A Tale of Four Schools : At Vista Verde, on the Internet ‘It’s More Fun Than Playing Nintendo’

Sixth-grader R.J. Marshall and eighth-grader Yousuf Dalal are taking turns at the keyboard of an Apple PowerBook portable computer, sending messages across Internet to a student in Australia.

A few months ago, Marshall and Dalal hardly were computer literate. But last fall, they took a class taught by Principal Bruce Terry at the public Vista Verde Elementary School.

Now they know more than most adults about the global Internet that links 20,000 computer networks and 20 million users.

“My mom was pretty impressed,” says Dalal, 13. “It’s more fun than playing Nintendo.”

Besides keeping in touch with a pen pal in Adelaide, the boys send messages to President Clinton, research class reports and spend hours roaming cyberspace.

Terry and Jim Soderberg, a fourth- and fifth-grade teacher, pushed the school into the Information Age seven years ago. They bought two computers, primitive by today’s standards, and learned to use them. Then they shared their knowledge with Vista Verde’s 25 teachers, hoping to make the school a model for computer education.

Vista Verde spends about 1% of its annual budget, up to $20,000, on computer equipment and software. It receives help from a cadre of graduate students in the computer science department at UC Irvine, which gives the school access to Internet. Local high-tech companies donate equipment, parents donate money and the school holds fund-raisers.

Among the results: The school’s achievement test scores have climbed steadily.

“We don’t use technology for technology’s sake,” Soderberg said. “We want programs that enhance what we’re already doing. I look at the computer as having another aide in the classroom.”

Fourth-graders learn to touch-type in a lab with 32 Apple IIe and IIgs computers--models from the early days of the personal computer revolution. Eight computers are used to teach English to immigrant children.

August Lobato assigns his fourth-graders to look at a picture of a California mission on a laser disc and then do research.

“They get so excited they can’t wait for me,” he said. “When you design these projects, you make them open-ended so the students can take it as far as they want. The next big thing is to get them to do multimedia presentations. By the time this generation of kids enters the business world, they’ll be carrying their hand-held computers.”