This article doesn't deal with disability.  However, as this kind of
learning becomes more and more common, I do wonder about accessibility.
From the little I've seen schools adopting this sort of technology often
fail to think about accessibility and then when the occasional student with
a disability comes along he or she is left out.


December 30, 1998

Chalk on Blackboard Gives Way to Pixels on a Screen
By LUCILLE RENWICK

The excursion to a boulder field in northern Pennsylvania seemed like any
other field trip. Ninth graders from Ed Greaney's earth science class at
Hunterdon Central Regional High School collected slivers of the mammoth
volcanic stones, measured them, snapped pictures and recorded the rushing
of waterfalls.
 This time, however, the students were armed with digital cameras, laptop
computers, tape recorders and the technological capability to transfer
their information directly to computers, capitalizing on their school's
sophisticated use of technology. The images are now on the school's Web
site; they emerge in a 3-D panoramic tour complete with sound. In the
classroom, pairs of students huddled before computer screens awash in
multi-colored graphics, as they clicked, downloaded and typed in the
information they had collected for 12-page multimedia reports on the field
trip.

"I like the computer a lot better than just the teacher telling us or
stapling pictures to a piece of paper," said Jennifer Bastian, a
14-year-old in the class.

At Hunterdon Central, in Flemington, N.J., cutting and pasting no longer
mean construction paper and Elmer's glue. The school is among a handful
nationwide that are pushing the technology envelope by infusing computers
into almost every aspect of a student's life. Multimedia software programs,
once the province of graphic art classes, are now being absorbed into every
subject.

At Napa New Technologies High School in northern California, students take
notes on computers at their desks and turn in assignments on disk or by
E-mail. In the Olympia, Wash., school district, students coach teachers in
new technologies. In Tucson, Ariz., students design the layout of computer
labs and create and maintain Web sites.

"The technology sucks the students in to the point where they end up doing
additional research and more work on a project simply because it's fun,"
said Pamela Lee Hopkins, an English teacher who leads the Tucson program.

Dennis Harper of the Olympia school district agreed. "If we're training
kids to be the future workers in the 2060's, then we've got to at least
move beyond the teaching tools of the 1960's and reach them on a level and
with materials they're used to," he said. "And that's computers and
technology."


 Judy Salpeter, editor of Technology and Learning magazine, says that
Hunterdon, Tucson, Olympia and Napa are among only 20 to 30 high schools in
the United States using computer technology. Most schools are just
beginning to delve beyond word processing and surfing the Internet.

Hunterdon Central officials began in 1990 with a plan to embrace multimedia
technology, which combines text, sound, animation and still and video
images. Today, Hunterdon has more than 1,200 PC's for its 2,160 students.
Every classroom has at least six computers linked by a high-speed network.
All students have E-mail accounts.

Florence McGinn's creative writing class, which looks more like a computer
lab than a traditional classroom, is a hotbed of experimentation. Two-dozen
computers line the walls, and several have digital cameras mounted on them
for videoconferencing with student mentors at Rider University, 30 minutes
away in Lawrenceville, N.J.

Mrs. McGinn created the school's on-line multimedia literary magazine,
Electronic Soup, which some 50 Hunterdon students produce with peers at
Asbury Park High School and at a high school in Bangladesh. The students
edit poetry together by E-mail and digital video cameras.

Mrs. McGinn's desk is an L-shaped workstation with a 21-inch monitor linked
to her personal computer. A second monitor connects with each computer in
the room so she can scan students' work or the Web sites they are visiting
from her desk, allowing her to make immediate corrections or suggestions by
E-mail.

"The intensity of their interest becomes so strong that the learning goes
beyond grades," Mrs. McGinn explained as she panned the room.

In a corner, Rick Morrison, 17, was revising his multimedia interpretation
of a poem he wrote using Milton's title, "Paradise Lost." "You can convey
your feelings so strong, even more than on paper," said Rick, a senior who
knew little of computers and less of poetry last year.

He slid a disk into the CD-ROM drive. The poem came to life in a
presentation that conveyed a feeling of isolation. Images of Rick's face
and body swirled around the screen, superimposed on backdrops of New York
City and a deserted beach and accompanied by classical music and the fading
words of the poem.

"I'm definitely more interested in poetry and creative writing now that I
can use the multimedia graphics as part of the process," he said.

Neela Mookerjee, a junior in Mrs. McGinn's class, was also relatively
unacquainted with computer graphics in September. In three months, Neela,
16, has become so adept at graphics programs that she now opts for
multimedia presentations for most of her large assignments. In a project on
censorship for a history class, she created a Web site rather than a
written report. "Using the computers and the graphics makes the work come
alive for me," she said. "It's a clear and much easier form of expression
for me."

It is these technical skills -- or the lack of them among many students --
that concerned a pair of Napa Valley business leaders who approached local
educators there about creating a technology-centered high school. Napa New
Tech opened in 1996 in Napa, Calif., with a $250,000 grant from the United
States Department of Education, plus help from nearby technology companies.
There is a computer at every classroom desk for the 220 11th and 12th
graders. Technologically experienced teachers -- who were recruited for
their knowledge -- create lesson plans from on-line video files, CD-ROM's,
Web sites and textbooks.

Students must learn the basics of word processing, and they are assigned to
unpaid internships at technology-based companies in the Napa Valley for 15
hours a semester.

"Through technology the kids see what they can do differently in school,
and better in many cases," said JoAnne Miller, director of external
relations at Napa New Tech.

At Desert View High School in Tucson, Ms. Hopkins's business technology
students often arrive with C averages, but improve to B's or better,
spurred on by the prospect of admission to Desert View's business
technology program. Financed with Federal school-to-work funds, the program
operates like a small business inside the school, a sort of internal
consulting company.




Larry Cuban, a Stanford University education professor and critic of
education technology, concedes that computers engage students around
enticing projects. But he worries about a growing technology gap.

Computer access depends in part on a community's wealth and in part on
administrators who know how to apply for grants. Hunterdon Central was
blessed with both. The school is located in a reasonably affluent area in
southern New Jersey, and district officials have been able to secure grants
from large foundations and companies like AT & T. This has enabled the
school to pay $40,000 per classroom for computer equipment, said Ron Pare,
director of information systems at Hunterdon.

If the computers have done nothing else for students, teachers and the
schools at least they have piqued interest. The videos and graphics have
helped spice up subjects like geology, physics and math. Earth science,
too, as Ed Greaney has discovered.

"I do not get complaints about boring science classes since I have
introduced more than 25 original multimedia, interactive software
programs," he said. "That's always welcome news to a science teacher."


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