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How To Help Our Public Schools With Technology?
armorer writes "I'm a programmer engaged to an inner-city public school teacher. I've been thinking for a long time now about what I can do to help close the technology gap, and I finally did something (very small) about it. I convinced my company to give me a few old computers they were replacing, refurbished them, installed Edubuntu on them, and donated them to her classroom. I also took some vacation time to go in, install everything, and give a lesson on computers to the kids. It was a great experience, but now I know first-hand how little technology these schools have. I only helped one classroom. The school needs more. (Really the whole district needs more!) And while I want to help them, I don't really know how. With Thanksgiving a week away and more holidays approaching, I suspect I'm not the only one thinking about this sort of thing. I know it's a hard problem, so I'm not looking for any silver bullets. What do Slashdot readers do? What should I be doing so that I'm more effective? How do you find resources and time to give back?"
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Intel is a great company to look at; I went to a US News and World Report conference about three weeks ago where an Intel VP came to talk about the special deals and discounts they've worked out with select school systems. Apparently, Intel contributes not only by donating technology for classrooms and computer labs, but also by training teachers in how to use them effectively in the classroom and developing a "digital literacy" curriculum for them to use. Intel takes great pride in their school involvement, and you can find details about that at http://www.intel.com/education/. Now, there was a panel at this conference talking about the role of private interests in fulfilling the technology needs of 21st century schools beyond just straight philanthropy, and the perspective that came out was that more private companies should be selling deeply discounted equipment to schools to get bulk orders steady customers, not to mention the image boost. There was also a very touching vignette about New York middle school students reading Romeo and Juliet videoconferencing with an Israeli class that was reading the same work. Finally, the Brookings Institution had a little bit about how the Federal government can facilitate involvement in "educational entrepreneurship" which is developing cheap, classroom-relevant tech specifically targeted for school use. This was part of the Blueprint for Prosperity report which can be found at http://www.blueprintprosperity.org./
During my work at a local University we held an e-waste drive. In addition to Freecycle, craigslist, slavation army, and goodwill we were able to provide computers for 2 classrooms (30 seats). We also put Edubuntu on those computers and they are still kicking, that was 2 years ago. Since then they have garnered funding from grants through the NSF and local business. It is now a student run organization with faculty supervision. They invite faculty, staff, and employees from local businesses to donate their time, expertise, and equipment to help outfit the schools. If you have a connection to a local University you might want to consider doing the same. Get the compu-geeks and eco-trip hippies together. It is good press for the University and anybody involved. The students learn something. You do your part to save the earth. Kids get computers and slowly everyone is happy...slowly.
I submitted as AskSlashdot, so I'm not sure why it's under news. I'm not sold on the idea that our district should spend its money putting a computer in every classroom either (I'm not asking them too though.) I agree wholeheartedly with the folks here who say that the school's really need dedicated teachers. Unforunately, I can't provide teachers so I'm trying to help with something closer to my area of expertise. As for the machines and kids goofing off instead of doing work: I locked down a lot of things on the machines I brought in so that the kids can only use them for educational games. And I was amazed at how much fun these kids had with TuxMath.
I am a 9th grade student and I know exactly what you are talking about! I go to a small private school of about 800 kids in 1st-12th grade. I am the only real computer geek here, there is one other kid but he is just about gaming and a little bit of hardware. Which won't get you much. So out of the whole school aside from the computer technician I am the computer guy. People come to me before they go to anybody else, I kind of like it but it almost hurts knowing that these people know nothing about computers (aside from myspace, they all have myspace) and that they are going to have trouble getting jobs because so much requires some type of computer skill. We used to have a computer class but that only lasted for about a year because nobody wanted to sign up. Now I have all the text books and use them for my own learning. This is pathetic. But a lot of parents that I know do not want their kids knowing stuff about the computers for fear that they will become non-active and start gaming, and sad but true thinking that they will become violent. I think that an example of why it might be the way it is would be something like Columbine. After Columbine nerds were being kicked out of school for days because of gaming and such, slashdot especially was jam packed with people telling their stories about how people had grown a fear for them. Many children had their computers taken from them for fear that they would act upon the actions in those video games. The truth is that the games and such are not bringing the violence in, its people that fear these children. These kids are rejected. People in schools do not support computers, they support sports and jocks. Stuff that will get these children no where in life. Something has got to be done to help the education of computers in schools. It is pathetic and very annoying. The teachers do not even know anything. The sad thing is that you have to be careful about how you come upon it, we do not want to raise a bunch of computer hackers and people that will turn to the dark side. Great point. I hope you can work someting out. As far as teaching these kids I have no clue, I have tried but they do not want to learn. I guess you have it or you don't.
-Steve "The Geek" Hencye
I used to work in a public school system, and that's exactly the case. The teachers often knew far less than the student's and thats not saying much; most of them just knew how to update a myspace page. The other main issue was this idea that donating a computer solves things. Often if they don't have the computers then they don't have the resources to upkeep them either.