St. Francis High School's digital media lab allows students to produce broadcast quality work - from a video's shooting to its editing.

Nearly 10 years ago, when Alan Whitworth first joined Jefferson County Public Schools (JCPS) as its executive director of information technology, computer programs in the schools were in their infancy and depended primarily upon private funds. Back then, business leaders had helped start a program to put a computer lab in every JCPS school, a goal that seems modest in the current climate but was considered very ambitious at the time.

Now JCPS has one of the most extensive, innovative and highly regarded information technology programs in the United States, one that is still growing and stretches from
elementary school through high school. Technology is also playing an increasing role in many private schools in the Louisville area.

The JCPS student-to-computer ratio for the 62,500 students in grades four through 12 is about 4.5 to one, and all students have access to e-mail for communication and research. JCPS even has its own fiber-optic network, which currently extends 98.6 miles and covers 71 schools, making it, according to Whitworth, one of the few major districts in the U.S. with such a setup. Within the next five years, Whitworth envisions a broadband network available in all 160 JCPS buildings that would offer, among other things, video on demand for teachers, security monitoring and energy monitoring.

“It would be a major infrastructure piece,” Whitworth says. “In the old days, if you worked for an organization like this, the thing in technology was the mainframe — a computer terminal on a desk. The thing today is the network. It’s key. It would serve this district very well.”

Technology is also being used in some schools to reach parents and provide information on their children’s progress in class. Trinity High, a parochial boys’ school, has one such program, where grades and assignments are posted online for parents to view, along with any comments by instructors.

“This gives us better communication with parents,” says Michael Price, head of information technology at Trinity. “We’ve found we have a lower failure rate as a result.”

For advanced technology students at Trinity, Price oversees the Cisco Certified Network Associates Academy (CCNA), which features a university-level course offering two college academic credits. For CCNA students, the entire curriculum and testing is provided online, primarily involving reading and taking quizzes. The curriculum covers everything from fundamentals to hands-on work such as creating and maintaining a wide-area network. Upon completing the course under lead instructor Mary Mason, CCNA graduates then assist teachers and help other students with computer-related tasks.

“CCNA forms the basis for our student-operating network,” Price says. “Graduates maintain the network for others, so it gives them hands-on experience. We’re trying not to stand in the way of students who want to go beyond the normal classes.”

Price says students now have as much access as teachers to sources of information and sometimes are aware of new computer programs or sources before teachers. Instead of teachers reviewing material, digesting it and then presenting it to students, Price says in many cases students and teachers are exploring and learning at the same time.

“We’re in the midst of a total revolution in education due primarily to all of the tools computers have,” Price says. “Students no longer have to go through teachers to get information. It really changes the dynamics. Our relationship with students is changing dramatically. If I were diagramming teaching the way it used to be, I would put the subject matter on top, teachers next, then students. Today I would list the subject matter and put the students and teachers on the same line. Teachers and students can now explore a plethora of opportunities together, thanks to technology.”

At another parochial school, DeSales High, where the technology program is called “Teach-nology,” officials are developing a project aimed at eventually providing all of the school’s 315 students with a laptop computer for both home and school use. The program, to be funded through alumni support and other donations, will start with an estimated 90 incoming freshmen for the 2004-05 school year.

At DeSales High School, a program is in the works to supply every student with a laptop for both home and school use.

The freshmen will be able to take the laptops home to use them to research classwork and complete assignments, among other things. When they graduate, the laptops will be theirs to keep. Currently there are 30 laptops in the computer lab that teachers use to instruct students in the lab or take into their classrooms.

Jeff Shannon, technology coordinator for DeSales and a math and science teacher, is in the process of starting a technology team that he would train to help both teachers and students with computer issues. “This is the future of our world,” Shannon says of technology. “It gives students a chance to see and learn things in different ways as opposed to sitting at their desk and looking at a chalkboard. It brings teaching and learning to a different level and prepares students for what they will face in college.”

One of the more advanced and original uses of technology in the Louisville metro schools is a digital media program being taught by filmmaker Walter Brock at St. Francis High School. This private school has a digital media lab with six Macintosh G4 computers. Brock teaches non-linear digital video production and still photography and plans to expand into Web-site production and other venues. He said the lab is capable of producing broadcast-quality work.

“The digital revolution has been extraordinary,” Brock says. “It’s made it possible for a school like ours to be able to afford the technology. For someone like me, it has
altered the way I think about film. So much more is possible.”

Brock calls non-linear digital the video version of word processing. In the past, film had to be cut and spliced, a tedious and expensive process. With digital video, the process is much faster, simpler and far less costly.

“In the old way of film editing, imagine a train with boxcars,” Brock says. “One boxcar would have to be unhitched, moved to a different track, then reconnected. It was very time-consuming. Now a shot . . . can be highlighted and moved anywhere as easily as if it’s a sentence in a word processor.”

Brock has been especially impressed with the filmmaking work of two students — Bill Wells and Gorden Bell. Wells, who is now a freshman at the University of Pennsylvania, produced a 25-minute documentary on his grandfather’s exploits as a pilot in World War II. Bell, a senior at St. Francis, wrote and produced a 30-minute fictional comedy.

“Both of those are really ambitious undertakings and very rare,” Brock said. “Our mission here is to put the tools of media production in the hands of students and see where it goes.”
A project currently in the planning stages for JCPS is to provide laptops in a wireless environment for 3,000 students in four schools that have been identified as needing the most improvement in the Commonwealth Assessment Testing System (CATS) scores.
JCPS already offers a virtual school for students who travel during the school year. One student was in the Middle East with his family for a semester and completed his course work via that service. It allowed another student to further her modeling career in Japan while still enrolled in school in Louisville.

In a recent Metro New Economy Index study by the Progressive Policy Institute at Case Western University, Kentucky was rated sixth nationally in computer use in public schools, based in large part on the programs in the Louisville metro area.

“We think of computers as two things — a tool to be learned and a tool for learning,” Whitworth says.

Each spring the computer application skills of 18,000 students in selected grades are assessed and reported back to respective schools. The goal, Whitworth says, is to ensure that every JCPS student and staff member is a competent, confident user of technology. Those skills, of course, are vital in almost every job in the digital age.

“You can go into almost any business and there is a computer on about every desk,” Whitworth says. “You have to be technology fluent. You can succeed better in college and you’re more competitive in the job market. Even my auto mechanic uses a computer.”
Cynthia Crocker, technology resources director at Noe Middle School, coordinates a volunteer Student Technology Leadership Program (STLP) that trains students to assist teachers. Crocker says the students learn everything from software programs to operating a digital camera to cleaning the inside of a computer mouse. The group meets once a week after school hours and the program is very popular, she says. “Our students don’t sit and play on computers,” Crocker says. “I tell them straight out: ‘If you want to play on a computer do it at home because you’re here to learn.’”

Mary Robertson, who teaches technology and computer skills at Malcolm B. Chancey Elementary school, says those programs are extremely popular among students because they are accustomed to dealing with technology in their daily lives, even at such a young age.

“These kids are being raised in a video society,” Robertson says. “They’ve become accustomed (to computers) because it’s what they do for entertainment. It’s fun and they love it. It’s educational, colorful and it sounds good. A lot of them can sit there and click a mouse as if it’s a joy stick.”

Elementary students are tutored in six areas of computer use — database, telecommunications (the Internet), keyboarding, word processing, spread sheets, and ethics and legal issues (citing sources, etc.).

For example, Robertson’s second- and third-graders will be asked to choose a research topic as a means of learning search strategies on the Internet. Students find information and photos on their topic, write a couple of paragraphs about it, insert the pictures into their findings and cite the source. That exercise, Robertson notes, encompasses word processing, telecommunications and ethics/legal concerns.

Robertson says she’s found that computers are important teaching aids for children who have learning disorders or behavioral problems. She even uses computers to help teach geometry, with students manipulating pieces on their screen while learning shapes.

“You’re always looking for how children learn the best,” Robertson says. “Some learn best by listening, some visually and others with kinetics (feeling and touching). Computers can be used for all three areas — you can see, it has sound and there is virtual movement, which is a form of kinetics.

“I have the easiest job in the building. You can take any child who is having problems, bring him or her to me and they improve because they love the technology. It gives them the opportunity to learn and be successful. It’s one of the best ways to reach a child. It makes them feel good about themselves, and when they feel good about themselves you’ve got it made.”