For Thursday, November 27, 1997 Drummer Column, Gibbs, 710 words

Electrical storm

You know how sometimes history repeats itself, and often on a much grander scale? Well, I see that happening with technology in school.

First, I'll describe the history, then the repeat.

Back in 1990, I took a summer course in journalism with two of my high school newspaper editors over at University of the Pacific. Fifty schools were represented. It was a big hoop-de-doo. It was also a time of big realization and the beginning of a necessary nightmare. Of the 50 schools represented, 49 of them were using desktop publishing to design their newspapers on computers. Only one school was not. Guess who?

That's right, good old BHS. Up to that time we were using old-fashioned lick and stick paste-up with scissors and wax. It was quick. It was easy. It was cheap. We never missed a deadline, and we seldom worked overtime. Of course, our paper looked like crap next to everybody else's, but we had no ulcers.

With this wake-up call, we returned home and became dependent on computers. We adopted desktop publishing, and suddenly the class went broke, got stressed out, and started working late. We needed tons of money and endless upgrades. Training for the class required an extra month. Deadlines got pushed back. We went from 17 issues a year down to 12, down to 10, down to eight. Every year we had to retool amid crashes and incompatibilities.

Now, eight years later, we're up to snuff. We have a humming lab full of Pentiums and high-end software, and my students are learning technical skills they will need whether they become journalists or not.

Now, eight years later, I see the same awakening coming to the whole district. Heck, it's happening all over the country, and has been for several years. It used to be that only specialized classes like journalism and yearbook needed to use computers. Now, every teacher, every student, and every class is expected, by law, to become dependent on technology. We're in the throes of chaos.

Can you imagine how much it's going to cost to shift the whole K-12 process over to desktop publishing? A lot. A box of chalk and a slab of slate aren't going to cut it anymore. We'll need computers in every room and networking throughout the districts. We'll need training of staff and students and all the endless upgrades and repairs that I've learned to live with in my little microcosmic newspaper.

We just spent $70,000 to equip one lab with a class set of computers. We went broke just before we bought printers. Now, to put computers in every classroom will be a multi-million-dollar necessity. Imagine the bake sales and car washes. We'll be out there every night.

Seriously, to convert our schools over from overheads and opaque projectors to Pentiums and Internet sites will require at least a doubling of state and federal funding. Big business, as well, will have to get deep-pocketly involved in bringing technology to the schools. Otherwise, we will continue to under-train generations of future employees. Under-trained employees cost companies fortunes in crashed computers and downtime, not to mention company training programs to make up for what new-hires didn't learn in school.

The other hurdle will be getting all teachers to embrace the inevitable onslaught of high-priced and complicated technology. Governor Wilson has recently signed into law the new technology requirements for all California teachers. We as a district have just released our technology guidelines for the next three years. The training will be measured in mega-hours as well as mega-bucks.

I've done a lot of moaning and groaning these past eight years about computers. Now, the rest of the profession is about to learn what it smells like inside my shoes.

I'm not knocking technology. Thanks to desktop publishing, our newspaper has gone from a six-page courier rag to a 50-page fonts-and-flowers production. We're in email contact with school newspapers all over the world. Student journalists are more productive, more creative, and more confident about their futures, all thanks to technology.

Of course, we also have the financial support of over 40 Benicia businesses that advertise in the PAW. It's thanks to them that we, as a microcosm, have survived this electrical storm.

Who will fund the macrocosm?