Net Working : District’s Computer Project Gives Every Classroom Access to Web

This fall, students in Saddleback Valley’s public schools enjoy a technological edge over most of their peers in California: Every classroom for the first time has high-speed Internet lines.

While many schools are trying to upgrade their computing capabilities, the Saddleback Valley Unified School District appears to have few peers, if any, in the crucial area of Internet access.

Administrators of the 33,000-student district, Orange County’s fourth largest, say they know of no other school systems at their level.

Saddleback Valley’s wiring project, officials say, took much of last spring and summer and cost more than $2 million. More than 1,600 rooms in 35 schools now have six high-speed data outlets each.

The ports are part of a district network enabling teachers to communicate with each other, with their bosses and with the Internet without dialing through ordinary telephone modems.

The district is served by a T1 data line able to carry 1.5 megabits per second, many times the capacity of a typical telephone line.

“It’s the kind of thing many districts are trying to figure out how to do,” said Henry Jay Becker, a UC Irvine education technology analyst. “Basically, it’s the infrastructure that enables classrooms to have both communication and information access to the whole world.”

Glen Thomas, manager of education technology for the state Department of Education, said he believes very few districts could match Saddleback’s technology. And if any could, he said, he couldn’t name them.

But there is much work to do before the district takes full advantage of the investment.

Only three-fourths of its classrooms have an Internet-capable computer, though more are being installed. And teachers must learn how to use the new system so that students can benefit.

“We’re training teachers in depth,” Supt. Peter A. Hartman said. “That’s what you have to do to make this work.”

About 14% of public classrooms nationwide have Internet access, a 1996 study found. Surveys have shown that the public supports more investment in education technology. But in October, a study by a group of national business and education leaders, called CEO Forum on Education and Technology, found that only 3% of U.S. schools use technology effectively in all their programs. Most received low or middling grades.

Though California is home to Silicon Valley, many of its schools are playing technology catch-up.

Last month, the state launched a $1-billion initiative, paid by state and private funds, to outfit high schools with new computers and data networks.

But state officials are thinking beyond just the high schools. By the end of 2001, Thomas said, the state aims to have “every classroom, every school, every district, every county office, in one total system.”

Saddleback Valley Unified is just about there.

Doug Yonce, a sixth-grade teacher at Robinson Elementary School in Trabuco Canyon, has used the World Wide Web in his classroom now for two years. Kid-friendly search engines like Yahooligans, Yonce said, have helped students find primary source materials for reports on topics ranging from ancient Egypt and Mesopotamia to soccer, gymnastics, the recent NASA Mars mission, and how to fuel an airplane.

Yonce trolls the Web himself to find math and science brain teasers. Students who need an up-to-date book review go to Amazon.com And he has set up a home page for the class so parents and students can keep abreast of activities and homework assignments.

Yonce said he and his students discover new uses for the Internet “almost all the time.”

“Rather than go crazy with it,” he added, “we’re taking a pretty conservative approach, wanting to make sure that we’re safeguarding kids while giving them opportunities to explore.”

One recent morning at district headquarters in Mission Viejo, two dozen teachers sat in a darkened computer lab, their faces lit by the glow of their screens, taking notes from Yonce on the new system.

Their mission: absorb the intricacies of navigating the Internet, networking, making home pages on the Web and sending e-mail. Later the mentors would return to their schools to pass the knowledge on to their peers.

Carol Patrick, a fifth-grade teacher at De Portola Elementary School in Mission Viejo, said opening the Internet to her students has stimulated their interest in research.

“It’s so wonderful. We don’t need to go to the library and look up the periodical stacks. That’s outdated,” Patrick said.

The teacher-student relationship, she said, is changing. Teachers spend more time guiding students than lecturing them. “We’re working together. The teachers and the students challenge each other.”