Schools and their communities

In the end the success or failure of the effort to connect classrooms will be determined in local communities, where most Americans have always believed that control over our schools should reside. Technology advocates are joining others at the local level to encourage numerous diverse stakeholders--including teachers, school administrators, parents, and members of the public--to become more involved in schools.

Teachers

Kathleen Fulton, who directed the Office of Technology Assessment's exhaustive Teachers and Technology study, suggested at the conclusion of her research that policymakers should concentrate initially on connecting teachers. Teachers could benefit immediately from any tool that would break down their professional isolation, she said, and in the process would become forceful advocates for spreading technology further.

A number of states accept that logic. Texas, for instance, established the Texas Education Network, or TENET, in 1990, offering every public educator in the state an email account, online academic resources, public data, planned forums, and professional support. Unlike many training programs, the network was launched at the same time as other major educational technology initiatives, not as an afterthought. "We knew we had to prove to educators why they should want to use it," says TENET's director, Connie Stout.

Before the network was started, sponsors held focus groups for teachers, administrators, and secretaries to learn what they wanted a system to do. Initially, the focus wasn't on use of the Internet. Instead the network concentrated on meeting the more immediate needs of its users: when many school staffers said they were interested in job announcements, for instance, TENET set up a jobs announcement section on its website. The consultation process continues to this day, and has grown to include groups other than teachers, such as librarians.

The network has been a big success. Some 50,000 teachers are now registered with TENET. "Teachers report that the peer support is tremendous," says Stout. "They have been so isolated traditionally. We've had teachers say that they would have left the profession by now if this hadn't happened, but they have stayed because they finally have support in the classroom."

Administrators

Many people think the public school system in Bellingham, Washington, went about incorporating technology into its programs in just the right way. First, long before launching an ambitious technology effort, school officials hammered out goals for what they wanted students to master. Later, aware that they lacked manpower to provide all the technical support and troubleshooting that teachers might need, they invested in sophisticated diagnostic software that would enable them to pinpoint network troubles from central locations. They also allowed technology coordinator Jamieson McKenzie to work part time so that he could run a national consulting business, a move that enabled the school system to keep a recognized innovator while staying abreast of the latest ideas and developments in the field of school technology.

The Bellingham administration also went further than most school leaders to address the need for teacher training. It set aside funds that enabled a group of "mentor" teachers to leave their classrooms for a year and work with other teachers on developing ways to use technology in their classes. The pay-off has been substantial: an enthusiastic faculty has given the school district a national reputation by spinning out a growing set of lesson plans for professional development.

The Bellingham schools demonstrate how careful planning by a supportive administration can clear away many of the obstacles that complicate school technology efforts. In the absence of strong leadership by superintendents, school boards, and principals, the task of bringing new technologies into schools can be arduous, as Cynthia Montoya, technology coordinator at Green Valley High School in Henderson, Nevada, learned.

Montoya had to argue for nine months to convince her principal that the library in his brand-new school had archaic technology and that $17,000 would be needed to bring it up to standards. She then had to argue for a year and a half to persuade the school district to bend its policy of limiting schools to one phone line each. Meanwhile, technology projects at Green Valley were repeatedly slowed because they had to be processed through the district's rehabilitation division, which was responsible for retrofitting walls and doors but was not well versed in computer technology.

"My purchase orders would sit on someone's desk for weeks, even though the money was available," Montoya says. "The district staff just didn't understand what was being ordered." Eventually, the district administration agreed to let Montoya and her staff consult on projects involving technology. "I feel like a subcontractor," she notes. "I know more about wiring than I ever thought I'd know."

Montoya also has encountered obstacles getting her ideas past the school district's political leadership. At one point she secured an in-kind contribution from InterAct, a school-focused bulletin board system connected to the Internet. But because InterAct requires schools using its services to adopt rules defining what student uses of the Internet are acceptable, Montoya had to take the issue to her district's school board. There it languished for more than a year. "It's just sitting there because no one on the school board really understands what it's all about," Montoya says. Eventually, Montoya managed to get the school online by establishing for it a T-1 connection in March 1997.

Parents

Most educators agree that parental involvement is a key determinant of children's success in school. Telecommunications technologies are helping a growing number of parents become more involved in their kids' education.

When the Bellingham schools embarked on their effort to wire the district's 18 public schools, officials decided to provide basic telephone service, as well as Internet connections, to every classroom. That added $1.2 million to the $6 million cost, but the payback was immediate--much quicker than for more esoteric pursuits like computer networking. Parents said that the improved access to their children's teachers made it much easier to keep track of homework assignments and other matters. "We got a lot of good feedback from parents," says Jim Stevens, the school district's business and finance director.

New technologies can help parents and teachers overcome the headaches associated with schedules that don't mesh. According to Electronic School, a publication of the National School Boards Association, more than 1,000 schools are using a voicemail system developed by Vanderbilt University's Jerold Bauch that can deliver time-delayed messages between parents and teachers. Among other things, teachers say that more students are now finishing their homework because parents are more aware of assignments and classroom activities. Other schools report similar results with email.

Some schools also have used open-house family computer nights to encourage parents to come to schools in person. "Parents see the kids so motivated and skilled," says Kristi Rennebohm Franz, a Pullman, Washington, elementary school teacher. "I've seen turnarounds in a number of parents who had been lukewarm about the use of computers in the classroom."

Clear View, a charter school in Chula Vista, California, keeps its media center open until 9 p.m. so that parents can make use of its fiber-optic connections to the Internet. High school students staff the center during evening hours. Clear View principal Ginger Hovenic says that the step has increased parental involvement in the school.

Morse High School in San Diego has gone even further. It hired a trainer and started a six-week, Saturday-morning computer class for community members. The classes have been so popular that the school plans to add an additional class and is planning for a Spanish-language course in the fall of 1997.

Addressing community expectations

Ricardo Tostado, the Illinois policy analyst, fears that technology advocates could be on a collision course with parents who see technology as an expensive diversion from fundamental reading, writing, and arithmetic. Others say this needn't be the case, though they agree that it's an issue that must be addressed.

Teachers at Sunnyside Elementary School in Washington state say that they incorporated the basics into their technology use from the beginning. And Clear View's Hovenic agrees, saying that her school's technology program teaches the basics--and more. "It no longer satisfies the student to read a chapter in an outdated textbook and answer questions," she says. "By using technology, the children learn the basics of reading, writing, and arithmetic while developing essential work-related skills and positive self-esteem."

The Bellingham public schools, which have been particularly successful in winning public support for their technology efforts, went to great lengths to define their education objectives to include skills that they believe are fundamental, though not exactly what most people mean by the "basics." Bellingham's "essential student learnings," adopted before the school system sought voter approval for a $6 million bond issue to pay for the new technology program, call on the schools to produce students who are "knowledgeable individuals," "quality producers," "effective communicators," "competent thinkers," "effective collaborators," "responsible citizens," and "lifelong learners."

That seems to have satisfied parents in Bellingham, although technology was an easy sell in that city, nestled on a major shipping lane between the United States and Asia and just two hours' drive from Seattle. Things didn't go so smoothly at Belridge Elementary School in McKittrick, California, which often is cited as a object lesson in what can happen when a school fails to heed parental concerns about the fundamentals. Flush with increased tax revenues from local oil development, school officials spent almost $5 million on computer and communications technologies in 1989 and 1990. Each teacher and student had a computer for school use and one for home. Students were using CD-ROMs, laser disk players, video and audio production facilities, multiple Internet servers, and state-of-the-art computer technology. But when test scores two years later indicated no improvement, parents picketed the school. The district subsequently removed the school superintendent and hired a "back-to-the-basics" replacement who pulled the plug on student use of most of the technology.

In retrospect, Steve Wentland, the current superintendent, believes that Belridge tried to go too far, too fast. "Our former superintendent was a great visionary about technology, but the management of the technology wasn't right," he says. "He spent too much money and brought in technology too fast." Wentland is quietly bringing technology back into classrooms, but with a far different emphasis. "Technology is no longer out in the forefront," he says. "The student is. The curriculum is. I don't tell teachers what to do with technology; they tell me what they want to do."

Entire communities

Beyond addressing the concerns of various stakeholders, however, computer networking advocates hope that technology ultimately will draw entire communities together. "We see installing the wires primarily as an opportunity for community building," says Steve Miller, executive director of Massachusetts NetDay. "Schools work best when they are embedded in their communities, when people feel a connection to the education process and educators feel a deep sense of commitment to the community being served. Schools work best when there is constant interaction between the larger world and the classroom so that students have a sense of the real-life relevance of their efforts and teachers can call on the resources around them."

The National School Network, a partnership involving schools, museums, corporations, publishers, and others that was organized by the Educational Technologies Group at BBN Corp. in 1992, lists some of the many ways its members are helping to break down the barriers between schools and their communities. In Mendocino, California, for instance, students help organize and disseminate information about their community, while students at Cayuga Heights Elementary School in Ithaca, New York, study changing patterns of energy use in their area.

"Schools work best when there is constant interaction between the larger world and the classroom so that students have a sense of the real-life relevance of their efforts and teachers can call on the resources around them."

--Steve Miller, executive director, Massachusetts NetDay

In another project, a team of students from Clarke Middle School in Lexington, Massachusetts, studied the ecology of Spectacle Island in Boston Harbor, which is being reshaped by soil dumped there as a result of excavation of a third tunnel underneath Boston Harbor. They expressed dismay that the official architectural design plans for the island "do not appear to consider the environmental and financial issues related to the revegetation and maintenance of the island"--for instance, by calling for placement of a sandy beach in a location where sand will be washed away by water currents. "As the taxpayers who will pay for this artificially created maintenance cost, we question the logic of fighting against rather than working with nature," the students said.

What's next?

As these examples demonstrate, something exciting is happening in schools today. The walls between the classroom and the "real world" are starting to come down, and children are beginning to gain unprecedented opportunities to become engaged in meaningful ways with their society. Technology doesn't automatically make such engagement happen, but it does allow for a rich collaboration in education--the building of a true community of learners.

Will this vision become reality for all children, or will it remain the experience of just a few? The answer most likely lies not in our new machines, but in ourselves.

"It is important to remember that technology is a human creation," says Massachusetts NetDay's Miller. "People shape it, like any tool, to serve their own needs and will. We need to learn more about the new technology, decide what we want to use it for and what we don't want to allow to happen. If we want a future that allows us to be full, creative, active, and equal participants, we have to create that future through a process that incorporates those same values. And we need to make sure that we bring our children--all our children--along with us."

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Last updated: 21 July 1997 jss
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