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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?"
Look for old computers on freecycle/craigslist that you can put Edubuntu on and what-not. CRTs are hard to get rid of so I've found them being given away for free.
Posts not to be taken literally. Almost everything is sarcasm.
How much technology did they have in the first place?
You see, I'm still not sold on the idea that PCs in every classroom is a solution to the woes of modern education but it would be nice to know what your experience is compared to mind. I haven't been in a non-college classroom in nearly 20 years and at that point it was mainly the computer labs plus a handful scattered between other departments. The PCs outside of the computer lab didn't seem to serve any educational use at all even though students had access to them.
Also, a bit off topic but, why isn't this an AskSlashdot topic? I think that line is getting badly blurred.
Dedicated Cthulhu Cultist since 4523 BC.
They need dedicated, enthusiastic teachers who:
- push the students to succeed
- maintain discipline (and are backed up by the administration when parents complain/sue)
- make the students do the work
- inspire the students to do better
- don't take shit from the students
Comment removed based on user account deletion
The school needs more.
The school needs TEACHERS, people who actually know how to use the equipment and how to teach others to.
Just putting equipment in the room has been a failing and expensive step for as long as personal computers have existed.
Can we get a "-1 Wrong" moderation option?
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./
I only helped one classroom. The school needs more.
The problem I always have with these statements is that this seems to be the end of it. "Getting" the technology into the classroom is not really that big of a problem ... there are huge numbers of companies that would gladly take the tax breaks available for donating old computers to schools (that may not put computers on every school desk, but it would be a start).
No, the real problem is finding something USEFUL to do with all that hardware. Just as pens, paper, and chalk aren't enough to teach students math, piles of computers and ethernet switches by themselves aren't enough to teach students .... well, anything.
And if you aren't willing to make a sustained, long term commitment to maintain, repair, and upgrade the hardware, along with ongoing teach training, course development and integration into the greater learning environment, all that hardware isn't going to be any more useful than a truckload of donated boat anchors.
Widescale computing technology deployment in classrooms has, for at least 25 years, been some kind of hold grail. But it's always been a "learning solution" in search of a problem.
The most important thing you can provide is computer education for the educators. There have been far too many times when a school district (or grant foundation) lays out millions of dollars, and every classroom gets a shiny row of networked computers ... which lie unused all year. Unless the teachers know both how to use the technology (which you can provide) and concrete ways it can improve their lessons (which may be the hard part), you'll be wasting a lot of effort.
I believe the plural of Prius is Prii. Also, nice troll.
-=Bang Bang=-
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.
Part of the problem is that in most districts, teachers are no longer able to do the things you mention; the necessary power to carry out that responsibility has been taken away, by regulation and bylaws and lawsuits and a whole mess of other bureaucratic crap. You seem to recognize at least some of this with your comment about lawsuits, but I'm not sure you realize how deep it goes.
Of course it's still important to have dedicated and enthusiastic teachers, but there's only so much good these teachers can do when the system hamstrings them on the day they sign up. You also need a system that allows the teachers to teach.
Most public school teachers are clueless when it comes to technology. At best, half of the math and science teachers will be technically savvy, while less than 25% of the English and social studies teachers will know the difference between a browser and a word processor. At the elementary level, you're talking 10%, tops.
It's the whole "teach a man to fish" thing. Having a single teacher on staff that is technically savvy breeds dependence on that one teacher and continued naïveté. If all teachers on staff except for a handful are clueful, the others feel obligated to catch up out of peer pressure.
The fact that you're installing Edubuntu is great, but teachers will go to the one technological in-service they get per year and wonder where the "Start" menu is when they get back to their school and sit down in front of one of your machines.
I'm a former high school teacher. Teachers are under exceptional amounts of stress in a classroom. You're performing in front of an audience for several hours every day. Anything that they're even slightly uncomfortable with will be left behind in favor of the familiar. You can either give up or you can work to breed familiarity.
I'd say keep up building machines, but also volunteer to offer in-service or after-hours training. You might not have to do it alone — you could probably get one of the clueful teachers at the school to teach sessions during the day or after school. But I promise, if you build machines and don't provide any kind of support for how to use them, they'll only gather dust.
I work at a small and fairly wealthy rural ISD, a far cry from a struggling inner-city operation, but one of the best things you can do is get to know your school board. Their meetings are open to the public, and often have plenty of time for Q&A. Calling ahead can land you a slotted time to make a presentation. Convince them of the need for technology, and if you can stress the actual VALUE short and long term, you may be surprised at their willingness to budget for this sort of thing.
-Buddy of DoQ
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 wrote my Ed thesis on this. You've gotta start with the teachers, as they are woefully unprepared (some argue unwilling) to integrate technology into their lesson plans. What good is a 1:1 student:computer ratio if the teachers don't actually have students use the computers for their work?
A second, lingering problem is trying to figure out what we actually do with computers. There are far too many old-fashioned minds that think education should teach kids about computers, which is an outdated paradigm for sure.
Keep the Computer Science classes for those truly interested in that field, but quit trying to pretend the computer is a magical box that requires special skills to operate. Realize that any 8-year olds know how to click a mouse, type some words, go on the Internet, etc. (the same assumptions cannot, however, be made about their teachers) and stop trying to teach them to be Computer Scientists.
Start thinking about how the students can USE the tool to learn as opposed to teaching students how to make the tool work. If they do the first, the second takes care of its self.
I'm typing this on a computer I obtained for free off of Craigslist. PIII 700 megahertz. It does absolutely everything I need it to do: video, youtube, Word, XP, WIFI. It does not run fancy games.
It's a damn shame that a majority of such computers are now in the landfill, since companies just throw them away. In addition to creating more waste, you have deprived someone of a perfectly good computer.
There is no organization that properly routes, vets, and refurbishes these types of computers to people who need them. Perhaps computer makers are actively discouraging them.
I'd be willing to start one up with enough seed money.
I think this sort of exchange is the way to go. With Moore's law making computers cheaper and cheaper, there will always be a steady supply of usable computers headed for the landfill.
If you support OLPC, then you should support such an exchange of technology.
I'm not trolling, and don't worry about modding this question, I just want to read the answers.
But... I assume you're in the USA? Does the government there really not equip public schools with IT facilities? I'm genuinely astonished. Surely schools have some facilities, if only a computer room for IT lessons? Is IT on the curriculum at all?!
I'm currently working at a large urban school district deploying LTSP based thin clients. Access in the classroom to education web sites is extremely useful and shows measurable results. First pilot schools significantly improved their reading and math scores. It is also a nice reward. Many of these kids have no computer at home and 15-20 minutes of free time is a treat. Some even skip breakfast to get in line outside their classroom for computer time before school starts. It isn't a cure all, but as long as you integrate technology tools into the instructional mix correctly, it can be a wonderful supplement.
You will make the most difference by helping some kid(s) by tutoring them. There are lots of organizations around that will connect you with the students that need help. Search one out in your area. You are not going to make a big difference by giving them hardware.
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
The problem is not too little technology. All too often technology is crammed in where it doesn't belong, under the supervision of people who aren't capable of maintaining or correctly utilizing it.
Unless you are teaching something intrinsically tecnological, the utility of a bunch of computers is limited, doubly so if there is no budget for maintenance.
ad logicam Claiming a proposition is false because it was presented as the conclusion of a fallacious argument.
Most urban districts have significant resources to add technology in the classroom. With the e-rate program up to 90% of the cost for providing internet access can be recovered. Using devices like n-computing can multiply the amount of hardware available. K12LTSP and K12Linux are excellent starting points for putting large numbers of computers in the classroom. There are literally hundreds of free eduction websites that are proven to increase reading and mathematical abilities. Moodle and Sakai are great classroom management and collaboration software suites. Evergreen for library management is nice. Cups for school printing management. Training and integration with the lesson plans are critical. Add in Fedora Directory server for user management, LTSP is built into Edubuntu, add open source monitoring, package management and configuration management tools and a school can easily be managed by one person remotely. Despite what you are reading here, pervasive computing has a role in education just like it does in the workspace and our personal lives. What you can do here will make a difference for these kids. End note, make sure you design for easy maintenance and control, you want it to survive after you leave.
I recently worked applied for a job with a local school system as IT support and got to know one of the techs there pretty well.
One of the things he told me is that, although the schools* accept donated PCs from well-meaning people, the techs (like techs everywhere) don't really want to support thirty different hardware and software platforms. They will use it if they can but if they can't it gets dropped in the recycle bin. Some people just assume that schools will take anything because those are poor, publicly funded organizations and it is okay to just drop off those pentium IIs with puppy linux installed.
What may be a warm fuzzy feeling for you might be a big headache for someone else.
*Yes, this is a suburban school. Your mileage may vary, yada, yada, yada. The point is that you should ask the technical staff (if there is one) or at least the school principal if the school can use the stuff.
Here will be an old abusing of God's patience and the king's English.
Give the children vouchers so they can go to better schools and learn about technology as they need it through life in the better opportunities that they'll have from not being forced into the government monopolized system?
If your goal is to have a society of social misfits that would rather text each other than ever speak to another person again, you are on the right track.
Half of the companies I work with on a regular basis are staffed by people that simply do not know how to get along with others. Face it, you have to deal with the people you would rather not see again. If you can't learn that skill it is a shame and society at large has failed you. Don't make it worse.
In 1999, Sugata Mitra and his colleagues dug a hole in a wall bordering an urban slum in New Delhi, installed an Internet-connected PC, and left it there (with a hidden camera filming the area). What they saw was kids from the slum playing around with the computer and in the process learning how to use it and how to go online, and then teaching each other.
In the following years they replicated the experiment in other parts of India, urban and rural, with similar results, challenging some of the key assumptions of formal education. The "Hole in the Wall" project demonstrates that, even in the absence of any direct input from a teacher, an environment that stimulates curiosity can cause learning through self-instruction and peer-shared knowledge. Mitra, who's now a professor of educational technology at Newcastle University (UK), calls it "minimally invasive education."
Listen to this presentation from Ted Talks
http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/sugata_mitra_shows_how_kids_teach_themselves.html
I agree with you about those places but I would say that if you're serious, go further up the chain. Call the white collar companies in your area, especially ones like ad agencies that replace their stuff frequently, and see if you can get equipment direct from them.
Here in Portland we have a group called Free Geek that has done a fantastic job of this kind of thing. You certainly should look at their site and might want to consider getting their video, though they're not specifically education-oriented.
Lastly, frankly, if your goal is to educate, instead of specifically to "put computers in schools", then consider getting active in your local infoshop, especially if you can get some friends to get active there as well. A good community computer center will reach more people per machine, people who *want* to be using those computers. They also have the freedom to do what works rather than what the schools will allow. Again here in Portland, we have an excellent example, a place called the IPRC, or Independent Publishing Resource Center. It, in turn, was originally modeled on a New York City place called ABC No Rio, though it has long since gone waaay past what No Rio offers. On top of everything else, an infoshop can then partner with a free school, or, as they're sometimes known, a "free skool". As an educational publisher and somebody who has been involved in every organization I mention above, who has also helped put computers in so many schools that I've lost count, there is little that would make me as happy as to see more active free schools in low income neighborhoods that provided classes in things like the biology of local species or sociology and psychology taught using local human behavior.
It's all about the information. And what we do with it.
I used to work in a very wealthy school district. They had zero clue about how to best implement their plans, but lots of cash to throw at the problem. They even had a computer lab with 24 desktops and 12 cheap printers; with a parallel cable splitter connecting two PCs to each! The teachers were also never shown how to even use the most basic functions of the PCs they each had in their rooms. So, the vast majority of hardware was relegated to collecting dust or game play when kids were done with their work.
So, what I'm saying is the first two steps are:
Getting too fixated on the hardware details first is putting the cart before the horse.
I swear to God...I swear to God! That is NOT how you treat your human!
I worked for a program that brought computers into inner-city schools in NYC. I was responsible for overseeing two computer labs that received after-school use, and a dozen laptops that went in a rolling media cart. The laptops were running Edubuntu. I was on a six-month contract and so I don't have as many answers as I'd like, but here's a few lessons learned.
MOST IMPORTANT:
- You can't give the school computers, particularly running Linux, and walk off - even if the teachers are tech-savvy (most will not be). Your project will die off quickly if you don't make a long-term commitment to support it.
Edubuntu-specific:
- Linux support for wireless drivers is less than perfect. Skip wireless, or test thoroughly. Flaky wireless gave our Edubuntu project a poor reputation very quickly.
- Also test the printer drivers.
- Many schools have inane requirements that you'll need to support. For instance, our program required that the students be tested using software from Scholastic that was Windows-only and made of fail. The school neglected to tell us that this was a requirement at the time we decided to go with Edubuntu. We also weren't told that they'd want them for a comics-making course - there's no comic-making software for Linux.
More generically:
- Everything not nailed down will walk off. Not just mice and power cables, but even stupid things like monitor-to-PC VGA cables walk. Make laptops get checked in and out. The cables connecting peripherals to desktops should be inaccessible to users.
- 3 out of your 4 non-ruggedized laptops will need replacing after a year.
Scratch from MIT is also good to teach kids of most school ages. It teaches programming and logic in real-time. You can change the code while the loops run, etc. Currently, my son's school teaches GameMaker stuff to older elem. kids but I wish they did use Scratch.
Give to Donors Choose.org. You can browse around for a classroom that you like, for a project that you like, and you give money directly to it. From there, the classroom will send you thank you notes and give you warm fuzzies.
Generally speaking, it's a good way to give back. Most schools don't want you to just come in, dump some old equipment on them and leave. They want new equipment and all the warranties etc. There's a little bit of overhead on the charity, but it's within acceptable ranges.
Disagreeing with me does not mean you get to mod me troll.
I'm surprised no one has mentioned freegeek. It's not an overnight magic bullett type of thing. But here in Vancouver it has sprung up from nothing in 2 years and is growing fast, self-sufficient, recycling a lot of computers. Something like this is a great way to get the ball rolling and get the school administrators who far too often know little but Windoze propaganda to understand the issue. Then later they can make their budget allocations and bulk purchases a lot more wisely and the huge amount of money going into technology in schools can be useful instead of just more corporate welfare. Freegeek has the infrastructure and many volunteers, classes, do do this sort of thing quite impressively (though obviously not on a scale to replace proper regional governments)
Stupidity is its own reward.