Techno-Promoter Dreams, Student Realities

Abstract

To understand more clearly how recent infusions of technology into the schools have affected students, the authors undertook a yearlong investigation into technology use at two San Francisco Bay Area high schools. They share their findings here and measure them against the dreams of the techno-promoters. AN 18-YEAR-OLD senior with long brown hair and a thoughtful, engaging manner, Swift does not fit the prominent cultural stereotype of the bespectacled, socially awkward techno geek. Nonetheless, Flatland High School's coordinator, teachers, and other students all rely on his substantial technical and computer expertise, almost entirely self-taught, to help solve various computer problems. Mr. Marsh, the Computer Information Technology (CIT) teacher, and Mr. Colburn, the technology coordinator, immediately mention Jason's name when asked about technologically proficient students. A classmate says, If there is a PC problem, can fix it. Renowned as the most potent member of the tech gods, a self-named group of students vital to Flatland's technology efforts, notes, without any undue gloating, that most people turn to him when there is a network, hardware, or software problem in the school.1 On a typical day, although Jason's academic subject teachers rarely employ computers for instruction, he does use computers in two of his classes. In his second-period CIT class, checks his e-mail and surfs the Net at the beginning of class. Then he and his classmates move to another room to disassemble and rehabilitate old computers that local businesses have donated to Flatland. Eventually, many of these reconditioned computers will be used in the school. Mr. Marsh, the instructor/entrepreneur behind the operation, typically employs as an assistant teacher who aids less able students and also as a repair expert who fixes staff machines. reports that twice this year Mr. Marsh has sent him to fix a guidance counselor's computer. Today, is helping individual students test their reassembled computers. In his sixth-period Cisco Networking Academy (CNA) class, and his classmates sit individually at 25 high-end computers secured through a district grant. While some students chat with their neighbors or surf the Web, many students read text, listen to audio through headphones, or watch graphic simulations presented in an online curriculum prepared and hosted by Cisco Systems, the world's leading manufacturer of networking products. The overriding course objective is to prepare students to earn Certified Network Technician status. The instructor, Mr. Colburn, is the technology coordinator. He works with individual students or pauses to engage in an extended dialogue with an observer. On other days in this class, students have wired the room's network, listened to short lectures in which Colburn brought them up to speed on new technologies, taken multiple-choice tests online, or completed labs in which groups configure and troubleshoot routers, devices that determine how information flows over a network. However, notes that most days the class uses the online curriculum. Though he sometimes finds it hard on my eyes, he likes it because you can go at your own speed, and a book doesn't have sound and animation.2 When asked if he is learning a lot in this class, shrugs his shoulders and says yeah. In certain respects, Jason's computer knowledge eclipses that of Mr. Colburn, especially when it comes to solving PC hardware or software problems. comments, If it is something that I can't deal with, then I do usually talk with [Colburn] or someone that I know knows stuff. But most of the time . . . either he doesn't have time to deal with it, or he doesn't know what is going on with it, so they have me fix it. Mr. Colburn agrees, noting, Jason often does things that nobody on the staff could accomplish. Jason's substantial technical skill has helped him land a position as Mr. …