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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Point them to a free college and career planning service that makes use of technology and helps get their guidance office out of the middle ages. Tell them to use something like ConnectEDU (http://www.connectedu.net). It's completely free and hooks directly into their student information system. It also saves them a lot of time moving file folders and paper around, and works with the students using a SAAS approach to delivering info about colleges. The biggest issue with schools isn't that they need mor
Help them in the guidance office (Score:1)
Point them to a free college and career planning service that makes use of technology and helps get their guidance office out of the middle ages. Tell them to use something like ConnectEDU (http://www.connectedu.net). It's completely free and hooks directly into their student information system. It also saves them a lot of time moving file folders and paper around, and works with the students using a SAAS approach to delivering info about colleges. The biggest issue with schools isn't that they need mor