Wired to learn

Jessica Garrison

NEWPORT-MESA -- Some classrooms in the Newport-Mesa school district

have all the trappings of the 21st century -- Internet access,

computerized programs for dissecting rats in biology, even their own Web

sites.

Other classrooms look more like the 19th. And that is one of the many

things Steve Glyer, the district’s first-ever “Director of Educational

Technology” plans to change.

Glyer was hired when district officials have decided to take a

comprehensive and integrated approach to the use of technology in the

classroom. The Corona del Mar father had worked as a salesman for a

technology company and also as an expert in the Orange County Department

of Education.

“The role I’m taking on is so different than anything they’ve had

before,” he said. “It’s a big challenge. But I’m an optimist. I think we

can do it ... Let’s be possibility thinkers.”

Glyer, who occupies a windowless office deep in the district’s

education center that positively hums with the buzz of countless

machines, wants every classroom in the district to be wired with e-mail,

a computer, and Internet access by the beginning of the next school year.

That’s a tall order when less than one third of classrooms are

currently wired, and of those that are, few are networked to each other.

“If you walked into any major business in Orange County, you’d see

these things,” he said. “Why would you not expect to provide your

educational professional with these same tools?”

How the district, which is slowly recovering from years of financial

uncertainty but still is hardly rolling in money, is supposed to pay for

this Glyer hasn’t said.

“That’s a good question,” said Glyer with a smile. “We’re not sure.”

State grant money to wire high schools will help, he said, as will

other pots of state money the district can apply for, but it probably

won’t be enough.

To figure out how to do it, Glyer has formed a technology task force.

The group of teachers and district officials will draft a plan, and then

they will approach local businesses with their hats in their hands.

The idea, Glyer said, is to create an endowment specifically for

buying and maintaining computers and software for district classrooms and

for training for teachers and students.

“You don’t just say, ‘Hey, I want money,”’ he said. “You need a plan,

and you need to be able to go to people and say ‘We need to fund this,

and here’s why.”’

The why, for Glyer, is obvious.

We live in an increasingly technological society. If Newport-Mesa

schools do not teach students how to use technology, the consequences

will be dire: “We will fail,” he said.

That’s why, he added, he is confident the community will help provide

the resources.

If that sounds ambitious, Glyer’s second goal is far more so.

He wants to figure out how technology should be used in the classroom

to help students learn, and what the district should do to make that

process easier.

The possibilities sometimes seem endless: students can use the

Internet for research. They can use e-mail to send in their homework, or

to interact with each other in the evenings to work on group projects.

They can use sophisticated business and computer programs to do in-depth

analysis of complicated programs, and then they can present the entire

thing to their teachers and fellow students using computerized

presentation programs.

The question, Glyer said, is what is essential for children to learn?

What will help them later in life, in business or in college? Which

programs really build research and analytical skills and which are merely

amusing games?

Think tanks across the country are trying to answer this question, and

now, so will Glyer’s task force.

But before district officials adopt technology requirements for

students, they have to make sure that technology is equitable across the

district.

In many cases, PTAs and foundations have bought computers for

individual schools, usually in Newport Beach. But many Costa Mesa schools

are struggling to find the money for even a few computers.

“We need to have equitable infrastructure,” Glyer said.

Despite all the challenges he faces, Glyer said he has never been

happier.

“I feel like this is the job I always wanted,” he said.