A Leading Figure
Going back to school might be painful, but at least the students in Scott Malloy’s calculus and computer classes can expect to be entertained. Malloy, who was named state Teacher of the Year last October, dresses up like Dr. Evil from the “Austin Powers” movies and gets his students to sing songs about the quadratic equation to generate enthusiasm. And it works--every school year students scramble for a place in his classes at Brea Olinda High School in Brea.
Malloy, 37, has been teaching at the school for six years.
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DESKTOP: At home I have a grape iMac, one of the early ones. At school I also have an iMac, but it’s a much more recent DV model with everything. My students kid me because they all have PCs at home, but I’ve been loyal to Apple for many years. When I was a student at UCLA, everyone else was struggling with green screens and DOS, but a friend of mine had an Apple, and I loved the way they made everything so easy. I also liked what they did for education.
This summer I wrote my master’s thesis on my home iMac. As part of it, I wrote an applet to envision where electrons would end up as they repel each other equally. They kind of push themselves back and forth until they find an equilibrium. If you have four of them they will end up like a pyramid, but if you have five, what will they do? The program is supposed to predict that. You can see it through a link on my home page, at https://home.earthlink.net/~smalloy.
Q. You did all the math work on the iMac?
Everything. Appleworks, which came with the machine, has an equation editor that is lovely--you can do all your fractions, complex fractions and square roots with it. I used Appleworks for the geometrical drawings too and the word processing.
Q. Is your iMac a rarity at your school?
Actually, we have two computer labs--one is all PC and the other is all iMac.
Q. How much do you use your iMac for e-mail?
It used to be mostly for personal stuff, but this year a lot of it has been in reference to being Teacher of the Year. I get a lot of invitations by e-mail to give talks.
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LAPTOP: I wish I did have one. Apple and Toshiba both sponsored the Teacher of the Year award this year, so I kept looking in the mail. No such luck.
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HAND-HELD: The Orange County Teachers Federal Credit Union gave me a Palm m100 for a gift. I use it for everything--my calendar, all my addresses. It holds my to-do list, which used to be made up of little slips of paper I would put in my back pocket.
The Palm is one of the best high-tech gifts I got.
Q. Did others come as a result of your award?
I got a huge Smart Board, which is a kind of white board that hooks into computer software, from the Smarter Kids Foundation in Canada. They send one to all the Teachers of the Year in the 50 states. It’s 72 inches diagonally. I have not tried to hook it up yet.
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BOOKMARKED SITES: This summer I did a lot of Java when I was working on the animations for my thesis. I was teaching Java to myself, and Sun [Microsystems] has some nice tutorials https://java.sun.com.
I go to ZonePerfect https://www.zoneperfect.com. That is the Web site for the Zone diet with recipes and testimonials. My wife and I got into it this year and it’s great; it really works.
There is a Web site at https://www.fairtest.org that is kind of a clearinghouse for people who think that having so much standard testing in our schools is wrongheaded. It doesn’t really advocate civil disobedience, but it does present stories about parents who have had bad experiences. Personally, I think the tests have their place, but they are kind of being used as a single measure of our schools. I have seen the effect it is having in my school--it’s having a chilling effect on some of the more innovative programs because tests can’t measure the higher levels of analysis and synthesis.
Q. Do you go to any sites for fun?
At https://www.emode.com they have all kinds of little tests you can take about yourself and your personality. Some of them are trivial, but some are psychological tests that tell you something about your working style--what kind of dog would you be, what kind of star. You take a few moments and answer the questions and they have a little analysis for you. It’s cute.
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CELL PHONE: My wife and I don’t have a land line at all, we just use cell phones. I am running around so much I am barely home, so it didn’t make sense to have one there. Also, my brother lives with us--he gets calls, and I don’t want to end up being his secretary.
Q. Are your students more plugged in than you?
Much more. They all have CD burners at home. They all have PDAs. They are not supposed to carry cell phones to school, but they do.
I am always the last kid on the block to get a new toy.
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FAVORITE TECH TOYS: We just bought our first DVD player and it’s great, we love it. We are starting to get into the modern age.
--As told to DAVID COLKER
