A hard drive to tech up

A COMPUTER PROJECT, which was introduced into a number of Irish schools last autumn, could provide a blueprint for the Government's recently launched £30 million Schools IT 2000 programme. The project is the brainchild of the Irish Tech Corps, a partnership established last year by DCU's Centre for Teaching Computing and the Irish Software Association whose primary aim is to provide an infrastructure which will support and promote the widespread use of information technology in schools.

"Most school-leavers are leaving school without any significant computing or information technology skills," says Dr Micheal O hEigeartaigh, director of DCU's school of computer applications. "By the time most of today's students leave school, at least 50 per cent of jobs in Ireland will require computer skills, but we are failing to prepare our young people for this environment."

The Irish Tech Corps has developed a three-year pilot programme which provides schools with computers and supports their use in schools. The pilot will be independently evaluated each year. The Corps is capitalising on the fact that Irish industry replaces tens of thousands of computers annually. In the past companies have been reluctant to donate them to schools, fearing that they would be responsible for any problems that occurred.

Now however, the Corps takes care of all this. It collects donated computers and assembles units, each consisting of 15 terminals, a server, a staff development machine, a scanner/printer and an Internet connection. It then supplies the units to selected schools. Currently 11 schools, including primary and second-level, have been supplied with units.

The criteria for selection are stiff: schools must be able to provide a dedicated computer room; each school must supply two teachers willing to undergo training and take responsibility for the project; and schools must be willing to make the computer networks available to the wider community in the evenings. Volunteer teachers are provided with technical training in the management of the systems and schools also benefit from the expert support of volunteers from industry.

"The project is based on the Tech Corps which has been running in the United States for the past 10 years," explains O hEigeartaigh. "This has been extremely successful in building up a community model in which industry, school and parents co-operate for the benefit of the children."

Since there are no IT syllabuses in our school curriculum, the Irish Tech Corps education officer, Seonad Cook, a former computer teacher in Scotland, is working closely with schools to set up courses. By the end of June all teachers in participating schools should be computer literate, she says. "We're running an evening course for teachers so that they will be able to teach their students."

The computers must be available to everyone in school. It's vital, says Cook, that schools avoid having a "computer expert" who has sole charge of the computer room. "It's for everybody - not just the whizz-kids. We have to avoid inequality and only certain classes getting access.

Apart from the education officer, the Tech Corps also boasts the services of a technical officer and an administrative officer.

ONE of the school benefiting from the project is Presentation Primary School in Blackpitts, Dublin, where it has been up and running in the school since October. "We converted an old cloakroom into a computer room and our parents paid for the work to be done," explains teacher Maria Diskin, who co-ordinates the school's network.

All the school's 380 children, barring junior infants, participate in the programme. The computer room can facilitate the smaller classes, she says, but children in the larger classes have to double up. Each class uses the room for one and half hours every week.

Computer work is closely linked to class work. "We use word-processing packages which support our projects and adventure and simulation programmes, which promote problem-solving and decision-making," Diskin explains. "We design our computer activities around what we're doing in class." Although typing is not taught, the children quickly pick up keyboard skills.

Computers can play a huge role in the classroom. "Children can interact individually with the machine and they can work at their own pace," she says enthusiastically. "It gives them a feeling of control and boosts their self-esteem." The benefits of the Tech Corps include technical back-up in the event of problems and educational supports, she says.

The Irish Tech Corps is about to recruit new schools to join the project. It is hoped that in the future larger numbers of schools will be involved. "We would like to see a Tech Corps network throughout the country," O hEigeartaigh says. "Each centre would need an education officer and a technical support person." He stresses that "the concept of local partnership is vital to the success of the endeavour".

Even in Europe computing education is spotty, O hEigeartaigh says. The Scandinavian countries have been extremely successful because they have taken a strategic view. However, in many countries computing programmes are left to individual schools.

It's vital that computing education is delivered in an interesting way, he says. "We have to avoid the mistake that some European countries have made, where the syllabuses have actually turned people off careers in computing."