High-Tech Teachers Get Fellowships for Use of Computers
Staring intently at the small computer screen, Adrian Monarrez, 16, put the finishing touches on the curved tail of a hideous-looking basilisk, a mythical monster that is hatched from an egg and turns people to stone with its icy stare.
“There are some irregularities,” the Bell High School junior said as he slowly rolled the computer’s “mouse” remote device on the table, selected a mode on the computer’s menu and began painting the basilisk’s tail, dot by dot, until it curved evenly.
A key stroke later, the snarling, salivating monster was “saved” on Monarrez’s floppy disk, to be printed out later.
“I’m going to use it as a logo on the top of . . . Dungeons and Dragons (game) instructions that we (he and his friends) are going to use,” he said. “We’re going to conquer an imaginary land. It’s one way to get away from the real world.”
Monarrez, an aspiring mechanical engineer, is one of about 320 Bell High School students who each day pass through a photo laboratory/computer room designed and run by teachers Michael Goldberg and Bonnie Weddle.
Honored by Foundation
The teachers are one of two instructor teams in California--both in the Southeast--who were named Christa McAuliffe fellows two weeks ago by the Washington-based National Foundation for the Improvement of Education.
The two other instructors teach elementary school in the Whittier City School District. Fifth-grade bilingual teacher Pam Kinnaman and sixth-grade multilingual teacher Bonnie L. Price will join Weddle and Goldberg at a three-day conference at Stanford University in July.
The four were chosen to attend the conference from among 245 applicants across the country. The foundation picked 19 teacher teams from California, Michigan, Minnesota, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin to attend the conference, where they will gather to share the latest in teaching techniques.
The Bell High School teachers were awarded the McAuliffe fellowship after describing in a long application how they developed a computer curriculum that melds high technology, artistic creativity and work experience into a classroom situation.
In the Electronic Publishing and Instruction Center, Goldberg and Weddle have overcome the problems of teaching in overcrowded conditions by developing a self-paced, desktop publishing class.
Students enrolled in the computer publishing and graphic design class use 20 computers, which were provided last year by the Los Angeles Unified School District’s adult and vocational education department, Weddle said. Students learn electronically to draw and perform word processing and other graphic design functions.
“These kids really learn to express themselves creatively,” said Weddle about the computer production class that she designed two years ago with her partner.
The computer production class publishes a class newsletter as well as the BellTone, a monthly mailer sent to parents.
The class has also designed forms, flyers and award certificates for the high school, drawn playbills for the drama class and created a menu for a local Mexican restaurant.
“They can do anything here,” Goldberg said about her students. “Their imagination is the limit.”
Using computers as a teaching tool also earned honors for Whittier teachers Price and Kinnaman. Their winning proposal calls for a network in which children from across the country can communicate with each other with computers.
The teachers have been experimenting with their proposal through a computer network for educators operated by the McGraw-Hill Co. During the last election season, Price’s sixth-grade class at Wallen L. Andrews Elementary School was one of nine in the country that used the McGraw-Hill network to ask questions of presidential candidates George Bush and Michael S. Dukakis.
Messages to Other States
The children also exchanged computer messages with classrooms in other states, which Kinnaman said provided a real-life lesson in cultural diversity.
“We’ve found that students in Nebraska have no concept of going to the mall or skateboarding, but we have no concept of getting the sleds out and going snow-sledding,” said Kinnaman, who teaches a fifth-grade bilingual class at Orange Grove Elementary School.
“Children in the U.S. only see the culture they have around them,” she said. “We want to broaden that.”
However, because it costs $150 a year, plus user fees of $7 an hour, to become a member of the McGraw-Hill network, the system has only about 3,900 U.S. members.
McGraw-Hill Price and Kinnaman want to set up a free system, starting it in California and eventually including the entire United States.
“Any teacher, any parent, any student will be able to connect into the system, as long as they have a computer and a modem,” Kinnaman said.
Price and Kinnaman will also be videotaping their students as they send and receive messages, “so children who don’t have the opportunity to get on line can see how to do it,” Kinnaman said.
At Bell High School, students are getting more than an idea of what computers can do. They are getting hands-on, marketable experience, Goldberg and Weddle said.
Already, some students have been working part time in local print shops and graphic design businesses. Two seniors have landed full-time, after-school jobs designing ads with computers for a local weekly newspaper.
Eye-Opener for Artist
Marco Aguilera, 17, an artist who began drawing at 3, said he shunned high technology until he discovered the computer design class.
“At first I wasn’t too crazy about this thing,” Aguilera said as he looked over the shoulder of a friend who was typesetting a newsletter, forming columns and outlining “windows” where photographs would be placed.
“I’m an artist,” Aguilera continued. “But when I saw what this thing could do, I decided I’m going to get into computer graphics.”
He is now looking for a college that will teach him the most advanced computer graphics technology: “I want to do animation stuff with the computers. That would be great.”
