Bleep. Blurp. Belch. Funny sounds for a revolution. The bleeps and blurps come from computers in school labs, classrooms and teacher desks throughout Lake County. And they indicate a major change in the way schools conduct business, teachers conduct classes and students learn.
In Lake Forest, kindergarten students are creating computer zoo pictures populated with animals they have chosen by sounding out beginning letters.
Grayslake 3rd-grade students eagerly complete their math assignments on the computer because it’s fun, they say.
In Highland Park District 108’s Edgewood Junior High, computer discs are listed along with assignment notebooks and other supplies on students’ back-to-school shopping lists.
If the examples sound mundane in comparison to the extraordinary stories of computer programming geniuses highlighted in the press 15 years ago, that is because the educational computer revolution has taken a different guise than predicted.
Once cloaked in a technological mystique where only the brightest students or stout-hearted teachers dared go, computers have become a classroom fixture.
“We’re not pushing programming now. We’re using computers as a tool. We’re looking at computers from the user perspective,” said Roger Ault, Highland Park-Deerfield High School District 113 director of technological systems.
In Lake County, user perspective runs the educational gamut from the administration office to the kindergarten classroom.
It’s a motivator, mind expander, socializer and time saver. “Computers are doing some of the mechanical work so that teachers have more time to spend with kids. And kids write better because it’s easier for them to edit,” Ault said.
It is an improved information dispenser and valuable simulator.
“Written science texts will soon be obsolete,” said Stevenson High School’s “Mr. Physics,” Jim McGrath. Moving from CD ROM to laser disc to overhead projector to two different computers, McGrath demonstrated the various equipment he used during the week to teach resonance, pendulum motion and moving wave concepts. “You can instantly bring an outside situation into the classroom,” said McGrath, as he first simulated a child swinging, a bridge swaying and a glass breaking.
And computers are data keepers. “The computer is more than just a word processor. It’s a teaching tool and a learning tool, depending upon which side of the desk you’re sitting,” Stevenson High School technology coordinator Samuel Ritchie said. “It is integrated into all that we teach.”
District 113 is spending about $500,000 to make that integration easier.
Want to use a computer? Plug it in. How about using a news program or president’s speech on a CD ROM to illustrate the mood of the country? Simple. Just dial. The district is installing fiber-optic voice-video-data panels in every classroom that include phone, computer and cable TV jacks, satellite dish hookup, clock and fire alarm system.
“It’s a technology outlet,” Ault said. Of course, each room has a video monitor. It is all run from an oversized, machine-cramped closet where the wires set the decor.
“The waiting for the (audio-visual) person to come and darkening the room is all but gone. This lets the teacher teach and not have to be an AV specialist,” Ault said.
“Computers are not a luxury anymore; they are a necessity. Computers help kids learn and help teachers teach.” And schools are rushing to equip their students and teachers with this teaching/learning tool.
Stevenson High School has gone from just four Radio Shack computers in 1971 to more than 300 computers today, Ritchie said.
Lake County Service Region officials estimate that few school districts have fewer than 20 computers per building.
The six-building Highland Park District 108 has moved from 10 computers in the late 1970s to 252 computers in 1992.
Computer-assisted teaching is so much a part of classroom time that its impact is taken for granted in many of the county’s schools.
“Not have a computer? I’ve always had one. I can’t even imagine it. I wouldn’t like that at all,” said Lake Forest 4th-grade teacher Laura Risinger.
Why has the revolution whose coming was ballyhooed a generation ago taken so long to arrive? And why has it drawn barbs from some national publications for not fulfilling some people’s expectations?
“It was supposed to solve all problems. It was supposed to be the miracle worker,” Ritchie said.
So what happened?
“Lack of training. Lack of software,” he said. “Computers are just machines. How they’re used depends upon people. Money was spent on computers. Very little was spent on software and almost none on training. I’m not saying that happened here. But it was happening all over,” he said.
And lack of software and support still occurs, said Lake Forest Elementary instructional technology resource teacher Darlene Andre.
As a lighthouse district for computer hardware and software companies, Lake Forest attracts dozens of school board members, teachers and administrators from all over the Midwest who are planning to invest heavily in computer technology.
Andre warns that to work, the investment must be three-directional: “Districts should divide the pot equally among equipment, software and support services. But instead, what happens is two-thirds is spent on hardware, one-sixth on software, and there’s a misconception we’ll teach ourselves, so little is spent on support. Teachers need training. They need time. And they need backup support, or they won’t use the equipment.”
Ault shudders when he thinks of what computer education meant to teacher training: “Back then we were teaching teachers how to program. That was cruel and inhuman. We pulled them screaming into computer language classes. I don’t blame them for protesting. Computers are much easier to use now.”
“Many teachers were not interested in the technical aspects of computers,” said Robert Luby, Barrington Unit Schools’ technology coordinator. “That was not to say they did not see its potential. But what was available in education software didn’t make sense for some teachers to use. You do not make a person who drives a car take auto mechanics. But it does make sense to give everybody driver education.”
School systems, eager to jump aboard the computer bandwagon, bought a few machines, which then sat for lack of teacher training, hand-holding support or software.
Thus, in the 1990s, about 20 years after computer companies, educators and the media predicted that computers would have a major impact on how schools and teachers would conduct their business, the revolution appears to have arrived.
“Computers have radically changed the way we do things in schools,” said Highland Park District 108 technological services coordinator Karen Winsor. “Students use computers as soon as they enter school.”
The machines also signal a change in standard school equipment. Educators say the day is fast approaching when such school staples as spiral class notebooks and ballpoint pens may join their chalk slate and inkwell cousins on school museum shelves. Typewriters have already been shelved in several schools.
“We’ve gotten rid of all our typewriters. We use computer-based keyboards,” Luby said. “Our high school business typing teacher now travels to all the 5th grades to teach computer keyboarding skills.”
Stevenson’s technology coordinator predicted that by the year 2000, secondary-school students will take their notes, work their problems and record assignments on powerful laptop computers, similar to the Macintosh Power Book, instead of using spiral notebooks.
“Laptop computer technology has altered the way people do their work. Soon they will become standard in schools. Students will come to school with computer in hand rather then notebook in hand,” Ritchie said.
It’s already happening in the Barrington Unit Schools-but with teachers and administrators, not students.
“I take mine home daily,” said Barrington teacher Ron Metcalf, who turns out worksheets and other classroom materials on his computer for his 5th-grade at Woodland School.
Power Books became standard issue to 5th- and 6th-grade teachers after the district revised its curriculum two years ago to emphasize writing and computer keyboard skills at those grade levels.
“Some day these kids will be carrying Power Books also. They will be taking laptops to high school,” he predicted. “Data and communication are a major part of our life. What we’re doing now is building a cornerstone to what they will be doing in high school, college and in the workplace.”
