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How To Help Our Public Schools With Technology?
Posted by
kdawson
on Fri Nov 21, 2008 01:32 PM
from the freedom-programmers dept.
from the freedom-programmers dept.
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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Freecycle (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Freecycle (Score:4, Informative)
if you want old computers, go down the recycling centre. you'd be surprised how many good PCs get thrown out.
I'm not sure if they'll let you take them (though the bloke at my local tip was happy for me to have a few bits) but if not, you can hang around and ask people who are bringing their old PCs to throw away to give them to your cause (or get a big poster up)
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
I go to my local dump/recycling center frequently. I think official policy is that you can't take anything. The reality is that it depends on the guy standing there. I tried to take a large pile of still in the package patch cables and KVM cables, and was told that "this isn't walmart." I've also come home with lots of stuff. The worst they are going to do is tell you put it back and ask you to leave. I have brought home perfectly good, but old, machines several times.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
I'd trade an old computer for a used firearm, sure!
Some other options (Score:4, Informative)
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" [wikipedia.org]. 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.
Parent
Re:Some other options (Score:5, Insightful)
The real problem is this: Computers are perhaps the greatest "force multipliers" for people's abilities and personalities since the advent of mass literacy and public libraries(perhaps ever; but I don't know, and don't need to take up that point). Unfortunately, they will multiply a person's tendencies for good or ill.
If you have a kid(or adult) with some time on his hands, reasonable autodidactic tendencies, and some interest and enthusiasm for something, the internet is the best thing ever. Virtually any technology related subject is yours for the learning online. You can look at opencourseware stuff, you can talk to actual scientists who blog about science, you can access huge amounts of data on all sorts of subjects(and access library catalogs to look for the rest), you can get in touch with organization of all kinds, etc, etc. For somebody with drive and enthusiasm, the internet is basically the best thing ever(obviously, people before the internet had opportunity, some had a lot of it; but the internet is really good at making a fair amount of opportunity available to anybody who can access it).
Unfortunately, if you have a kid(or adult) who doesn't have much in the way of drive or interest, or is easily distracted, the internet can and will latch on and suck them dry. Flash games, funny youtube videos, porn, pimping your myspace, etc, etc. Now, none of that is bad per se, some amount of mindless entertainment is harmless enough; but if you are the sort of person who can get distracted by such, the internet has several lifetimes worth, with more added every day.
Unfortunately, computers and the internet haven't really changed the game of education. They let driven kids kick ass and unmotivated kids fail hard. The real trick, which is unfortunately much harder than getting computers in front of kids, is getting kids who will benefit from being in front of computers.
In observing teachers I've had, and teachers at the school I work in, this is the aspect of good teachers that impresses me most. A great teacher can actually inspire students, turning mere rule followers, and even the downright troublesome, into learners. Once you have learners, you just need to stand back and help out where needed, they'll figure it out. Teachers who can make learners, though, have my respect.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Freecycle (Score:4, Insightful)
Wait a minute...
Checking listings on those websites is a great recommendation, but as someone who has tried to donate like this to another type of underfunded public organization let me say donor beware!
Even if you are able to make the donation legally, and politically (ie: another cash-strapped dept doesn't complain about fairness of who gets the benefit from your donation etc.), it is difficult to cut the cord after the donation.
Whatever you are donating needs to be recognized by whatever type of group maintains infrastructure for the organization.
While providing computers to help educate is definitely the greater gift in terms of changing the learning environment for every child, it might be wiser to spend time individually helping to educate the children(after school program?).
Parent
Question.... (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
Re:Question.... (Score:5, Interesting)
In the end, I think computers in the room can be helpful, but should not be relied on and should not be mandated. For instance, my wife teaches 3rd grade only uses the computers to let her Mexican kids use Rosetta Stone to learn english for about an hour a day.
Parent
Re:Question.... (Score:5, Informative)
Why are these PCs on the internet? I bet if they were firewalled off and actually used in class they would be a boon to education, not a liability. If the teacher needs a site for them to use it can be whitelisted. Its incredible how thoughtlessly PCs are deployed in schools. You need access and internet controls from day 1.
Parent
Re:Question.... (Score:4, Insightful)
Maybe even a feature to allow whitelisting to google results, but pages get filtered for obvious porn, and in the case of unknown sites, automatically sent for review by the teacher before they are forwarded to the student. This would be more for young kids than older high school kids (that would use it to show their teachers goatse).
Another cool feature would be to allow the teacher to push content from her PC directly to the monitor in front of the student, where the student is able to review it in depth. Not just powerpoint slides, but maybe 3D interactive graphics and other such things.
Does something like any of this exist? If not, c'mon Open Source! Lets do something original!
Parent
Re:Question.... (Score:4, Informative)
You clearly have never attempted to teach a group of people anything.
You clearly have no idea of what you speak. True, I no longer teach 20-30 military trainees using 20-30 computer systems WHILE I teach, but that doesn't mean I didn't do it for 10 years previously. It also doesn't mean I didn't teach a high school technology class for two years with the same layout (because I most certainly did). It certainly doesn't mean I don't frequently go out to our Defense customers and teach them how to use our software. It also doesn't mean I don't teach technical communications at our local community college either. In short, no, I don't teach public high school, but "never attempted to teach anything" is a bit harsh.
But, other than that, if you'd like to discuss the merits/disadvantages of teaching in a lab, then I'm all ears. Come to think of it, now that I feel so dirty having responded to your personal attack, allow me to add something of substance. In this horseshoe formation, you can only keep their attention by NOT LETTING THEM PUTZ AROUND on the computer while you are teaching, unless that is a required part of the teaching. I really simple trick (requires no locking down/configuration of anything) is to have all the students turn off their monitors when not in use. Also, have them turn around and face the center. If your layout can allow it, have two seats--one in front of the computer and one to the side, where they can put materials. Have them sit in the seat NOT in front of the computer. Then, when the task requires introducing the technology, they work happily at their terminals, without the distraction of their dear teacher blabbing away. You walk around from terminal-to-terminal, taking an ACTIVE INTEREST in the activities of your students..you know..teaching--supervising. Unfortunately, most teachers just cut them loose and let them do whatever.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
What's the point of having computers in the class rooms if 80% of the time the students aren't doing anything at all with them?
Assuming you have the students turn and face you while you are lecturing, then once the assignment starts you roam from desk to desk there are still large blocks of time where 25/30 students are technically unsupervised.
When I was in lab classes in school it was trivially easy to conceal my activities from supervising teachers even when they stood behind me for long periods of time.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
I would suggest introducing them to Scratch.
http://scratch.mit.edu/ [mit.edu]
I've taught my 8 year old to program with it. You can upload your programs to the MIT website and get kudos from other kids, which gives positive feedback. You can download other peoples programs and see how they made them, then hack them and upload them again, and it will preserve the fact that you created it, and whose work it was based upon, giving some opportunity to see the rewards that come with sharing information.
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
I'm thinking along the same lines.
I never touched a computer till the 7th grade, and never did anything more than basic word processing with them till the 10th grade. I learned how to do calculus using chaulkboards and paper.
My kid is in the 2nd grade and already doing powerpoint. WTF?!?!?! The focus is on presentation, not content. The kids know how to make things 'look nice' but they dont have anything worth saying.
Here is my take it on: remove all computers from elementary school (K -> 6th grade), add
Technology does help if open and integrated (Score:5, Insightful)
Parent
Gothamschools (Score:2)
Whatever you end up doing, could I ask you to send a note about it to the people behind GothamSchools.org [gothamschools.org]. It's a slightly New York-centric education blog, but they work with people around the country on improving education, and I'm sure they'd love to know about anything you end up doing.
<disclaimer>The non-profit that employs me is a parent of that organization as well.</disclaimer>
Schools don't need technology (Score:3, Insightful)
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
What you say is true, but... (Score:3, Insightful)
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 d
Re:Schools don't need technology (Score:5, Insightful)
My boyfriend is a high-school teacher... and there's no lack of dedicated teachers out there. What they really need is:
- Parents who place a priority on studying and homework.
- Parents who don't come in and berate the teacher if their child did poorly, arguing over every lost mark on the child's behalf, leaving with a huff that it's the teacher's fault the child left all those answers on the test blank.
- Drop the no child left behind policy. Being almost unable to fail a student even if he/she does jack-all, is hurting morale of the hard-working students and putting out unqualified graduates who are unprepared for college.
- Parents who give a crap.
- The ability to dish out punishments like detentions or extra homework without going through miles of red tape and backlash from parents and principals.
- Go back to letter grades. This 1 to 4 and R thing we have here is BS. An 'F' doesn't damage the child's psyche for crying out loud, and an A+ is more encouraging than a '1'.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
This.
My high school, when I first got there, had an Apple //e in certain classrooms. They were never used for anything educational at all, unless you count some kids looking up "dysentery" after they died from it a hundred times over in Oregon Trail.
Then, for some reason, we got a Computer Lab room. One dozen shiny new 486 computers. No software, not even the latest version of Oregon Trail. No direction whatsoever with them. The most the students did was play Solitaire and Minesweeper. Some used Write
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
If you think those things are limited to inner city schools you are sadly mistaken.
Equipment alone is useless (Score:3, Insightful)
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.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Public School Tech (and I don't work for Intel) (Score:4, Interesting)
Does "technology" alone really help? (Score:4, Insightful)
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.
Training Training Training (Score:3, Insightful)
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.
Community Service Project (Score:3, Interesting)
Focus on teachers (Score:2, Insightful)
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 tea
The Problem (Score:2)
School Board (Score:3, Informative)
Haven't read them all yet but... (Score:5, Interesting)
Gotta start with teachers (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
$100 Laptop? How about free? (Score:3, Insightful)
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.
Really?! (Score:3, Funny)
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?!
Re: (Score:3)
If the Founding Fathers saw what the Federal Government was doing today, they would have shot themselves in the head and not bothered rebelling at all.
Become a tutor (Score:3, Insightful)
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 in the same pport. (Score:5, Interesting)
I'll be the flamebait. (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
Ask the schools before you donate, please. (Score:5, Informative)
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.
Don't overlook the obvious (Score:3, Interesting)
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.
A few protips (Score:3, Informative)
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.
DonorsChoose.org (Score:3, Informative)
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.
Re:Inner-city schools (Score:4, Funny)
Parent
Resources and Information (Score:3)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
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.