For Thursday August 13, 1998 Drummer Column, Gibbs, 722 words

On to school

School is closing in. It's hard not to think about it on a daily basis anymore. I did get a month or so without thinking about work. That's the sort of recharge a teacher needs to gear up for the next long haul. I'm ready.

I met last week with my Paw newspaper editors, Heather and Sarah. They attended journalism summer camp and learned lots of new ideas. They want to restructure the program -- new procedures, new titles, new funding, new look. I say go for it. They can change anything they like. We'll try it. After all, it's their newspaper. They are extremely capable, and I trust them fully.

The biggest change we're hoping for is a switch from 8.5x11-inch white paper with a staple in the corner to professionally published tabloids on newsprint. For over a decade we have been running the newspaper off at school on the office copier. We've never had the budget or funding to indulge in professional publishing. My editors want to change all that. We run eight issues. They hope to find eight local businesses who will each sponsor one issue. Publication of one issue is about $500. Sponsors would get a big half-tabloid-page ad or public thank-you in exchange for their support.

At the journalism camp, Benicia's editors won top honors: Overall Superior in writing and layout of a mock issue. They won several individual writing awards as well.

If you reading this are a local business person who would like to sponsor an issue of the Paw, thank you. Thank you very much.

You may contact me at gibbo@inreach.com and we'll arrange a time after school starts when our staff members can present you with the details. You are rewarding existing excellence and fostering new. Thank you again.

As the campus tech mentor, I have a dream. I'd like to see each teacher online with a Web page and a published campus email address. Let's up the access. The Web page could list course descriptions, lesson plans, grading policies, whatever they care to share.

This dream could be accomplished at several levels. I could train teachers how to make their own Web pages at home. Teachers could assign their favorite students to create and maintain the pages for them. I could train their favorite students if they don't already know how to make Web pages.

Teachers need only type up the words they want published. They can use any word processor. Hand us the text on disk, and my computer students and I will dothe rest -- convert to HTML, publish, and maintain the central site that links all the teacher pages together.

There are stumbling blocks. Public schools get nervous when hyperlinks from their server takes a surfer back into the Internet to other Web sites. Those other sites may have other hyperlinks to other pages with hyperlinks and so on. Eventually, a surfer might end up at a kinky Web site and blame the school. This is a major concern. Our contributing teachers will need to thoroughly scrutinize the hyperlinks, if any, they include on their pages.

As I said last week, Internet plagiarism must also be addressed when assigning outside writing. Essays on any subject can be found on the Internet.

Here are some suggestions: Use a topic that blends diverse information; students will have to synthesize their findings. Use a unique topic, something so specific and strange it can't be found outside your classroom. Personalize the topic: How does nuclear winter affect you? Require a local tie-in: What do Benicia students think about the causes for WWII? Compare the histories of the White Sox and the Red Sox. Require more in-class writing. Do Internet research together in the new lab and instruct students on the proper ways to footnote research. I'm open to more suggestions.

Speaking of email… Have you heard about the new email bug. You get email with a harmless-looking blue-underlined hyperlink to some pretty Web site. Actually, the infected email sent your computer an executable attachment -- perhaps a command to delete the hard drive. You click on the fake hyperlink, which is actually attached to the virus, and the virus runs. Cute, eh? You'd best check for updates on your email program. I hear even Eudora Pro 4 needs a security patch.

Gotta go.