Contact: Maridith Geuder
Using five to six miles of wiring at a time, a Mississippi State University education class is helping link state schools to the future.
Students who enroll in Dan Brook's special course on interactive data networks are learning to design and install an area network that provides computer links among public schools within a district.
With access to computer resources such as the Internet, the schools then are just a click away from libraries and museums around the world.
A professor of technology and education, Brook requires his students to learn both the principles of networks and the "nuts and bolts." To get experience with actual nuts and bolts, he asks each student to work in a Net Day project that benefits a Mississippi school.
"Net Day is a community activity in which volunteers organize to provide labor and skills to wire a school in a day's time," Brook said.
BellSouth donates Net Day kits that include connectors and wires. Community volunteers make up the installation teams. The school districts furnish computers and servers, which can be linked to the state's data backbone.
"We teach our students how to set up a Net Day," he said. "They then become leaders for six to 10 teams and organize the activities." These range from securing materials to providing food to publicizing the event, he explained.
So far, Net Day has been held in Tupelo, Brooksville, Hamilton, Caledonia, Booneville, and Newton.
"Our goal is to start in the morning and, by afternoon, have every class wired and tested," Brook said, observing that Net Day is "a cost-effective way for school districts to provide resources for their students.
"Our participation saves the school district money while helping increase community involvement with the school," Brook said. "We're seeing spin-off benefits from having parents and grandparents involved."
The computing infrastructure helps open possibilities that Mississippi students otherwise might miss.
"For instance, K-12 students will have access to the collections of the Smithsonian Institution's National Museum of Natural History through a project Mississippi State is helping develop," Brook said.
Called The Natural Partners Initiative, it will give students opportunities to see via computer some of the 140 million objects the museum houses, as well as to interact with researchers.
Brook estimates that approximately 100 Mississippi State students have taken his course and participated in Net Day activities. Many contribute to several Net Days or volunteer after they've completed the class.
Steve Gareau, who heads the university's National Institute of Technology Training, took Brook's spring-semester course and continues to work with an elementary school in Brooksville.
"We're trying to wire Wilson Elementary School as a pilot project for the Noxubee County School District," he said. "There is a need for more technology in the classroom as one way of helping improve educational opportunities. This is one step."
Gareau is working with the district's technology coordinator Darlene Cole and hopes to have a Net Day activity July 19.
"The classes are a successful learning tool for our students and benefit countless K-12 students, as well," Brook said. "We plan to continue this teaching model."