Computers Belong in Classrooms : Schools need to integrate technology into daily lessons instead of segregating the machines in a laboratory environment where the focus is on mechanics.

Over the past decade, public schools across the San Fernando Valley proudly entered the era of the computer lab.

Now it’s time they got out of it.

Schools should put computers where they belong: in regular classrooms, fitting into day-to-day instruction.

Putting all of a school’s computers in the same room was originally done for budgetary reasons. Since a school could not afford computers for every room, why not assemble them where everyone could use them?

Now almost every school in the Valley has computers in some form. Primarily they are in labs, though some have been spreading out into classrooms.

In a computer lab, children are taught more about the mechanics of the computer than how to use it on class assignments. It is not an immediate tool to gain access to information.

For example, a third-grader might go to the lab to play a game that enhances his or her vocabulary skills. This is not altogether bad, but it doesn’t reinforce the same materials in context, is usually monitored by a different teacher who doesn’t know the individual student’s skill level, and doesn’t offer an advantage that public schools so desperately need: time savings.

All schools should copy the setup at Sierra Canyon, a 500-pupil private elementary school in Chatsworth. It never had a computer lab. It integrated its computers when it started acquiring them almost 10 years ago. Today it has four to six computers in each class of 25.

Teachers and their assistants are well-versed in computers.

“During a particular subject, the class breaks into four groups,” says Amy Mussack, a sixth-grade teacher. “The groups rotate to different centers and the computers are one of those centers. The computers provide another medium through which the students can learn, and I am right there to see how they’re doing.”

Integrated use of computers works best when the software coincides with the curriculum. For example, students learning about Spain can use the spy-thriller program “Where in the World is Carmen San Diego?” This popular geography/history program also has a historical version, “Where in Time is Carmen San Diego?”

The Los Angeles school district has as a formal goal the integration of the computer into the curriculum. But the reality is that for the most part our schools have been sitting on ineffectively used equipment for as long as they’ve had it.

There are many reasons. A lack of money to hire systems and curriculum experts is foremost. Another is that many teachers are not computer-savvy themselves. Finally, the district cannot put many experts into the field to teach the teachers.

Progress will come this summer when the district opens its San Fernando Valley regional training center. The center, in Van Nuys, will train as many teachers as are interested. At this point, however, it will be teaching only the basics.

There is already a federally and state funded training center, called the Los Angeles Teachers Center, located right in Encino. The 15-year-old center provides free training on educational technology to any educator, public, private or parochial. Its technology director, Jane Belmont, told me that 75% of the Valley’s public schools have used it but that it should be 100%.

Schools like Sierra Canyon can afford more luxuries than public schools, but the excuse of not having enough money isn’t valid anymore. Prices are falling, and there are ways to get grants and donations.

Brian Kadison, an education computer expert for the consulting firm of Arthur Andersen, recommends that public schools employ the private schools’ methods.

“Their fund-raising efforts are targeted and incredibly sophisticated,” he told me. Private schools typically have grant-getting experts on call--sometimes they are parents--or on the staff.

A start is to have an agenda, a mission that guides the use of computers in various academic subjects. Schools need support from parents, teachers, administrators and the local community. Business and civic leaders should jump in too.

To do it right, a school must be willing to act creatively. One school used its computer lab as a community service center where residents could come in and use the equipment, as at a neighborhood copy and fax center. It made money to fund more integrated computer programs.

Summer is a good time to investigate your child’s school and its commitment to effective, integrated computer education. It’s also a good time to seek corporate and foundation funding for your school for equipment, programs and coordinators. A local committee of parents, teachers, administrators and community leaders can accomplish wonders.

Pat Becker owns a corporate communications consulting firm in Northridge and writes frequently about the educational use of computers.