Schools try to keep up with the current technology trends, especially in Silicon Valley, the home of technology innovation. You would think that schools in Silicon Valley would be the most up to date on technology—with the latest computers, projectors, drawing boards—but coming from a first hand perspective, as a student at a local school, it’s the complete opposite. I go to a high school where there are no technology classes that even teach students the basics of web development, or video production, or anything of that matter.
Our school just upgraded our computer labs to brand new computers, Windows XP machines, that of course, block Facebook, YouTube, and all those other good “time wasting” sites. Just this year, all the teachers’ computers got connected to projectors so that teachers can show presentations, documents, etc. Also this year, our school finally got WiFi, but it is password protected and not open to students.
The restrictions on the use of school computers and the internet, are in my opinion, extreme. Each night all student accessible computers are wiped completely, and restored with all the basic programs – Mozilla Firefox, IE6, Microsoft Office 2003. I understand the need for schools to protect local machines from viruses and spyware, but I feel like school policy is too extreme when it comes to blocking YouTube, Facebook, and other sites. These sites can be “time wasting” sites, but there are occasions when the sites are useful. I was the Technology Editor for my school newspaper last year, where we needed to get pictures and information from fellow students. We used Facebook chat and messages to communicate with other students to get information, to co-ordinate and to find things such as video from events.
In a neighboring high school, they have a full video production studio for daily video announcements – yet at most other schools, such as my own, we are stuck with old PA systems for announcements and old technology along with a restricted web experience. This is not what the rest of the world would imagine for a school in Silicon Valley. A friend’s school in Los Angeles has a full Mac computer lab for video and graphic work. My school — one Mac, and it’s not even allowed to be used by students. Given that in most of the developed world most schools, especially public schools, lag with technology – but it seems that even when there is a will and a budget to implement new technology the policies are still outdated.
Nice post. My school is somewhat technical. We just upgraded to 10.5 iMacs last year and this year every class got either a projector and speaker built into the ceiling or a smart board. We have 4 computer labs and like 120+ computers (new iMacs, old eMacs and old iBooks/white MacBooks) and also all the students get email addresses (except they use crappy gaggle.com and I won’t ever be using it) and use Google apps a lot. For example right now in Social Studies I am making a Google map showing events that led up to the American Revolution and the Constitution. But they block a FREAKING TON of sites. It’s absolutly crazy. They even blocked my own site ( :O ) but I know how to get around ‘em. My digital photography teacher bet me $20 I couldn’t hack my way in to watch a video on YouTube and sign into Facebook. Guess who won
Also last week when my tech teacher was teaching us how to use the computer (yes, I know) she said that applications are made of “random letters and numbers”
wtf moment.
I’ve programmed for years and some of the code I’ve seen she’s not always wrong….
I can only speak for my school over in Australia, though we’ve only recently put up our poor excuse for a website and we’ve just installed a school-wide WiFi which is only accessible through the schools computers. We still run Windows XP on majority of our computers with Internet Explorer 6 and I was told by our school tech guy that if it’s working fine, there is no need for change which is utterly ridiculous. As with you, the school filters so many websites that it’s beyond repair. Something definately needs to be done, and if I can say this without being flamed, the group “Anonymous” have/are launching what seems to be a campaign against the Australian broadband/communications minister to stop with the proposed and current internet filtering. Yeah..
Ok Matt, I don’t mean to crib. But how is this an evolution? It seems like a stream of things you are unhappy with. I think it would be more helpful if you took a list of what are the must have things in schools and put them together. Actually showing evolution from what it was to what it is. Please take this as constructive criticism.
Hi Daniel: great post, thanks for sharing the state of technology in your school. It would be really nice if school administrators would stay in touch with business trends. Perhaps if school admins understood that online video is one of the top marketing trends for companies today, or if they understood how social networks like Facebook are being leveraged by companies seeking to connect with customers, perhaps then they would make smarter decisions related to technology in the classroom.
It’s amazing to hear that schools – especially those in the heart of Silicon Valley – do not provide opportunities to learn tech basics. We don’t have to look far to see that technology is transforming our world. How are students supposed to develop skills for today’s world if they are not given training in tech basics in school? How is the United States as a whole supposed to innovate if it’s not investing in tech education opportunities for students?
[Sigh...]
i think we must leave “book” n going to use netbook XD
I completely disagree with regards to blocking Facebook et al. Porn sites should be blocked too. What are the education benefits of allowing those sites? Let’s not kid ourselves. We all know why we use Facebook and YouTube, just like we all know what BitTorrent is really used for. Email is presumably still available if students want to communicate with each other and exchange images. If they really want to use Facebook, I’m sure most students have home computers.Â
I remember in uni where lab computers allowed students to install apps. I can’t remember how many times I’ve had to wait 30 minutes or more in queue to use a computer to print a report while dozens of students played Counterstrike, illegally downloaded movies, IMed and played around on Facebook. I’m not talking about checking Facebook or IMing here and there while typing their reports either–they had no other apps/tabs running! My university had a pretty open-ended policy in the computer labs and it was pure anarchy. There’s no conspiracy here. Save your “Braveheart” speech for something that matters.Â
And yes, computers should be wiped clean after every log out. This shouldn’t even be an argument. School computers would be rendered unusable after a week due to viruses and spyware! I’ve known people who have installed keyloggers on school computer. Trust me–it’s a real concern.
As for the rest of your post, I totally agree. The lack of technology classes is ridiculous in this day and age. When I graduated high school in 2000, computer classes were still focused on typing and PowerPoint presentations.Â
Couldn’t. Agree. More.
Technology in education is over rated. Daniel should count himself lucky. There is no value to students in the computer labs, they aren’t learning anything useful, as the argument stated. If all that money was instead spent on educational efforts, they might even be able to afford a tech teacher who could teach them something other than using office products. It is a joke, just not for the reasons Daniel layer out.
I agree. I cant imagine Facebook or YouTube being efficacious helping my child to have a education that will allow her to compete in a global marketplace. I would add that not only should there be limits on the use of the computer, but restrictions on how the school network is used also.
I graduated from High School in 1992. We had a computer lab (complete with scanners and cameras) and computer courses which covered many topics including programming (Pascal, Basic, etc). We even covered animation in my Pascal class. I find it sobering, that in 2009 or even in 2000 that technology education would not be ubiquitous in the education framework. Even in middle school, we had macs and were given a introduction to using them and allowed a few moments to play games (well I only remember this one karate game).
But I think this may be a regional issue. I have lived in Silicon Valley but went to High School on the East Coast. Not to offend, but I recall a valley arrogance when I first relocated that assumed that they had the best of everything technological…
Let me give this a gander… there are games on facebook such as geo challenge which does a much better job of teaching geography than any teacher… youtube has first person accounts of many stories. Furthermore youtube, twitter, facebook are social branding tools. I have a facebook app and if I ever make any money with what I am doing where I can hire someone I will ask how many twitter followers do you have, how many subs do you have on youtube… because a persons social blueprint matters. I would say it is essential for people to learn how to use blogs, twitter, facebook and youtube if they want any type of job in the future because it will give you a competative edge. A person who has a high social impact is someone I could say make fun of me or your job 3 times a week… Webex is doing this in its new radio ads where it highlights the people behind the process… dam a person could go to lynda.com, learn photoshop and work from a laptop on a beach… Knowing the internet, knowing social interfaces is probably more valuable in terms of getting a job than a lot of stuff you learn in school..
I am not saying that you cannot find ways to use Facebook, et al for educational purposes. It is possible to apply the information on just about any web site towards education. But we are talking about being efficient and efficacious. The are tools, who primary purpose is education, that can provide all of the functionality that you mentioned. None the benefits you mentioned are unique to those tools.
Do you really think that Facebook, YouTube, in the shools would used more for education than entertainment? The is small upside and a tremendous downside.
“I would say it is essential for people to learn how to use blogs, twitter, facebook and youtube if they want any type of job in the future because it will give you a competative edge.”
You can learn these things easily outside of school. In fact, outside of the classroom is where most of us have learned this tools. This commodity knowledge: chances are anyone that you compete with for a job will be familiar with these sites. I would not be teen to put “I know FB” on a resume.
“Knowing the internet, knowing social interfaces is probably more valuable in terms of getting a job than a lot of stuff you learn in school”
Having a degree in a related field is and will be always be valuable is getting a job. The are positions that you cannot apply for with out having certain degree. The social connections that you make in the workplace will be more valuable in most cases than the ones you make in school when considering a career path. These are the people who move to new companies and hire you as a consultant, recommend you for a promotion, recruit you to join their new venture, etc. I think you may be considering a small set of career data and not looking at the big picture. People who boast lots of education (especially from the top colleges) or work experience have
And that is part of the problem. You are emphasizing knowledge and skills that are easy to learn, duplicate, and perfect. You may learn how to use Photoshop from lynda.com, but will you learn how to create a more efficient opaque or shadow volume algorithm? Let me know when you use FB, YT, and lynda.com to figure out how to design a more efficient cell battery.
We have to be realistic. To have a workforce that can compete in the global marketplace, a strong eduction based in science/engineering/technology curriculum is needed. The will be downward economic pressure on people with the skill you mentioned.
I am not meaning to be pugnacious, but I think you may be very young in terms of you career path. I have been in the top 10% by income since to years after graduating from college. The people who I work with or have worked ( east coast, west coast, and 16 other countries), who are also doing as well or better are not trademarked by any of the indicators you mentioned. You may not be aware of how many positions or opportunities are available to people based solely upon the academic items on your resume. The world is more than just tech jobs.
Last year I ran a few blogging workshops in some primary schools in London with children and their mothers. I was genuinely shocked to find YouTube available and really hope it no longer is.
There’s plenty of content – from half dead casualties of war to soft porn – that hasn’t yet been flagged as adult on YouTube, and that should be no-where near a school.
Ouch IE6, guess that’s how they get around fixing exploits, Taking “have you tried turning it off and on again” to the extreme: have you tried re-installing it every night.
I’m from Canada, had to learn how to type when I was in early elementary. Web design was required in junior high and entry to coding classes were optional in high school. Moved to California and went to a public high school for senior year where the only thing they cared about requiring was drivers ed.
I’m no admin but I would imagine that managing a network of computers in regards to public schools for both staff and students would take crazy maintenance and ridiculous AD policies/settings to keep it under control.
So much so that I think a lot of the schools are just like “eff that”
its too much effort and/or too expensive to maintain so you dont see many schools if any at all going all out on integrating computer technology into the classroom and further more evolving the learning experience to leverage applications and the web as much as we would all like to see.
Im thinking that it would most likely take a completely re-imagined OS with a set of role specific applications designed specifically for school use and a new re-imagined network architecture specifically designed from the ground up for use in public schools
i mean wouldn’t it be easier to just design, optimize and implement a system specifically for school use rather then trying to take a consumer platform implement it then try to limit and control it?
theres is sooo much opportunity and innovation that is being overlooked
For instance a dynamic ALL digital curriculum or a combination of an online digital and static classroom curricula that come together to create a learning experience that can adapt to a students progress in real time thus optimizing the curriculum to better express specific concepts or subjects that a student might be having a hard time grasping
or how about tools that help teachers manage their classrooms and students progress more effectively and provide features that make it easier to keep up with each and everyone of their students understanding of concepts/subjects in real time
or how about thin clients/cloud network architecture that allow students to personalize their experience, aggregate preferences, bookmarks and data in a controlled environment that is completely isolated from the local machine and implemented in a way where each action is logged and can be audited/reviewed by student id at anytime if need be where certain actions could automatically raise red flags to moderator or admin on the clock at that time
or a web browser thats more of a search engine designed from the ground up for educational use and a combination of web apps or a suite of web apps basically less url browsing and more of a search and application based experience
or a google aps like suite of applications integrated with the thin client user account/OS environment and of course the applications would integrate with the curriculum especially if its all or partially digital and of school functions/activities/extracurricular activities could also be seamlessly integrated into the platform
The F-that, attitude is too true. A co-worker just left he job here to be a net admin at the local school district, the pay is appalling for the demands of network security. It’s not surprising, do any of us seriously expect underfunded public schools to have even half the IT budget as a large corporation trying to protect it’s business critical info?
Closing the door and throwing away the key is really the only thing they have time for as far as “protecting children from the internet”. Imagine the outrage is a teen saw a picture of a penis on a school computer. The IT techs are too busy fixing staff computers to pick and choose what students can use. Frankly if students have access to Google Images they should consider themselves lucky.
I agree a lot of schools embrace of technology is pretty terrible, although I think it’s mainly in terms of the course offerings and teacher training. I kinda agree with blocking facebook, youtube and the like. If they didn’t then every computer class you’d get students chatting and playing games and carefully minimizing the window whenever the teacher walked past (that’s what I used to do!) The example you give of them being useful – using facebook to find pictures for the school paper – while valid, is not common or of critical importance and and something which can easily be done at home. Also – wiping the machines every day can be a good idea and not just for viruses. Letting students install software is a bad idea. I remember my old school didn’t stop this and the machines became infested with chat programs, toolbars, trial software and other junk kids would download.
A better idea is if they implement a system allowing students to request software installations/purchases that are relevant to their studies. I know lots of universities do this and it often works well. I remember one programming course which originally only allowed Microsoft Visual C++ and later opened up to allow a choice of compilers thanks to student suggestions.
Many educational technology companies offer resources for locating and applying for grant money to get technology in classrooms. After all it helps their bottom line. Some even offer grant writing services. Also many sponsor give-a-ways through contests such as http://www.eimakeover.com/, which has a prize package worth over $30,000 this year, and many also have raffles at trade shows such NECC in DC each year.
A while ago i was brought in as an external consultant for a school that wanted to “rethink the way they use the internet”.
I quickly found out that they were asking me to step in because they simply had no clue. The only question they really had was how the could effectively block students from doing anything “they shouldn’t” be doing and how to have round the clock surveillance.
Rarely have i met people so paranoid, fearfull and uninformed as that group of teachers who were also so unwilling to learn or question their convictions.
This will only improve when the people making those decisions are people who grew up in the digital age. And that age started around 1998…
Sounds just like our school. We don’t have the computers wiped daily, but almost any website that lets you upload any type of file is banned, anything with the word “game” in it is instantly banned. Sites that are not banned are monitored 24/7 by an automatic system that when it detects a game, or an “inappropriate” word bans the whole site.
It’s totally ridiculous! Take the wifi for instance. If you want your laptop on the wifi, they take it for a week, and check every single file you have on it, to make sure you don’t do anything “harmful” to the network. (more like keep on track of what students do at weekends) They rarely let laptops on the wifi either. The wifi is so locked down it’s not even worth it.
Macs? No way. I don’t think our school even knows what they are.
We’re a “Maths and IT school” How about they show it? Sure we have projectors and fancy interactive white boards, but for the love of god loosen up a little!
There is no reason to use Macs at school, especially with the extremely attractive corporate leasing structure that companies like Lenovo offer. School budgets are tight as it is, tacking on the extra mark up for Macs would surely lead to cuts in other places.
My small public elementary school in Brooklyn NY has three smartboards, 5 digital projectors in locking carts with audio & amplifier, about 24 new iBooks, and another 24 older ones, plus 50 Dell laptops and a library full of desktops (8); six Mac (10.3.x) desktops in classrooms (not in preK), each room a huge laser printer, and all the fifthgraders have password-protected accounts on the wireless-accessed file server, so they can log in from anywhere in the building and save to their own folders. 325 kids. No tech support. Not bragging, it’s just that way. All our city schools have the T1 wifi buildingwide.
Not sure about you, but my school’s administrator told us that they was a federal mandate to block websites. Now, our school decided it would be great to have the same blocking server as the fire department and the police department, so if some kid decides to bring it down their connection gets downed too. Not the most brilliant idea, but it hasn’t been a problem yet. My school is anti-electronics, and since we’re not supposed to have /any/ personal electronic devices, there isn’t any in-school wifi, despite the teachers wanting it. The admin has a router that he really badly secured (pass = ESSID), and that’s the only connection, and is available in very few places.
We have smartboards in a few classrooms, but none of the teachers really use them. Our website is pathetic, and all of this runs on Windows Server 2003.
There’s only one computer science class, and a web design class that’s more of a joke than anything.
It’s a pathetic place for technology education.
I work in the IT department of a K-12 public school system. We have ben fortunate to have an administration that embraces technology. We have 3 year leases of apple and dells and close to 1300 computers in 6 buildings.
Content filtering our connection is a must. We can’t allow everyone to get to YouTube and facebook or else our bandwidth would be saturated. When we have requests for those sites we allow temporary access when needed or show them how to download the video from youtube at home.
Installing software on the school owned machines…never gonna happen. They only way for the 4 of us to be able to manage 1300 computers is if there is a consistent state of software and hardware. If we had to go trouble shoot something everytime a peice of shareware or other crapware got installed we would get nothing done.
WiFi – this is a sticky subject. Right now we have limited WiFi in the district and we rarely allow non-school owned computers onto the network. If a teacher wants to bring in a laptop then they have to go through their principals. Honestly it is just a pain i the ass for us. If we setup their laptop to work at school then they go home and something doesn’t work they come back to us! We are not in the business of setting up personal computers.
Our school has school-wide Wi-Fi accessible by all students (it’s WPA2-PSK encrypted) as well as channels for staff and guests as well.
We’re allowed to bring our own laptops (Macs or PC’s), but mind you, the school computers are still XP (an eight year old OS), although they’ve been upgraded to Office 2003 and Adobe CS3.
Oh, and thank god we’ll (slowly) migrating to Mozilla Firefox.
I’m from Australia and our school invested in smart board technology 2 years ago. This includes a projector, a smart board and a computer in every classroom, from year 7straight up to year 12, in every computer room, labs and media rooms. Every student now complains that the school neglected school cooling and air cons for these smart boards. Like common, we’re having these stupid fans that oscillate back and forth in class that produce irritating noises which are far more distracting than the smart board itself.
Daniel,
Before you throw stones step into our environment. Even the best school technology leaders are working to retrofit schools with technology on limited budgets, staff, and resources. We have an environment where we have users from age 5 to 70. Our goal in schools is to provide the best education possible with the resources we have.
In regards to the Internet -there are federal FCC laws about what we can allow our students to access that are not clear and are extremely outdated.
Support and age of systems and OS – Even in the best environments we are usually outnumbered 15-1 by computers, 7-1 by staff, and 30-1 by students. We are expected to have computers and networks that work 100% of the time and do not interfere with the educational process. With that in mind we are going to reach for resources that work, come at a decent price, we can fix easily, and that we can find people to support them. Rarely do cutting edge technologies or user created environments meet these requirements.
Before you go off on a post like this do a little research and see what it is really like out there. Providing computers and a network to a school is way more complex than any home or business. Ask your community if they want to pay higher taxes to have a cutting edge wide open computing environment in their schools and see how far you get.
Feel free to come on by anytime and really get an education on how this stuff works rather than blasting an industry you have no clue about. Just because you went to school doesn’t mean you know the intricacies of how one works.
No Facebook? No YouTube?
My Lord, how do we expect our children to learn?
+1
There are plenty of things wrong with our schools. The lack of FB and YT is not one of them.
Just imagine: there is NO facebook, NO youtube, NO internet and even NO computers in major part of Russian schools now. So your crying looks funny for us.
Just imagine: there is NO facebook, NO youtube, NO internet and even NO computers in major part of Russian schools now. So your crying looks funny for us.
P.S. – Sorry, forgot to tell you great post!
You guys are still much luckier than most of your peers, particularly poor, rural public school districts. I graduated high school in rural, southeastern Virginia in 1999. At the time of my graduation, we had 3 computers in the entire school with internet access, located in the library. Programming classes: zero. Web Dev classes: 0
I then arrived at Virginia Tech and had to compete with other engineering students who came from (80%) the wealthy northern Virginia DC suburbs. They had years of computer programming under their belt. Keeping up in an engineering school that has a goal of failing 50% of its freshmen class was not easy. Extrapolate this to the world economy, and i think America is screwed if we don’t correct this soon.
I developed educational content for a dozen years, and left my business after the last major reading program in 2005. The writing was on the wall in terms of content and and school district budgets. My impression however is that you are mistaking a hammer as the critical component for assembling a house. Tis the nail.
I started developing iPhone applications at the beginning of the year, and it struck me that this is the only computer a 3 year old can use. Is computing a skill? Or, is it the combination of adaptive technologies and tools for building them? Is writing, as in cursive, a need any longer? Drawing? What is creating now, and how do we teach that? More importantly, what is the content that teaches?
We are about at the point I wrote about a decade ago, where the content publishers have hit that balance between their current function, to shift paper, and their future function, to create educational tools. A massive change in size will be needed for this. We — all of the external resources — actually created the content for the $100M reading programs. And, now I am talking to such people to create the tools necessary to support this content.
Facebook, YouTube, et al. do not comprise education, but video and social networking is a component. In the same way that education has a certain barrier, or a range within which to test the waters, so must the content. We all know what a time dump the web can be. The challenge is to one provide the tools and secondly to provide some limits to learn — focus.
As textbooks become more expensive than the technology that can replace them, remember 4 $75 books add up, we will see new possibilities. We will still have to pay for those possibilities however, and without proper funding educational tools will continue to languish. It sounds weird to say that every kid should have something like an 8″ iPod touch, but I believe this.
The Bay Area/Silicon Valley schools are some of the most underfunded schools. They have been cutting programs for years. They don’t realize that pushing the basic core classes may be okay, but students need to learn skills to make them employable if they don’t go to college- such as basic computer skills that are required in every office job these days, as well as many blue collar jobs, too.
some schools are warming up to the idea of “Study Hall” (a peer to peer learning app on Facebook). they want one way traffic – their (school’s) content on Facebook, available during school hours and no other Facebook content.
Ning tried to offer private, school appropriate networks. It caught on with a few educators, not with students.
This is why kids are dropping out of school: let’s face it, Our education system sucks a**.
There are tons of educational information on the internet. YES, even on YouTube. Facebook can even be used as a means of learning, educators could create apps that actually teach something, this could be a means of getting students excited about learning.
I reckon the day when our education system will fully embrace technology.
BTW, great article!!!
My school is pretty good with computers. We have a smart board in every classroom and hundreds of computers. Facebook and many other sites are blocked by the city council but youtube isnt becuase teachers show us alot of good educational stuff from it. The actually IT classes are terrible though, all we learn about is spreadsheets.
Warning: This post may contain venting.
Unfortunately, educational ’systems’ such as schools often allow knee jerk reactions to drive policy and “the tried and true” otherwise known as tradition to establish norms (is that even possible?). For new ideas to really gain uptake in a school setting the idea requires an advocate. Yet, school settings are very fertile breeding grounds for cliques which result in ‘the few, the anointed’. There are popular teachers, students, parents and such, but they are all chosen by the general population and do not have to be ‘elected’ by the school administration. The ‘anointed’ absolutely and always are the ‘favored’ of school administration.
My point is not only do new ideas need an advocate in school settings, they can be fast tracked and well implemented when they come from among ‘the anointed’ IF they are well intentioned (read, not selfishly building fiefdoms). That isn’t to say that those who aren’t of ‘administration’s chosen’ can’t bring new ideas and gain support. They can and do, but it will take longer. Organizations of all types suffer from this type of dynamic, but in educational settings, for some reason this phenomena can seem well, “Children of the Corn”.
As with anything in a school setting if administration doesn’t see the point in it, the funding can be sent to other ‘more important/favored’ programs or if the money is restricted for that purpose, you can end up with rooms of computers that are not used at all. I have seen this several times. Why, you ask. Simple. Grants and funds can come with restrictions on what can be purchased, basically forcing the school to get the equipment but the hiring of personnel that are capable and knowledgeable interestingly might be left up to the school. Besides, technology tends to be high profile and can result in being a new ‘power center’ in a school setting if there are no trained and knowledgeable among the ‘anointed’. In that case, the result is one of three options. The administration puts one of the ‘anointed’ over the program who will fight knowledgeable subordinates that do educate students but are miserable in their jobs, the ‘anointed’ is too paranoid to even bring knowledgeable underlings and will brave being assailed by knowledgeable students directly or of course the empty room of computer equipment.
Lastly, administration isn’t always the problem. Administration could be entirely supportive. If there are problems in this instance, it will either be budget too small to hire qualified and capable or teachers ‘fighting for money for their programs’/'fearful of loosing funding(some/all) for their programs as there’s new initiative but no new money’/'fearful of a new challenge to their ‘anointed’ status because they’re not qualified to oversee new program’.
My school is fortunate to have embraced SmartBoards as well as projectors. We also have a ‘guest wifi’ in the library, so students can bring laptops as well as iPods and iPhones and get internet. However, we are using a combination of Windows 2000, and Vista. Our school owns an ancient iMac that lives in the basement. At one point we use the old G2 iMacs when I was in first grade, but they were eventually replaced by Dells. Which the school district has stuck with for over 10 years. It’s a really weird mix of programs- we have Word 2000, but then we use Outlook 2003. And all of the publications computers have Adobe in design 4, and some have Photoshop CS4, and yet others have Photoshop CS. I don’t understand what all the mixed software is about. It’s certainly workable, it can just be difficult. I wish that our school district would purchase Macs and use iWork. It may not be as powerful as Microsoft Office, but it is certainly easier to use.
Last year, we also had Facebook and Youtube unblocked, so we are able to freely access those sites. The school district wasn’t happy about it, but the Student council had only that request, so they had to grant it.
i went to a fairly technical school where everything was embraced and i’m glad. it wasn’t a general school so i guess that’s why i was lucky to get in based on my talent and my marks alone, despite the fact that i wasn’t a rich kid with a rich old name/business family with educated parents. we had it all, computers for most students to access, art classes with regular pc’s and mac’s where the computers class we could do anything from math-science based courses to design. build computers, programming, build robots, systems, partner with the science department to build prototypes. our geography department was the other benefit, computers for all, very expensive, specific, professional programs. everything to do with geography and computers we had. everything google maps and google earth does we had. learning to read data and create what do you call them futures reports based on old data to generate future information. worked with the city and planned mapped locally regionaly then nationaly, worked with different organizations on projects (both for the geo, comp, and art dept). basically do this through junior high to the end of highschool. i wish our science dept was a lot more tech. need bigger and better connected labs with better tools, and we didn’t have a environamental science course that could have connected the geo and sci departments. i think it would have been beneficial if they were merged and tools/technology could be shared. basically the students had to initiate these cross blends which is really annoying because some of the older teachers are too baby boomer mentality like. i wish we could so a lot more applicable research based on the environment. another thing they could have done was to just clearify art-design-media-computer courses because as it was they were a mishmash and very confusing, but i think mostly because there aren’t seperate departments and are lumped into arts and computers which just cover the shared materials. i found it annoying but maybe it worked for other students. we had two buildings/campus, but i also wish the school was bigger. i wish i had gone to one of those new innovative tech schools where everything is wired and i have access to all the best tools, but as it was i’m glad i had a great education. lot’s of people were impressed with the hands on knowledge kids from my school had because we basically had to come from all sorts of backgrounds. it’s funny, interesting and completely hellish going to a specialized school. lot’s of benefits though if you work hard, creative, intelligent (whether you’re the nerd type or the genuis who doesn’t do well in a class/school setting…the school is accomodating), and don’t require a lot of sleep. i loved finding out that i’m normal and that i do have a computer like brain. comes in handy at times. oh and the way the school is funded/makes money is from all the rich people sending their kids there. i’m not even rich but i got in like i mentined and i did my part to contribute-parents-cause the cost wasn’t exorbitant. all the computer systems blocked those “fun/well wasted time not doing any work” sites but we didn’t mind because we got around them and we would basically circumvent all the controls of the mainframe computer of all the schools in the city and we would message the students in the other schools what they had to do to go around the rules. even the teachers and other staff used these methods to go on the fun sites and not do any work but still get paid handsomely.
if i forgot, i wish my school was completely wired. we would have gotten more things done.
or sometimes we would crash the main computers or put some stupid message there to mess with computers in the financial district. i wish there was also a way that all the computer progrmas in the city could connect officially and work on the same projects, because it doesn’t benefit me if my school is the only one doing so and so…i can’t talk to my friends outside of school about what we’re doing because they don’t have the same experiences and the only other way is to talk to adults (shudder) or university students…and we weren’t partnerd with a university at all, which would probably be a benifit to the school.
american schools sound interesting.
oh and since we could basically access all these fun sites another way we spent a lot of time (not just students, paid staff too) on those things where we could have been doing even more work even though our productivity and learning wasn’t really impacted, cause if you’re not performing you don’t have a good chance of staying on for the next year…too bad that wasn’t a consideration for teachers too. some of the best teachers i’ve come accross at my school, but some were absolutely garbage, and we tried very hard to get them removed. usually the admin was alright, but sometimes they were so wrong. children should be listned to more. we’re not stupid.
We talk about technology benefiting schools but apart from Wikipedia nothing really gets used. Educational content is available all over the internet but is not useful unless properly used. What is really needed is human assistance so that teachers can work one on one with struggling students. Sites like Tutorvista are a welcome development and should be used widely to address the teacher shortage we are facing and to ensure that every student gets enough quality time with a teacher.
Huge numbers of students graduate from your crummy school system without the ability to read and you are worried about FaceBook. Grow up, boy, there are real problems out there.
Be glad that you have computers at your school at all. Back when I was in High School computers where around (Class of 1989) but the only people who had access to them at all were the teachers, and staff. I go to ITT Tech in Madison, WI and some of the students don;t even have a computer. They have to do all thier work at school. Be glad you have one to complain about.
hi, why block facebook it is mint……weirdos…….
