UCLA SMP EdNews, March 2005

by John Otterness, UCLA SMP Faculty, and
Gann Matsuda, UCLA SMP Technology Coordinator

"Education either... is used to facilitate integration of the younger
generation into the logic of the present system and bring about conformity,
or it becomes the practice of freedom, the means by which men and women
deal critically and creatively with reality and discover how to participate
in the transformation of their world."

—Paulo Freire

As schools contemplate the use of technology into their curriculum, they are faced with the choices Freire mentions above. Do we choose technology that tells students what to do, i.e., "bring about conformity," or do we use technology to help students "deal critically with reality" by helping them control the technology? Surveys show that students from affluent schools do the latter while minority schools do the former. How technology is used by the students is the question, not how many computers per student are in the school. How are computers and technology used in your school?

In our extensive experience working with K-12 schools, we have had the opportunity to explore a wide variety of hardware and software products that we believe would contribute greatly to student achievement in any school. While it would be easy to provide information and web links on the numerous educational software titles that are currently available, we are more concerned with how technology is used to help students learn, as well as enhancing their ability to learn.

As such, for this issue of UCLA SMP EdNews, we will highlight a few tools and resources that can be used to enhance students' ability to learn.

Please keep in mind that before purchasing or installing any of these products, you should consult whomever is responsible for providing technical support for the computers in your school or office before you do so, as some products may not be compatible with your system(s).

DISCLAIMER: Although we have listed selected products in this edition of UCLA SMP EdNews as ones that you may wish to consider, the UCLA School Management Program does not officially endorse or recommend any product or service.

MOODLE is a web-based "course management system" (also known as a Learning Management System or Virtual Learning Environment) that is widely used in high schools (and at the college/university level) to create online courses and coursework. One of Moodle's biggest advantages is that it is grounded in social constructionist pedagogy, of which constructivism is a key part. Moodle, which is available for Mac OS X, Windows, Unix, Linux and other platforms, supports fifty languages. Best of all, it is open-source software, which means it is free!

If you want to use World Wide Web sites as part of your classroom work, but are constantly struggling with slow Internet connections (or if your classroom does not have Internet access), why not download an entire Web site to your computer in advance? Using WEBWHACKER EDUCATORS EDITION from Blue Squirrel, you no longer need to wait for what may seem like an eternity for a web page to load. Instead, once you've used WebWhacker to download the pages you need, you can quickly use them in class -- the pages are already loaded onto your computer's hard drive. WebWhacker Educators Edition, as well as WEBWHACKER 5.0, are available for Windows only (WebWhacker 4.0 for Macintosh is not compatible with Mac OS X, the current version of the Macintosh operating system).

For Mac OS X users, the shareware product SITESUCKER will provide the same capabilities for off-line viewing of web sites as WebWhacker.

Teachers: What would it be like if your students could access any classroom computer in your school, and have their own documents, web bookmarks, personal settings, etc., on whatever computer they were using at the time? What if they could easily share/exchange their work with their classmates or even with fellow students across their grade level or beyond? What if your students could access class assignments or resource materials from a central server, or if your students could turn in their work by dragging-and-dropping a document into a protected folder that only you have access to?

Clearly, such capabilities would make it easier for students and teachers to use classroom and lab computers to communicate with each other and share files. And whether your school has Windows-based computers, Mac OS X machines, or even a mix of both, MAC OS X SERVER 10.3 can provide all of these capabilities and a lot more. And, even with the cost of a new server to run it on added into the equation, the cost would be roughly one-third the cost of a comparable Windows-based server.

Mac OS X Server 10.3: http://www.apple.com/server/macosx
XServe G5 (server hardware): http://www.apple.com/xserve

Technology can provide us with numerous means to reach our educational goals; the software and hardware mentioned here are only a few. In our next issue of UCLA SMP EdNews, we will explore other ways in which technology can be used to support your school's needs.

For this month’s topic:

"In what ways have you used technology to enhance student learning and achievement in your classroom or school?"

Let us know some of your experiences with technology and its effects on your teaching practice. Please click here to add your responses to this month's combined brainpower. We will share some of your ideas in a future issue of EdNews.

"Any problems the schools cannot solve without computers,
they cannot solve with them."

• Technology in the School

• Meet the Faculty: Barbara Linsley

• Ask SMP / Ask Your Colleagues: In future editions, we will share our responses to some of your questions (and, sometimes, use those questions as the basis for future Combined Brainpower topics).  If you have any questions regarding your teaching practice or other issues at the school site, please click here to Ask SMP.  We will include your questions and our answers in future editions.

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A nonprofit school reform initiative of the Graduate School of Education & Information Studies and The Anderson School, the UCLA School Management Program (UCLA SMP) is devoted to the sustainable transformation of public schools into learner-centered organizations where all students can achieve at high levels.

UCLA SMP works with educators, administrators, and community members to create well-managed schools, to enhance teacher effectiveness, and to improve student achievement through professional development leading to personal transformation and community building.

Since the program was launched in 1992, UCLA SMP has worked with over 700 schools in districts throughout California.

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