US/ND-1: Observations
Observations
Jan Bolluyt (jbolluyt@spirit-lake.k12.ia.us)
Thu, 29 Aug 1996 22:53:45 -0500
29 messages, 45 messages - where is this going! You people are exemplary.
Thanks to Mr. Carlitz for maintaining this.
This e-mail speaks to experiences at Spirit Lake and is too lengthy. It
does not apply to the law, but has implications towards problems, rewards
and expenses involved that someone has to address. If you stop reading now,
no offense is taken!
We tried to provide local access at no profit and developed a base of users
that switched to one of two privates who appreciated the user base that made
their profitability immediate. I don't think that fair trade would ethically
allow us to become service providers if we competed in any way with private
enterprise, and maintaining the system took a very gifted (and hard to find)
computer technician. I believe poorer districts could not afford to
maintain anything more complicated that a cable connection, satellite dish,
fiber optics connection or telephone cabling.
Computers, cabling, and communication connector costs would stifle usage as
much or more than un augmented access. Business/school partnerships could
be greatly enhanced with tax incentives for used equipment from corporations
given directly to schools. This would not deduct from the funding of the
bill, but would allow schools to fund training and other expenses that would
have been directed toward hardware purchases.
We have found that teacher use of Internet access has not been
instantaneous. What has been on the Internet is mainly fluff and sales, but
it is a price worth paying for mainly unlimited browsing. We have to assume
a large responsibility as teachers to maintain and build worthwhile
databases, forums, curriculum, and helps. This is not a take, take
situation. We need librarians to organize, teachers to build, and companies
to provide an education second-to-none for our students.
Some questions of use came up. We have found;
Weather studies are better on the Internet that with any other medium (a
personal opinion you are welcome to disagree with!. They are immediate,
world wide, comprehensive, and viable in science, math, social studies, k-12.
Testing software off the net before purchase has been valuable. Ethical
questions about share ware and strapped budgets must be addressed.
First rate curriculum is available to save quite a bit of writing time for
teachers and allow them to spend that time on active student needs.
Newsgroups have given valuable personal help, the description of which would
consume too much space:
News and magazines are comparable to hard copy, less expensive (mainly
free), more current, but not as mobile or complete. Archives of magazines
are becoming available for research with increased numbers of full text
documents. This could really help a library strapped by budget constraints.
Limited library staff in smaller communities thwart consistent monitoring of
patrons. Censorship is a sensitive word, but unsupervised access is, at
least, questionable.
Computer interaction comfortably allows only one person per machine. An
expensive alternative if each student needs simultaneous access.
We have opened our labs before and after school and at night, had volunteer
monitors, and not much malicious damage. This could be part of an answer to
universal access and keep the access within a school building or buildings.
e-mail was the first universally used medium for our teachers:
A technology coordinator, networking specialist, lab monitors, and various
committees became necessary. All of these added to the cost. This from a
school k-12 of 1,200 students.
Teacher training has best worked by soliciting volunteers who learned by
various means, then have them train one or two more and so on. We have
found that training before complete availability has been wasted time and
caused dissention. On the other hand, to have all the equipment around
waiting for teachers to learn and use it has been expensive, also and the
turnover in technology has made us question those purchases.
This forum is a good example of how it can be used, well.
Jan