For Thursday, April 20, 2000 Drummer Column, Gibbs, 731 words

Digital Higher School

As promised, I'm going to keep readers updated this week on Benicia High's efforts toward becoming a Digital High School. The main effort now is writing the huge grant application. If we can show the state how we intend to spend a half-million dollars to improve the technical prowess of our students and staff over the next three years, they will give us the money.

We are in a unique situation among California schools. Most schools are using the Digital Grant money to wire their classrooms for the Internet and provide each classroom with an online computer. We, on the other hand, thanks to the generosity of the East Bay Community Foundation endowment, have already wired our school. In fact, the technicians are on campus as we read dropping network cable to the last remaining classrooms.

So, we get to be far more creative in our designs. We are taking Benicia High up into untested atmosphere. We have to find new heights that can sustain life. Our goals and objectives are the same as any school, but how we carry them out is all up to us.

We gathered data for months -- surveys, polls, questionnaires, interviews, meetings -- and I sat down for a week and typed up the first draft. A lot of the items and activities were predetermined, but from time to time I had to extrapolate. Now I'm back at school sharing the invented plans and hoping for agreement or modification.

The primary project that I included and am now introducing for approval is the adoption of a new senior requirement -- the Digital Portfolio. It's not a new idea; some schools already do it, like the Tech Mecca high school in Napa. It does require a slick network, a terabyte of storage, skilled manpower, and staff commitment, so not every school can undertake the challenge.

The Digital Portfolio is an extension of the age-old paper portfolio, a popular record-keeping activity in many classes. In a paper portfolio, a student collects all her assignments in chronological order. She can use them for reference as she improves her skills. At the end of the year, the student sorts through the collection, brings the best work to the front, creates an index to it, and binds it separately.

The portfolio also helps us meet the objective-measurement requirements of the grant, where we prove that students have learned all the technical skills we claim they will learn. We will have a tangible sample of each skill manifested in their Digital Portfolios. Students can save all their essays and PowerPoint presentations. They can scan drawings, awards, and newspaper clippings. They can photograph 3-D creations with digital cameras. They can digitize video of presentations. Students can also use the opportunity to create their own personal digital yearbooks. They can store pictures of their friends, film clips of school activities, messages from fellow students.

As seniors they will pull all this material into one location and cull the highlights into a presentation. The anthology will be transferred to a Zip disk or CD and the graduate will take it with her.

The portfolio has many uses. Students can post pertinent material from their portfolios on the Internet and make reference to the web address in college applications and job resumes. The best part is that the digital memories will last many lifetimes. They won't turn yellow and brittle. In retirement our aged students will be able to look back at their teen years with clarity (provided the software is still compatible), their grandchildren on their laps.

Another objective included in the grant application is that 90-percent of our departments will write into their curriculum at least one digital project. This gives teachers another reason to integrate technology, ensures they that they too learn how to operate the software, and gives us another objective measurement.

As I look over the current list of expenses, which is everyone's wish list combined, it's cresting at just over $717,000. We will have to trim.

A large, crucial amount, around $300,000 is marked for tech and tutorial support. Training expenses could be an additional $50-75,000. That leaves us just over $100,000 for new equipment, mostly infrastructure improvements like routers and servers. We also want to build at least one more lab, preferably four or five labs. A half-million just doesn't go as far these days. Thanks a million.