlineNW, have begun working in
JOLENE GUZMAN/Itemizer-Observer
JD Shinn, at the computer, makes last-minute adjustments to his group’s greenhouse and chicken coop on Saturday afternoon.
Dayton and Willamina to both
transform education and business
in those communities. OnlineNW
JOLENE GUZMAN/Itemizer-Observer
www.polkio.com
The blue light turns on on a temperature sensor, showing when the
greenhouse door should close as the air temperature decreases.
Pencil
us in!
www.polkio.com
brings the technology — high
speed internet service — to the
community, and Innovate Oregon
works with schools to redesign
how students are prepared for ca-
reers.
LaCreole’s Principal Jamie
Richardson has already begun
some of that work. He’s attended
administrative training in adapting
education to a “design-thinking”
model. Saturday, with teachers,
school administrators, business
and community leaders in the
room, that model was put on dis-
play.
The next step is training teach-
ers to adapt it to classrooms.
“It’s really important for the
teachers to see, because once the
teachers in the room see that, they
begin to realize that the kids can
learn faster than they can teach,”
Morrison said. “The purpose of
this is for people to see the poten-
tial. Then the training gives you a
pathway to actually introduce it
into the building.”
Educators in the room seemed
ready to take the plunge.
“I really liked the engagement
that was occurring across the
board,” said Tim Ray, Dallas High
School’s career-technical educa-
tion coordinator. “I wonder why
we had to show up here on a Satur-
day and learn 17 times more than
we would learn in a normal school
year. It blows my mind, and I’m an
educator.”
Teachers weren’t the only people
excited about using the method.
“I liked that some of us failed a
couple of times and, because we
failed, it was easier to fix our mis-
takes and go back and do it again,”
said Morgan Helfrich, a seventh-
grader. “That’s one less mistake we
would make.”
JOLENE GUZMAN/Itemizer-Observer
Ethan Carter connects wires during the prototype designing portion
of the make-a-thon on Saturday at LaCreole Middle School.