For today's students, the basic curriculum extends beyond that of the "traditional" classroom. While reading and writing remain basic to acquiring knowledge; pencil, paper, and textbooks alone are no longer sufficient tools for student learning. Information accessing, synthesizing, and analyzing skills must be added, as well as the the tools for acquiring the skills. Communications technology, including multi-media and telecommunications, have opened the knowledge of the world for greater accessibility and understanding. Learning from textbooks alone is no longer acceptable. Along with the arrays of these "new" educational tools and materials, comes the task of properly assessing needs, and then planning, selecting, and implementing such technology into the school.
The Highland Park Elementary School community has recognized the importance and the need to incorporate technology into the school for improving the quality of education for all students. The anticipation of access to new informational resources has also been central to program planning and development. Since May, 1989 the Highland Park Elementary School community has been working to establish a technology-rich environment. The information presented in this document is the result of five years of work by teachers, administrators, parents, students, and local business and higher education institutions to construct a whole school network model.
The Whole School Network: How We Did It describes our experiences in finding the best ways and means to effectively integrate technology into the school. We kept a diary of the events along the way, and a chronological summary of the events is presented in Appendix 1. This document is offered with the hope that other schools can learn and benefit from the Highland Park experience as they establish their own programs.
Establishing a technology program in the school requires a high level of financial resources. While some may have the resources for immediate implementation, we have found that most schools do not. They must carefully plan for current and future needs and balance those needs to gain the best educational value. Such is the case at Highland Park Elementary school. From our experience, three major phases emerged:
Because of the demographics of its student population, Highland Park is not eligible for special funding from local, state, or federal sources. For the past three years, district allocation of funds to Highland Park for campus instructional operating expenditures per pupil has run below the district average. The principal, staff, parents, and community, however, are committed to working together to provide the best possible education for Highland Park students. Their commitment includes utilizing each square inch of space and every possible moment of instructional time to maximize student achievement. Much needed space for tutoring, testing, and counseling services has been built into the foyer of the school. The custodial staff works at record speed to allow a variety of school programs to meet in the cafeteria, the computer lab is booked every minute of the day, and a campus committee persevered to bring about a much needed expansion for the cramped school library.
Schoolwide use of current and emerging technologies is one result of self-initiated campus and community planning, funding, and implementation. On August 20, 1990, Apple Computer announced that Highland Park had been selected as one of twenty-nine schools worldwide to participate in the Christopher Columbus Consortium. Paired with the University of Texas at Austin and working with other members of the consortium, the school is involved in ongoing research and development designed to demonstrate how technology can significantly improve learning and creativity.
Highland Park now provides leadership for restructuring schools to extend beyond traditional teacher-oriented strategies to student-centered instruction. Technology and innovative learning strategies engage every child as a creative participant in the learning process. Creative staff members and enthusiastic students have drawn parents and the community into the school to promote a team approach for achieving school success.
At the heart of Highland Park's success is a sense of ownership - ownership of the school by staff, parents, students, and the community. Each member of the school team has a vested interest in continuing a heritage of excellence. Highland Park believes in the future of quality education and is actively engaged in the preparation of today's students for the 21st century.
Socioeconomic Conditions of the Community:
Highland Park is located in an older, traditional neighborhood which has begun
to experience those changes associated with generation turnover. Those who
built this middle to upper-middle class neighborhood in the 1950's are now
retired and the neighborhood is being rejuvenated. There are small shops in the
area but no large shopping centers.
Milestones:
The Highland Park tradition is one of meeting the needs of its students. During 1982-88 as a Magnet School for Science and Computer Instruction, Highland Park served children in grades K-3 and children were bused to the school. The Austin Independent School District (AISD) returned to the neighborhood school organization in 1987, and Highland Park returned to serving neighborhood children in grades K-5. This change brought an entirely different set of student and community needs and expectations. The success that Highland Park has demonstrated in meeting high expectations for challenging students with the highest quality of education is evident as many students have returned to Highland Park from private schools. The many student transfer requests into the school are another indicator of this success.
Highland Park has also demonstrated its resourcefulness while providing superior educational services. Instructional operating expenditures for Highland Park are consistently lower than the local district per pupil average, and operating expenditures are far less than the district average, as evidenced in the 1990-91 statistics of $2,964 per pupil for the Highland Park campus, compared to $4,222 per pupil for the AISD average.
Physical Location and Grounds:
Highland Park Elementary School is located approximately five miles northwest of
downtown Austin, Texas. The school was built in 1952 and is a one-story
building of brick construction. The grounds include a playscape, baseball and
basketball areas, and tennis courts in an adjacent city park. Enrollment
increases have caused space limitations, and 6 portable buildings have added
twelve classrooms. Space is premium, and all utilization maximizes efficiency.
Parents and community continue to work for improvements to the physical
facility.
(Return to Table of Contents)
From 1980 through 1986, Highland Park was a computer/science magnet school. With funding received from local and federal grants, the school was able to provide all students with instruction in the use of computers. After 1986, the school faced changing technology and repair problems, which soon diminished the school's ability to provide instruction with computers. Parents, students, and teachers alike expressed their frustrations in trying to meet their desires for current technology. Despite Highland Park's previous experience and desire to continue computer instruction, it was clear that the local school district could not provide for technology at Highland Park. As a method of attacking this problem, the school's principal formed the Highland Park Technology Task Force for the purpose of finding alternative methods for assessing the technology needs of the school, producing a long range technology plan, and seeking new funding sources.
The Task Force, consisting of teachers, parents, adopters, and the principal, was convened in May, 1989. After careful planning from May-November, 1989, the Task Force recommended replacing the obsolete computer equipment in the school and acquiring and installing the most appropriate computers and software available. The purpose was to improve the quality of education by providing a technology-rich environment in which effective applications of computer and related technologies are used and developed. A name was selected to reflect the goals and purposes of the environment: The Learning Center at Highland Park. The Task Force also recommended that the curriculum focus should include writing, higher level thinking skills, and information accessing procedures. It was further recommended that the plan be divided into phases, thereby allowing ample opportunity for updating and refining program activities and incorporating emerging technologies. The Task Force recommended that initial funding to accomplish the program be sought through the efforts of the school's Parent Teacher Association and Adopt-A-School Program. The original recommendation of a four-phase plan was stated in the following way.
Each of these measures is described in detail in the following pages.
(Return to Table of Contents)
The first major objective for the Highland Park technology program was to
establish the computer laboratory with state-of-the-art equipment. The decision
to place priority on the laboratory was not made arbitrarily. Highland Park had
previous experience with a computer laboratory, described above. The experience
with that laboratory led to the resolution that it was essential to re-establish
the laboratory for the following reasons:
(1) staff would become proficient much faster with each teacher having
to take his/her own class to lab for instruction and having to provide that
instruction;
(2) the principal and staff had observed at other schools and in local seminars that teachers left alone with workstations in classrooms and without proper training tended to have less reason for using the tool;
(3) more teachers and students could benefit from a central location, and more flexibility could be gained with the laboratory setting; and
(4) teacher training could be maximized with the central location for after school hours sharing of workstations and training activities.
Before any decisions were made as to what equipment would be purchased, detailed instructional objectives were established and specific activities were planned -- that is, learning expectations were set and the technology was chosen to best accomplish the goals. An effective Technology Committee was named (replacing the original Task Force), composed of teachers and parents, to contribute to program planning and curriculum goals.
Although the laboratory would be housed in the same classroom as the old laboratory, attention was given to the physical characteristics most desirable for the room. Our considerations are summarized and provided in Appendix 2, "Computer Laboratory Design Considerations."
Working through its model Adopt-a-School Program (the local Austin partnership of local business and education), the principal and technology coordinator (also the music teacher), invited technology business partners who had participated in Phase I to brainstorm expansion ideas. The need for constant planning and technical guidance was demonstrated, and by September, 1991, a Technical Advisory Board composed of experts from the local district, local business/industry and higher education had been formed. The Board was begun with two purposes: to provide technical guidance for overall program planning and to assist in identifying funding sources. Members included representatives from Motorola, Inc., Apple Computer, Inc., ComputerLand, The University of Texas at Austin, Digital Equipment Corporation, M.C.C., Austin I.S.D. and Highland Park Elementary School.
The backbone network design process began in December, 1991, when members of the Technical Advisory Board responded to the desire expressed by teachers for greater use of computers in the school. Instruction time per student was only 0.6 hours per week. Teachers wanted to be able to use computer-assisted materials which they had developed in their classrooms and they wanted to print their work on the laser printer in the laboratory at any time. A schoolwide network would not only meet these needs, but offer new possibilities for electronic communication.
A group consisting of experts from Digital Equipment Corporation, Apple Computer, and Motorola met with the school principal and technology coordinator to assess the school's network needs. They determined that the network protocol which best suited Highland Park would be a 10BaseT Ethernet configuration in a star topology with two hubs and multiple taps in all classrooms, administrative, and service areas. Further, the network should be designed for future expansion and connection to the Texas Education Network, and ultimately to the Internet. In February, 1992 a network design was presented by Digital Equipment Corporation to the technical advisory group and was received enthusiastically. The design, Highland Park Elementary Network Plan: Requirements & Design, (without equipment specifications) is provided in Appendix 4.
In addition to the design document, the planning group had access to early drafts of technical documentation on Ethernet technology and on methods of configuring Ethernets as local area networks. These extremely useful documents, Guide to Ethernet and Guide to Ethernet Configuration, were written by Charles Spurgeon, University of Texas at Austin Computation Center, and they now are available in text and postscript form on the UT-Austin gopher (gopherhost.cc.utexas.edu; port 70; /UT Austin/Computation Center/Networks/UTnet/Ethernet.)
If the backbone Ethernet were installed, then it's effective use would depend upon the availability of several types of servers; for example, a file server and a print server. Similarly, if the school was to be connected to the Internet (in the fullness of time), then the school would require domain name service and a mail box server. To address those needs, the principal and technology coordinator submitted a proposal to Sun Microsystems, Inc., for a SPARCstation IPX system which would be capable of providing all of the above mentioned services.
Planning for the third major phase, the worldwide connection, was part of the planning process for the schoolwide backbone network. Following installation of the ethernet backbone, the remaining element in our whole school network architecture was the powerful Sun IPX Unix server that could provide the following functions: a post-office or mail host for 650 students and faculty, sufficient disk storage to maintain the students' and teachers files, ability to support file transfer and manages the network as an Internet subdomain of the Texas Education Network (TENET) domain. Magnetic tape backup capability was also desired. Plans were also made for the Unix server to function as a Usenet news filter to appropriately limit the newsgroups available to the students. Mail processing, remote access and Usenet access would be handled at the personal computers using such public domain client programs as Eudora, Telnet and Nuntius, respectively. The IPT, Inc. uShare program would do file sharing and printer sharing.
In order to reach the Internet and its rich array of information resources, concern turned to plans for connecting Highland Park. A proposal was made to Cisco Systems, Inc. for a serial/Ethernet router. A 56K bit per second (bps) dedicated circuit was ordered from Southwestern Bell Telephone Company, and the necessary DSU/CSU data service units were purchased. The 56K bps circuit connected the school to the UT System Office of Telecommunication Services Network Operations Center, which operates the Texas Higher Education Network (THEnet), the regional provider of Internet access for educational institutions. While all of this activity proceeded as a sequence of events of discovery, the procedure has now been neatly condensed in a document entitled Connection Guide for Schools and School Districts, April 1994, published by THEnet and is included as Appendix 5.
On September 16, 1994 the connection between Highland Park and the THEnet
Network Operations Center was upgraded to a 1.544M bps T1 data circuit, which
increases the data rate to the Internet by a factor of 30. Subsequent plans
include the installation of the Greater Austin Area Telecommunication Network
fiber optic cable, which will provide 100M bps service to the UT Austin Network
Operations Center. The diagrams on the next three pages give an overview of the
Highland Park backbone network and the three modes of connectivity to the
Internet. Access Plan 1 - 56K bps Dedicated Circuit Access Plan 2 - T1 1.544M
bps Circuit Access Plan 3 - 100M bps Optical Fiber Circuit
(Return to Table of Contents)
Successful partnering efforts in the past led Apple Computer, Inc. to choose Highland Park for participation in their Christopher Columbus Consortium. This collaboration, which pairs Highland Park with The University of Texas at Austin College of Education, is providing valuable assistance in the development of instructional materials, while giving the college valuable information and insight into their needs for addressing teacher preparation.
The importance of educating parents and all school and community members about Highland Park programs has been stressed by the school principal. The newness of technology and the requirement of extensive financial resources caused even greater attention to be given to providing frequent information about the program. Additionally, each successful step provided motivation for even greater interest and pride in our technology activities.
During Phase I, College of Education specialists from The University of Texas at Austin provided expertise to Highland Park staff in other areas such as the development of measurement and evaluation instruments. The Computer Use Attitudes Surveys for students, teachers, and parents, mentioned earlier, were developed in this way. Another aspect of the higher education collaboration has been the relationship with the Texas Center for Educational Technology. Here, professors and graduate assistants, and K-12 teachers work together to develop curriculum materials which are then distributed to other sites.
Parents and community volunteers were invited to assist in the actual operation of technology program activities. The Parents for Educational Technology (P.E.T.) committee was formed within the Parent-Teacher Association during May, 1991 for the purpose of (1) promoting more parent involvement in education at home and at school and (2) providing additional support for technology program activities. This group of parent and community volunteers are trained to serve as lab facilitators, parent training coordinators, data entry personnel, and technical writers. These individuals donate hundreds of hours towards the support of after-school Computer Camp, a model program for tutorial, enrichment, and training and integrating parent and community volunteers into the program.
A new partnership with Southwest Texas State University was formed when Highland Park became a partner in their state-funded Center for Professional Development and Technology. Benefits from the parrtnership have included some financial support, as well as staff development opportunities. Southwest Texas teachers and students have benefitted from "hands on" training in classrooms where technology is used.
It should be noted here that the 10BaseT Ethernet backbone network design was a significant contribution by a partner, Digital Equipment Corporation. And the installation of the 56K bps communication circuit to the University of Texas Network Operations Center required the valuable skills of the Center's personnel. Funding for the installation of the 56K bps circuit was given by a group of Highland Park parents.
Phase III: Finally-- the Worldwide Connection.
Building again on the successof the program thus far, a proposal was developed for a test site for handling
K-12 internet connections. Sun Microsystems awarded a SPARCstation IPX to
provide essential Internet services at Highland Park. The school managed to
purchase the CSU's and DSU's required for connecting to UT, and Cisco Systems
awarded the school a router for managing the packet switching with the
Internet.
It became the responsibility of the school to determine how much electricity would be needed and to indicate locations for new outlets. Technology advisors and electricians both agreed that the upgrade should be planned to accommodate the school's needs over the long term, and so we planned for ample capacity for the computer laboratory; several multi-media workstation areas; all administrative and support areas; ample classroom power to support a minimum of 4-6 workstations and peripherals; in addition to all current electrical equipment in use. Suggested amounts of power varied, from 20 amps per classroom up to 60 amps per classroom. We settled on 40 amps per classroom for one simple reason: workstations do not draw great amounts of electricity, but peripherals such as printers, AND older equipment, such as overhead projectors, draw much more. Even if all the computer equipment were well within electrical provisions, electrical power might not be sufficient for both the computer equipment and all current electrical equipment. Computer and electrical engineers advised 40 amps per classroom. The schedule was set by the local district to secure bids for the work and completion by January 1, 1993.
Our Ethernet network was installed by NetServ, Inc. in April and May of 1993, and the network was connected to the UT Network Operations Center in May 1994. The local installation went smoothly, but connecting to the Internet was not without its problems. The configuration of the school Ethernet included two 10BaseT hubs, each serving approximately 100 taps. The two hubs were connected over a pair of optical fibers connected by network bridges. Unfortunately, the bridges received IP address information only from the hub side, and the vendor default settings cleared the IP addresses every 15 minutes. So the network would operate fine for 15 minutes and then "go into the weeds." After a lot of study, a "never clear" entry was made to the bridge software, and the network has operated fine since.
The need for a knowledgeable system administrator to manage the Unix network
server was not an unanticipated problem. It is worth noting that each school
and school district that chooses to use Unix servers in their computer networks,
and connecting a local area network to the Internet makes such servers
mandatory, need to give careful consideration to a source of Unix administration
talent. Since one hopes that in the fullness of time all schools will be
connected, school districts should give special attention to including in their
technology staffs someone who is knowledgeable in Unix system administration to
assist the individual schools. The good news is that once established, networks
now operate very reliably and with little on-going care.
(Return to Table of Contents)
Bid Process
The local district issued an Invitation to Bid on the project. A
Bidder's Conference was held on February 10, 1993 and ten companies were
represented from the Austin area and one from Dallas. Sealed bids were
delivered to the Austin I.S.D. and opened during the first week in March.
Austin I.S.D. Telecommunications staff assisted school personnel in making
recommendations for the best bid. Because the expenditure exceeded $20,000,
approval by the Board of Trustees was required. Board meeting schedules caused
the bid award to be delayed until mid-April, 1993.
Implementation.
NetServ, Inc. of Austin received the bid to install the schoolwide backbone
network. The work was accomplished in May, 1993 without disruption of school. A
schematic drawing of the network following installation is provided in Appendix 7.
From within the school, teamwork reached new heights, not only on grade levels,
but among grade levels. There was excitement from teachers, students, and our
parents and this enthusiasm produced a higher motivation to succeed. The
enthusiasm of the school, in turn, generated more interest and participation
from our business and larger educational community.
(Return to Table of Contents)
Cash In-Kind Total Phase I (Computer Laboratory) Highland Park Fund-raising $22,000 $22,000 Adopt-A-School contributions 15,000 15,000 Matching equipment grants $26,000 26,000 Equipment donations 2,000 2,000 Software,staff travel 7,000 7,000 Equipment provided by local district 2,500 2,500 Total PhaseI $37,000 $37,500 $74,500 Phase II (Schoolwide Backbone Network) Cash grants $74,000 $74,000 Highland Park Computer Camp 2,000 Equipment awards (teachers and parents) $45,000 45,000 Local district cash and equipment 14,500 17,000 31,500 Adopt-A-School contributions _____ 35,000 35,000 Total Phase II $90,500 $97,000 $187,500 Phase III (Worldwide Connection) Equipment grant awards $27,000 $27,000 Equipment donations 4,000 4,000 Highland Park parents/Adopt-A-School $3,500 3,500 Equipment matching grants _____ 2,000 2,000 Total Phase III $3,500 $33,000 $36,500 Total Phases I-III $131,000 $167,500 $298,500Note: Not included in the above cost summary is the contribution of countless hours of volunteer efforts by parents, teachers, technology specialists, and Adopt-a-School partner personnel. An estimate of $50,000 as the value of their contributions would be conservative.