Hawaii’s World

By A.A. Smyser

Tuesday, March 11, 1997

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Bringing isle schools
into computer age

LET me tell you about a reality and four goals. First, the reality: A student living in a rain forest at Kau, in a home with no electricity, uses a battery-powered laptop computer to write out assignments that he then takes to school and hooks into the statewide education net.

Second, the goals:

To have adequately wired computers in every Hawaii school classroom by 2000. We already lead the nation by having computer net connections into every public school, all 245 of them. Today, however, some connections don't go beyond the school office or library and could use more capacity.

To have all classrooms hooked up to the Internet via the Maui High Performance Computer Center, built primarily to handle space tracking atop Haleakala.

To have some schools open 24 hours as neighborhood computer centers that even businesses may use for a fee. The first could open in a few years.

To get computers in the homes of all 188,000 public school students for better teacher-parent communication. No deadline on this. Today only about one-eighth of students have computers in their homes. Many teachers still don't have have computers in their classrooms.

Will this lead to more challenges for our students and better educational results?

Absolutely, says Diana Kaapana-Oshiro, assistant superintendent in charge of the Department of Education's Office of Information and Telecommunications.

No high-tech person herself, she was yanked out of her principalship at Waiau Elementary School and into her present job by Herman Aizawa when he became state superintendent in 1994. He knew her as the kind of "can do" person he wanted.

He must be right because when I wrote a complimentary article on computers in our schools and didn't mention her I was roundly rebuked by letter writers and Aizawa. He said the story was fine except for the big omission of Kaapana-Oshiro, now being corrected.

She says we already have evidence that being on the Net can "turn on" students. Some with F grades have moved up to Bs. It also can bring more parents into the act, a major goal.

It also allows gifted students to break out of classroom routines that may not challenge them enough and take advanced courses, even for college credits. Subjects include Shakespeare, U.S. history, computer science, geometry and global history.

One group of students carried out a critique of Hamlet by exchanging views with students in Orlando, Fla. Inappropriate, non-educational uses of the Net are discouraged. Students are told to Net cruise somewhere else.

Kaapana-Oshiro's office also is working out interactions with Oceanic Channel 56 on Oahu, one of Olelo's education channels.

THE ability to communicate on the Net hones writing skills since one of the best ways to learn to write is to write. On the school distance learning TV net, some rather reticent youngsters have turned into "real Joe Moores." That's a reference to our leading TV news anchor, in case it needs explaining.

Kaapana-Oshiro's office gets less than 1 percent of the DOE budget ($3.5 million this year) but has been helped by federal grant money and invaluable service from literally thousands of volunteers ranging from students and teachers through local businessmen. A small staff of technicians hooks up the schools and acquaints both school people and the community with their new potential.

I think I know why Aizawa told me he gave Kaapana-Oshiro an office just down the hall from his so he can keep an eye on her. She tends not to let bureaucratic rules impede her. "We don't ask permission," she told me. "We ask forgiveness later."