Background
The Woodside Elementary School in Woodside, CA (Woodside) and the Flood Science and Technology Magnet in East Palo Alto, CA (Flood) are each dedicated to integrating technology across their curriculum in order to provide students and teachers as much meaningful access as possible to the tools of the information age. Each school had developed a discrete technology strategy for its community. However, when the schools' technology coordinators Tish Krieg and Theresa Baker met, they discovered that they shared very similar goals for their students and might be able to reach some of those goals even more quickly by developing a collaborative partnership. The collaborative was named "Networking Education Today for Access to Global Education" (NET AGE).
Goals/Vision
Krieg and Baker began by meeting and discussing two specific goals. First, they wanted their students to learn to use the Internet and their teachers to develop curriculum which offered opportunities for students to solve problems using the tool. Second, they wanted to build a bridge between their economically and socially diverse students. (Students in the Woodside school are 98% Caucasian and enjoy a very high economic status; students in the Flood School are over 90% minority and are, for the most part, of low economic background.)
The overarching goal for both schools is to integrate telecommunications/Internet within all curricular areas so that the networking technology can be seamlessly integrated into all student learning. It is therefore planned that teachers at both schools would individually and collaboratively continue to create curriculum in all areas which offers opportunities for students to use the network.
The schools share the goal of publishing a scope and sequence based on the state frameworks for each curricular area that will include a section on using "Technology and Telecommunications" (much as the frameworks have "suggested filmstrips").
In addition to demonstrating the benefits of telecommunications within the curriculum, it is also a NET AGE goal to broaden the collaboration to include the local high school and other schools worldwide (the coordinators have already contacted schools in Japan, England and elsewhere in California). NET AGE would also like to develop "models" (including handbooks and having our teachers act as on-line mentors) to help other schools integrate technology/telecommunications within their classrooms and curriculum.
Krieg and Baker approached the Koret Foundation, asking for a small amount of funds to launch this initiative. Through the Koret Foundation, the coordinators were introduced to representatives of the Autodesk Foundation. The Autodesk Foundation agreed to collaborate with the schools and together they submitted a proposal, entitled NET AGE (Networking Education Today for Access to Global Education), which included the following goals and expected outcomes:
Goal One and Its Outcomes
It is the goal of this project to use the network and the NET AGE project to begin to bridge the social and cultural gaps between the schools in order to help build understanding between the communities, provide an exciting new vehicle for student-centered, collaborative curriculum, and reduce the high dropout rate for students of the East Palo area.
NET AGE addresses this goal by creating a safe and cost effective channel for building daily communication between and among the students, teachers, and parents in these diverse communities and by designing projects which allow all members of the learning community to contribute to the project in a meaningful way. It will be the project's goal to develop a sense of camaraderie among students as one strategy for reducing the segregation which traditionally has occurred in the high schools. It is important to note that on line communications are virtually free of many of the influences which can inspire prejudice, such as the looks of the person you are speaking with, their status socially or economically, or even their physical disabilities. It is for this reason that networks provide a uniquely safe environment for building trust between students whose fears and prejudices may be their only preexisting connection to one another.
It is expected that as a result of this contact and enhanced curriculum all students in the project will have the opportunity to see possibilities for their futures which they otherwise might not have even imagined and view individuals from diverse backgrounds as peers and colleagues rather than as people to fear or resent. In addition, it is expected that the bonds of friendship and interdependence forged at the elementary school level, as well as the exposure to innovative curriculum, will increase the students' capacity to collaborate at the high school level, take advantage of the rich cultural diversity of their communities, and increase academic achievement while reducing at least one of the factors which has contributed to the 66% dropout rate for students of the East Palo Alto area.
Goal Two and Its Outcomes
It is the goal of this project to use the NET AGE project and resources to improve the academic achievement of all of the students and to provide meaningful opportunities to teach the technology skills so vital to life in the 21st century.
In June of 1991 the Department of Labor's Secretary's Commission on Achieving Necessary Skills (SCANS) released a landmark report titled "What Work Requires of School - A SCANS Report for America 2000." This report had a major impact on both educators and businesses alike; SCANS made clear the urgent news that all jobs in America are evolving to require workers to have higher skills and that those students who are deprived of learning those skills are being ensured a life of increasingly declining wages.
NET AGE addresses the competencies and skills listed in the SCANS report by creating meaningful opportunities for students and teachers to integrate information-age technologies and learning strategies into innovative curriculum.
Goal Three and Its Outcomes
It is the goal of this project to have NET AGE contribute to the development of new curriculum and approaches to instruction and, therefore, school reform by helping teachers become comfortable with the new knowledge requirements and technologies of the information age.
The NET AGE project will address this goal by providing a safe and supportive environment in which teachers can learn through private tutorials and then on an ongoing basis alongside their students. The project will also enable teachers to help one another, thereby providing a real-world model of collaboration for their students. The technological assistance for the teachers in this program ensures that they will be able to quickly and efficiently become competent and confident with the project. In addition to learning the technical skills of telecommunications, teachers will also be helped to understand the power of allowing children to teach the network skills to one another, sometimes even surpassing the teacher's own level of competency.
Reform efforts frequently call for creative new curriculum to be designed by the teacher to meet the needs of her students and community. The network will link teachers to existing forums in which educators plan curriculum, share successes and failures, share resources and assessment tools, and support one another's visions.
It is expected that the experience teachers gain in this project will provide them opportunities to further develop their ability to:
- Facilitate learning, rather than controlling its pace, allowing students to become more self-directed and independent;
- Work more collegially with one another, with parents, and with the business community; and
- Be creative in developing curriculum which is current, meaningful, and challenging to students of all abilities.
Technical Solution
The Woodside School originally had installed 55 Macintosh computers in individual classrooms throughout the school. The systems were connected via an Ethernet network and shared the resources of an Apple Quadra and laser printers. The connection to BARRNet was established through a dial-up IP router on loan to the school from BARRNet.
The Flood School began with a 12-system computer lab and 8 systems distributed in individual classrooms. The school had 9 modems sharing two outbound circuits configured through an on-site PBX. Each classroom also had a twisted-pair data port.
Although the initial configuration proved adequate for the email exchange between the two sites, it became apparent that a more seamless and robust connectivity solution should be established. In addition, a limited number of student accounts had been donated by BARRNet. By establishing Woodside as a node, the local systems operator would be able to grant a much larger number of accounts and manage those accounts more effectively.
Since 1992, the original configuration has been upgraded. Flood School has installed 30 additional high-end computers with direct Internet connection used in the classrooms, library, science lab, and computer lab. The entire campus is ethernet networked. Flood School uses a Cisco 500 CS router and dials up to Woodside via a 14.4 SLIP connection to access the mailserver and onto BARRNet via the 56K line. Currently, Woodside School houses the joint mailserver and connects to BARRNet via a 56k line. An ISDN line has been installed at Flood and in the summer of 1995 the connectivity to BARRNet will be transferred over to ISDN. Both Flood and Woodside continue to use dial up access to BARRNet's modem pool from remote computers off the campuses. Both schools will also install their own modem pools at the campuses to extend the dial-up access for staff, parents, and students from home.
Funding
Krieg and Baker were very successful in attracting resources to their individual sites and to the collaborative venture as well. The position of Technology Coordinator at Woodside was funded through a donation from Oracle Corporation, as were the majority of the Macintosh computers at the school. The computer lab at Flood was put together through small donations, and additional related resources are also brought in through small donations. Wiring at Flood was provided through a donation from APEX Corporation, and Hewlett-Packard and the new Macintosh computers and LocalTalk are being provided through a grant from Oracle Corporation.
The Autodesk Foundation was instrumental in negotiating a donation from BARRNet which has allowed the schools to enjoy a limited number of no-cost accounts for students and all teachers in the project. BARRNet also loaned to the project the IP router and 14.4K modem which enabled the initial connectivity.
A two-year grant from the Koret Foundation was awarded to the project. The majority of the funds in that grant pay for released time so that teachers can meet collectively on several Saturdays throughout the course of the initiative for hands-on training and the development of a collaborative curriculum.
A donation has been obtained from Cisco Systems, including: 2 CS500 dial-up routers, to enable the dial-up connection between the Flood LAN and the Woodside node; an IGS router, to be located at the Woodside site; and a router card, to be located at BARRNet. The schools solicited a larger than necessary router card, which they agreed to donate to BARRNet in return for waived membership and access charges for both schools. This is an excellent example of a method for leveraging one donor's grant into more broad and useful purposes.
Oracle has recently formed an education foundation division of its corporation. The corporation continues to invest in the project through technical support, hardware maintenance, software purchases and upgrades, teacher training stipends, email keypals and mentors, parent technology class support, and a true concern for the students, staff, and community at large. Oracle also supplies funding for substitute teachers who relieve Flood teachers for weekly technology training.
Training and Support
The superintendents, boards, and principals at Woodside and Flood have been supportive of the networking projects. In addition, key community members have stepped forward to offer donations to the project. Neither district was able to allocate district funding to the projects, so outside funding has been key to the project's success. An additional key to the project's success was the initiative of the two technology coordinators, a point which is important to emphasize because it demonstrates that even a large scale initiative can be brought to fruition if the staffs agree with the plan and even just one or two staff members are willing to spearhead the work.
At the project's inception, Baker served as a full-time Technology Coordinator at Woodside School and Krieg served as a full-time computer technology resource specialist at Flood. Both managed the networking initiative and delivered classroom instruction, enabling individual teachers to integrate the computer applications into their curriculum. Krieg and Baker also managed the project's fundraising, the technical development and maintenance of the network, and provided support and training for staff.
Currently, Tish Krieg continues to manage the NETAGE project as well as to serve as educational technology consultant for the Ravenswood District, a California Department of Education Technology Fellow, and a Bay Area Telementor. An important new component of the Flood lab has been the hiring of parent technology aides, one of whom now facilitates the technology classes at Flood School. Theresa Baker-Hancock now works for Oracle Corporation managing its corporate gift giving program.
The Autodesk Foundation provides support for these coordinators and also provides assistance to the districts in developing their strategic technical plans. Andrea McCurdy, the Foundation's telecommunications specialist has, through the Koret grant, been able to provide one-on-one training to teachers equal to the equivalent of a graduate school course in networking (approximately 16 hours per teacher).
Teachers enthusiastically embrace the concept of integrating technology across the curriculum and have, when possible, been enhancing and adapting their curriculum to include opportunities for the students to access the computers and specifically, the network. To the extent possible, each school has maximized computer usage, and each school has plans to expand its computer use in the coming years. Students seem to very much enjoy the computers, and in many instances learning to master even small skills on the computer seems to have an exponential impact on self-esteem. The students love to receive and send email and have been innovative in suggesting additional uses for the network.
The NET AGE project is being evaluated by an independent evaluator in order to determine what impact, if any, the introduction of the network has had on student achievement. That evaluation will not be available until the two-year grant with Koret has expired.
Security
NET AGE uses AT Ease to protect the hard drives and virus scanners to ensure that applications downloaded from the network do not corrupt the network. Teachers work hard to instill in students an understanding that use of the network is a privilege and to date have never had cause to revoke a student password.
See Appendix E, Acceptable Use Policies, for parent, student, and teacher contracts that NET AGE has found suit the project's needs and are required to be signed regarding ethical usage.
Tish Kreig
415-325-5537
Email: tkreig@woodside.k12.ca.us
