Tech Crews: Learning by Doing in
Mississippi
Mississippi Department of Education
Jackson, Mississippi
On the first NetDay of 1997, a group of volunteers gathered to bring St. Joseph High School in Jackson, Mississippi, into the digital age. The school lacked the internal wiring needed to operate a computer network, and there were few experts in the region who could do the job at a price it could afford.
High School Students Learning Technology and Teamwork
But St. Joseph got a big boost from an unlikely source: the volunteers were led by a group of high school students from five Mississippi school districts who received training in network operations, web design, and computer software under a TIIAP project directed by the Mississippi Department of Education. On NetDay, the "tech crews" put their newfound knowledge to the test.
"Tech crew members divided into teams, some measured the hallways, others looked in the ceiling to discover the secrets it held, still others checked out the electrical panel, phone box, patch panel location and checked to make sure that the requested drops were in appropriate places," recalls Ellen Davis Burnham, Technology Specialist for the department and coordinator of the tech crew project. After studying the school, the crews retired to a nearby lodge where they debated how best to wire the school and drew up a wiring plan. They returned to the school the next day at 7 a.m., splitting into teams to drill and install face plates, pull wire, and take all the other steps needed to install a computer network at the school.
"The day ended with many smiles and with the knowledge that not only had they helped another school realize their Internet/Intranet dream but also that they had gained further knowledge to carry back to their school districts," says a proud Burnham.
The Mississippi tech crews represent an imaginative solution to a problem that has prevented many schools from coming online as rapidly as they would like. Even where the will to use the Internet in classrooms exists, many school districts lack the technical expertise to build and maintain computer networks. That can be a particularly serious barrier in rural areas, where technical expertise is lacking in the surrounding community as well as in schools. One Mississippi school district had to fly in a trouble-shooter from Wisconsin to solve a networking problem.
Building Math and Science Skills for the Future
The Mississippi project, known as Connecting Communities, inaugurated the tech crews. In addition, Connecting Communities sought to create learning partnerships among parents, children, public schools, public libraries, and businesses in five rural communities using the internationally recognized Family Math and Family Science programs. In those programs, parents and their children work on real-life math or science investigations. Computer local area networks were to provide communications links for participants.
As interesting as the curriculum ideas may be, it's the student tech crews that have given the effort much of its energy and momentum. "The tech crews brought communities together," says Burnham. "They got parents, teachers, grandparents, librarians, school boards everybody working together."
After receiving training, each tech crew developed a local area network in its own school. Each tech crew also has worked to wire at least one other school in its area. In addition to providing technical support, tech crews have been forceful advocates for wiring the schools; in Greenville, a skeptical school board embraced the networking idea after students showed up one night to teach board members how to use e-mail.
Tommy Wolfe, Technology Coordinator for Winona public schools, says members of the tech crews have gained valuable educational experience even as they help their schools. He says network trouble-shooting has helped the students hone their thinking skills, and he predicts the knowledge they have obtained will serve them well as they enter the labor market. "I don't care what a person does in the future, they're going to have to have some background in computers and computer networks," he says.
Matthew Biggers, 17, a member of the Winona tech crew, agrees the project has taught students some valuable lessons. "It helps us learn team work. It helps you learn to work with people," he says. "We give presentations at conferences, so it has really helped me with speaking in public."
Eventually, Wolfe and others believe the tech crews could become the core of a technical and social infrastructure that rural Mississippi sorely needs if it is to join the Information Age. Like many tech crew members, Biggers says he hopes to pursue a career in technology. In the short run, he says, that may require him to leave his rural community. But he has high hopes that he soon will be able to return.
"The way things are going now, I'll be able to move back," he says. "There has been a lot of technological progress in our state. Connecting Communities really has helped communities get access, and now communities even more rural than we are have become interested."
Ellen Davis Burnham
Technology Specialist
(601) 359-3954
edburniv@mdek12.state.ms.us
Source: U.S. Department of Commerce
National Telecommunications and Information Administration
Office of Telecommunications and Information Applications
Last Modified: 18 Dec 97