Related Web Works

Schools learning the ABCs of the Web for kids, teachers

By Mark Hall (mark_hall@macweek.com)

On March 10, the president of the United States installed cable in a California school to highlight the importance of Net Day, a one-day event to draw attention to the government's efforts to get public schools online. For some, seeing Bill Clinton and Vice President Al Gore pitch in on Net Day underscored the promise of the Internet and the World Wide Web as vital educational tools. To others it showed how far behind most schools are on an increasingly wired planet.

"It was a call for help," said Gayle Hartman, a curriculum and technology specialist in Phoenix who consults with K-12 educators. "Teachers are asking for help. Some schools are getting hooked up, yes. But most are not."

In October, up to 30 states will follow California's lead with another nationwide Net Day. Organizers hope these events will dramatize the laggardly state of technology in schools today.

Those few U.S. schools that do have Internet connections are woefully behind in training and equipment. Yet even with their modest resources, some schools are making strides to bring their students the advantages of a cyber education.

Show and tell
In the Pacific Northwest, where salmon once clogged the rivers and streams, population expansion and overfishing drastically cut their range and numbers. High-school students at the Center for Agricultural Science Environmental Education (CASEE) decided to see if they could reintroduce salmon into a nearby stream. To accomplish this project, the kids went online.

"They used the Web and the Internet for communications back and forth with experts in the field," said Ron Carlson, executive director of the Battle Ground School District in Battle Ground, Wash., which includes CASEE.

The high-school students located and consulted with experts worldwide on salmon stream ecology. Using information and examples gleaned from the Web and elsewhere, students built a salmon spawning area and successfully released fish to breed there.

The Web chronicle of their work brought the students worldwide recognition. From what they learned, Carlson said, the students were able to host a salmon symposium at CASEE.

To date, most schools' online efforts are much less ambitious. Pupils at the Pinckney School in Lawrence, Kan., use the Web to showcase their art work. Some post book and science reports. Little else is presented to the world, except contact information for the school and background information on prominent Pinckney graduates.

According to Web66, an organization that keeps tabs on North American schools on the Web (http://web66.coled.umn.edu/schools.html, most of the student-posted Web pages are digitized versions of everyday school work, such as the Pinckney school displays. Many of the pages' links have expired, and few pages use even the most basic Web capabilities to link to other sources.

First grade
The inability of most schools to effectively exploit the Web is directly related to teacher training, only now trickling down to K-12 educators.

Harold Wright, principal of the North Scituate School in North Scituate, R.I., said his school had just received an Apple Partners In Education (PIE) grant for a Web server and classroom Macs that will help equip his students with the means to get online. But faculty training remains another hurdle.

"Established teachers are not that far along technologically," Wright said. "[And] new teachers coming out of college are not that much better trained."

Given that teachers focus on their curriculum, the lack of Internet expertise is not surprising, consultant Hartman said. "People overestimate how well-trained teachers are. Teachers are busy teaching," she said.

The lack of available technology and teacher training is frustrating some parents, Hartman said. They fear their children are being left behind.

That fear has mobilized many parents to volunteer to get their schools onto the Web. At the Foothill School in the Saratoga Union School District in Saratoga, Calif., Joyce Berg is a parent volunteer on the technology committee charged with installing new Mac LCs and bringing them online.

"The teachers love e-mail. And as a productivity tool, they're sold," she said. "But integrating computers and the Web into the classroom will be difficult because of the varying learning curves for each teacher."

New math
Web training for teachers adds to the overriding issue of tight technology budgets for most schools. Last month a California education task force announced that the home of Net Day and the much vaunted Silicon Valley ranked 33rd among the states in technology spending -- about $3 per student.

The report recommended that schools supply one computer for every four pupils to improve students' math and reading scores. Today 73 California students compete for each working computer.

Foothill School's principal, Louise Levy, said her students now have one Web-ready, multimedia Mac in each classroom, or a computer-to-student ratio of 1-to-26, significantly better than the state's average but well below the task force's suggestion. She said Foothill was only able to achieve its improved status because of school fund-raising efforts and volunteer work by parents.

Battle Ground schools average two computers per class: Macs in K-8 and a mix of Macs and PCs in high school. Carlson said the 15-site, 10,000-student school district has a technology budget of $500,000. He said he augments his training budget by having advanced high-school students teach a few instructors as well as the younger students.

In Rhode Island, funding is also constrained for public schools. Under Principal Wright, North Scituate School has become adept at getting grants; in addition to snagging the PIE money, the school recently won an Eisenhower grant for a networking project.

"Grant writing for technology has become a necessity," Wright said. "You have to have technology, and money is an issue."

Both Carlson and Levy have worked with local companies to get donated equipment, software, training and matching grants to stretch their budgets. Hartman said, "Administrators have to get creative with their budgets to keep up."

No recess from reality
Parents and schools understand that the Web is not as wel-controlled as other information sources such as libraries and television. And while they are not happy with the indecent content that can be found there, both groups agree that to keep their students off the Web would hold them back.

Parents, students and teachers in the Battle Ground district sign waivers taking personal responsibility for their use of the Web while at school, Carlson said. He added that the local education service did take the added precaution of blocking all "alt" newsgroups on the Internet.

Levy said Foothill School is using a combination of blocking software with waivers like the ones at Battle Ground.

Head of the class
Budget, training and content drawbacks have not stalled schools' enthusiasm to embrace the Web, however. Carlson called it "a full-fledged worldwide library."

Jo Fleming, technology coordinator at the School for the Creative and Performing Arts in Lexington, Ky., said, "We've been bursting at the seams," waiting for the school's new Apple Server. "We've already integrated the Web into most social-studies activities, but we haven't had our presence up there yet," she said.

The school, which emphasizes drama, dance, art, writing and music in its curriculum, intends to have students write and produce a multimedia storybook this year that it will publish on its new Web site, Fleming said.

Most schools, however, attempt to imbue their Web pages with local projects that have a global lesson. For example, Battle Ground third- and fourth-graders took part in a worldwide weather research program that added their weather reports into a planetwide database. Students then researched the Web database for comparative studies.

North Scituate students this year will be gathering information about the Scituate Reservoir, which supplies most of Rhode Island with its drinking water. They will publish the results on the Web.

Educators said the Web is too new for any one approach to be the right one for teachers and students. Most schools will use it as a natural adjunct to more traditional research facilities. Others, however, want to engage their students to add to the quality of online information.

"What I see with the Web are creative, exciting, multimedia projects," said Foothill's Levy. "If it's just the same stuff as we do on paper, there's no point to it."

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