Charlie's Cluttered Desktop

Quickdex The Hairy Guy Tragic Comedy Small Frog, Big Pond Back

We've decided to take the column I write with each issue of Teachers Mac and put it on the web edition as a means of more directly communicating with people who visit us here. Sometimes, the column is about issues which concern me personally, sometimes information for you and sometimes whatever seems interesting. Please email any response, questions or concerns, you may have to us. The"Quickdex" (to the left) will give you an idea of what is in the column, especially if more than one topic is addressed. Click on subjects of interest to go directly to them or use the scroll bar.. Hairy Guy The hairy guy is a silly drawing I've used with this column since I started it. The drawing has stuck with me since the late sixties when I first saw it (Dating myself there....). He seems to be almost a symbol of what I'm trying to do with SchoolHouse Mac, that is to create a useful, no nonsense or glitter, set of resources for educators and others using computers with students. While we need to pay for our equipment and other expenses, we make no attempt to "sell" anyone. Rather, or efforts are to get samples of our work in front of you to take or leave......as is, with no apologies. Tragic Comedy As you may know, SchoolHouse Mac and Teachers Mac, began as the cooperative effort of a few teachers in a small rural community. Our small rural school district won twenty Macintosh Classics through the "Teachers of Tomorrow" program sponsored by Michigan's governor at the time. (More about SchoolHouse Mac) The computers were given to teachers, many of whom had never used a computer, let alone a Macintosh, with nothing but a word processor and a three hour workshop. One teacher, who was her buildings' resident Apple IIe guru, didn't turn her computer on for three months because she thought she didn't have any programs for it since she didn't have any floppies. She didn't know what a hard drive was..... Although I was forced to wonder if she slept through the single workshop, the mistake really isn't as stupid as it sounds. Techies are continually pushing the edge of what is being done and what can be done with computers and now the WWW. They are followed quickly by business people eager to take advantage of new technologies in order to push their profit margin. On the other hand, many schools don't have the money to purchase the latest technology. Or, if they do, they have to choose between purchasing and paying to learn how to use it. If both are possible, teachers and administrators have to find the time to learn how to use the technology and software......not an easy task when other responsibilities aren't reduced. Finally, schools seem to need to struggle to find leadership, coherent directions and/or a clear focus. Perhaps businesses are able to do that better than educational institutions because they're driven by the profit motive or maybe it just seems that way. My school district (I'm an elementary Title I Reading teacher.) spent the first three or four years of this decade, adding Macintoshes as possible. We spent close to $300,000 at the elementary and middle school level, not a lot of money but was all we had. Three years ago, the school district passed a twenty-one million dollar bond issue for rebuilding. Approximately $2 million was for technology. Within a year, the previous direction was abandoned, no clear technology plan was adopted except that we would go with Windows 95 machines (Perhaps just as well in view of Apple's problems.), and that the district would be networked. Our high school principal was in charge of our technology program and adopted policy seemed to immediately discard previous work in the district, any expertise or practice by elementary school teachers, and student computer access, as an immediate goal. Computers were and are referred to as "Teacher Work Stations" and administrative and teacher uses are the only one's addressed. A committee was set up to look at elementary software needs in view of elementary curriculum. It never met. That administrator has left the district. A new committee has been setup this year. That committee has spent two months bickering about direction, deciding software can't be purchased until they look at elementary curriculum, and stopping what little effort at in servicing teachers there has been. We now have a half-time director of elementary technology who wanted to do the training, but has done little or nothing with it in the two months he has been in charge except pass around two surveys. The bond issue placed a new 24 station computer lab in every building in the district and one new computer and printer in each classroom. After three years, the wiring is nearly complete, computers have been placed in the seven buildings in our district and are being used in two. The network should be complete in six of the seven buildings with in the next month. It will take another year to give us Internet Access. In addition to the elementary technology coordinator, we have a two man technology department setting up computers, installing the network and trouble shooting the many problems that have emerged. They notonly have far more work than they can handle, but are techies and have a limited understanding of the needs of students and educators. They're so busy installing networks, that they're unable to send the over 10% of the new computers and printers which have broken down within the first month or less of being used, out to be repaired. 20% of the computers in one elementary lab are unusable at this time and half of those were computers which didn't work properly out of the box. Part of the reason for our equipment problems is a company who offered the lowest bid for computers for two of the schools. Instead of the brand new Compaqs promised, they sold the schools "refurbished models". Litigation has produced little that I know of to date except that Compaq has said they'll honor the three year warrantee the models were supposed to have. The bid process is interesting. Every computer and printer we've purchased have been models which were outdated in some senses, before they were unpacked from their boxes. They started landing in labs and classrooms in the spring of 1997. A variety of clues indicate that they were models being sold in 1995. Inspite of that, the computers aren't bad with 133 mhz and a one gig hard drive. Many of the printers, however, are terrible compared to models being sold now at probably about the same price purchased via bid. But the companies who sold them to us submitted the lowest bids....at the time. The bid process seems to almsot guarantee that schools will continually be behind, especially when making large purchases. Committees meet and decide what the school needs to do, money is raised via bond or millage, bids are requested, technology purchased and a year, maybe two, has passed. Even if there was a single coherent voice in a school district which could say "We need this, let's get it!" (and there ususally isn't) they can't just go to the store and get what they need. As for software, we have ClarisWorks....nice, but not enough for elementary education. That's the reason for one of my current projects, 101 Classroom ClarisWorks Projects. The title is misleading in that more than 101 projects are included and the projects can be done with any word processor or combination program. But 101 is so catchy......? None of the people who previously worked with technology in the district or used it, are involved in the current implementation process. The people who are, provide another clue concerning problems we're having. We have two new elementary principals and a third who recently received a promotion of sorts. They're all busily marking out their territory and fighting for the interests of their building, often at the expense of district motion forward. Few of them are interested in outside input, especially from the teachers they supervise. They seem to feel that being a principal means they have to demonstrate they have all of the answers..... Another person involved in the process took a summer computer class about two years ago. The instructor handed out a disk and a label for projects. The lady from our district put her label over the metal part of the floppy and inserted the floppy upside down and backwards into the drive, disabling her computer for over and hour and a half. Through a process beyond my understanding, this lady sits on all technology committees and seems to have more influence than any other single person except the high school principal running most of the process. Almost no training has been provided. Teachers are expected to pretty much expected to do it on their own initiative and on their own time. If we have a functioning network, with adequate software and Internet access and teachers who know how to use it all, by September, 1998, it will be a miracle indeed. One administrator put it that we would learn to use our new technology in the way our district learns to use most new things, by gradually assimilating it. I don't think it will work that way. My point is two-fold. As the parent of three children who attend this district, I'm deeply disturbed at the opportunities they've missed because of our district's inadequacies. We've been able to make-up for some of it at home with computers and Internet access, but is still not the same as what could be provided by a number of teachers in a number of educational settings involved in a variety of projects. As a parent and a professional educator, I can only hope that the comedy of errors, committee work, politics and other factors, which have produced the mangled and inadequate technology program in our district, aren't typical of what's going on in public schools. From what I've read, it may be. If that is the case, I can only wonder if our public school system will be able to prepare our children for life in this dawning new age. That is especially true given the number of factors totally beyond the school district's control or determined by luck and the structure of public education and its funding. And it is complicated! But the basic issue, the basic goal, seems clear.....get it and use it! And rely, to some extend, on the people who will be using the tools with the students....the teachers...to get some idea of what they need... To the top. Small Frog in a Huge Pond SchoolHouse Mac started as a non-profit user group. After a year or so, we decided to try to become a profit making company. The challenge has always been to find a way to let people who might be interested know about our work without spending all of our time selling it. In case you didn't know, this has become pretty much a one man part-time operation. I'm a Title I reading teacher and operate SchoolHouse Mac in my spare time. I've stuck with it and have explored new avenues because I'm committed to the idea and because it has provided an outlet for my two avocations, working with children and reading, and computers. Part of the appeal has been that I've not needed to push what I do. I simply edit, write, create or collect, something I thing might be useful, make samples of it available, and sell it to interested parties. I communicate with people who want to contribute or comment or who need help, but almost never to sell. I'm not a salesman. That approach has worked pretty well until Apple's most recent misfortunes started, AOL started to decline and the World Wide Web Exploded. Macintosh computers made a lot of "do-it-yourself" projects easier than any other platform. I think a fairly unique community evolved around Macs and I was able to reach many of them by uploading samples of my work to AOL. That communty seems to be in decline, along with Apple who now has only a 2% market share. Or, if not in decline, that community can no longer be reached through AOL. AOL may have a larger membership, but the activity in the Educational software forum (and many others) is at a standstill. I note that I started working with Windows 95 machines and there has never been much activity in that educational forum. While some other places to send software have sprung up on the net, they're nowhere near as effective as AOL was two years ago. I've tried a little email marketing but don't like to be grouped with the multi-level marketers and other hucksters flooding our email boxes with junk! I've done a little advertising through newsgroups, but am not really sure that's appropriate. Besides, newsgroups are flooded with multi-level marketing messages and other garbage as well. So that seems to leave building a web site and atracting attention to it. The web is the HUGE pond I was referring to in the title to this segment. Not only are there untold hundreds of thousands of web sites out there, the best are funded and developed by commercial organizations, colleges, foundations, branches of the government, etc., and are maintained by professional web developers. Anyone can do a web page, but its tough to compete with the likes of the Eisenhower Foundation, ERIC, NASA, the people who do the Web Scout Page and so on. But it is still fun and I'll continue with this as long as I can attract some interest and use much of what I do for SchoolHouse Mac with my students at school as well. I'll continue in the hope that I can keep it sensible and useful, pay for my expenses and, as a small voice, be heard in the uproar. Charlie SchoolHouse Mac To the top. click here to EMAIL US! at charlie938@aol.com Or write us at SchoolHouse Mac, 5236 Coats Grove Rd, Hastings, MI 49058 Ask for our free catalog! Back to Teachers Mac Last updated on Oct 16, 1997 Copyright 1997 by SchoolHouse Mac