District to Sell Computerized Curriculum

At a time when school systems statewide are strapped for cash, Hueneme Elementary School District officials may have found a new, high-tech way to increase funds.

In a project that could generate revenue for the district while providing additional income for teachers and staff, the elementary district has teamed with a Thousand Oaks video technology firm to create a computerized curriculum to be sold to school districts nationwide.

The bilingual lessons, developed as an offshoot of Hueneme’s Model Technology Schools Program, would allow students to interact with computers in the areas of history, the study of black history and literature, English as a Second Language, mathematics, and science.

Students will be able individually to ask and answer questions and research information through the computer in a cheaper, more user-friendly way, school officials said.

Royalties from the sale of the computer programs would be split, about half going to the TMM Softvideo company and the rest to the schools, said Taylor Kramer, TMM’s chief technical officer.

School officials said they do not yet know how much the district could earn through the partnership.

Marleen Allin, a consultant with the state Department of Education, said the Hueneme schools venture is unique in that the district could generate money.

“We’ve encouraged districts to do (joint projects) on more of a cost-reimbursement basis, but now they’re needing to get funds because the state money is getting less and less,” she said. “Hueneme has done a lot of research over the years, and they’ve done stuff that’s very salable.”

Hueneme Supt. Ronald Rescigno said the partnership “will empower teachers to make more money through their creative talents. If any money was to be made from any of the products designed and developed by Hueneme school teachers and staff, it would be channeled back to a nonprofit trust.”

The money would go toward further research and development in high-tech education, Rescigno said. In addition, he said, TMM will likely pay teachers for the work they do on the project over the summer.

Hueneme is one of six school districts involved in the California Department of Education’s 6-year-old Model Schools Technology Program, designed to implement and study computerized classrooms. In the Hueneme district, Blackstock and E.O. Green junior high schools make broadest use of computers.

School officials say the new technology would not only be marketed nationally, but would be used at district schools to improve upon what they already have designed.

“In these ‘smart classrooms,’ we have already developed multimedia materials, but in divergent formats,” said Steve Carr, a social science and history teacher at Blackstock. “Now we’ll be able to deliver all the video, the audio text, the graphics in one CD ROM . . . we won’t need the $200,000 classroom.”

Carr is one of four or five Hueneme teachers who will be working on the project over the summer. He said the social science curriculum--a unit on the explorations of Lewis and Clark--should be completed within six weeks.

The Lewis and Clark curriculum, said TMM’s Kramer, incorporates the journals from the Lewis and Clark expeditions, narrated in Spanish and English; footage from the Oregon Public Broadcasting System; general curriculum about Native Americans and a scene from the movie “Dances with Wolves.”

He said the technology being used for the joint project will make the computerized curriculum more affordable for school districts.

“The curriculum is going to go for $30 to $100 a disc, as opposed to the same on laser disc costing $900 to $1,000,” he said. “It doesn’t require special hardware. You can play it on low-end or high-end computers.”

Rescigno said the curriculum will be more accessible on CD than it is now and that it doesn’t require a fully computerized classroom. “We can replicate it so it can go out to school districts that maybe can’t afford the computers we can.”

The education department has worked with National Geographic and other organizations on computer software products.

Education officials said the project is highly unusual.

“I don’t think anyone else in a (kindergarten-through-sixth-grade) program has done this,” Rescigno said.

Gary Carnow, head of the model technology program in the Alhambra Unified School District, said he knows of no other such projects in the state.

“It brings up a whole set of issues, public education going for profit. It’s very entrepreneurial on the part of Hueneme,” Carnow said. “You’ve got to give them credit. They made a commitment to move ahead in technology.”