Karen Bennett   

Glenwood High School

Chatham, IL

                        Activity 1C

                        C&I 335

                        summer, 1998

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Chatham is a rapidly growing "suburb" of Springfield, IL.   This rapid growth has made it sometimes difficult to be aware of all the changes that occur within the district.  A Technology Committee has submitted a three-year plan for acquisition and use, but I believe the average teacher has very little idea of what is planned or what is currently available for use. 

There are four computer labs in Chatham Glenwood High School.  These include: English Lab, Science Lab, Business Lab and Math Lab.   The labs are networked through a server in the Learning Resource Center (Library).   The labs have different menus determining what software is available for use in that particular lab.  Some programs are on the network and available at any location, but many are only available in the lab of that subject area.

Any Math student can have access to the math labs during lunch hours as well as during classes when the lab has been reserved for them.  There are some classes, such as PASCAL, that are scheduled in that room, thus limiting accessibility to other math classes.  In addition, students can sometimes use other labs in the building during their study halls to access programs, but as stated earlier, not all software is available in all labs.

HARDWARE:

The hardware that is available to Math Students at Glenwood High School includes:

NOTE: If your browser doesn't support tables, or if tables are difficult for you to read, click here for the same information in a text format.

Each PC in the math lab is equipped with a mouse and has some (various) amount of hard drive space.  Currently, the lab is being set up to have internet access.   I have also heard that they may be adding CD-rom drives to the machines in the Math Lab.  Maybe by this fall.....

** In addition to the hardware listed on the table above, there are peripherals such as scanners, digital cameras, and a digitized camcorder in the building, but they are under the province of the Technology Department and were purchased with grant money.  Whether students in Math classes would have access to these items is unknown.

SOFTWARE:

The following is a SUMMARY of the software available in my school that is available for use in the Math Lab :

    Turbo PASCAL 6.0 - software to allow students to write code in  the PASCAL language

    MicroSoft Works 3.0 - a combination word processor, data base, spreadsheet that includes templates, and other goodies

   WordPerfect Suite 8.0 - another word processor combo pkg

   Puzzle Power - a "game" program generating puzzles

   Geometer's Sketchpad - a program creating an environment in  which the students can explore geometry through creating images and manipulating them to study the results

    Micro Test III -  a test generator and gradebook program

    Print Shop Deluxe - a graphics generator, cards, banners etc.

    Netscape - an internet browser

*** There may be other programs that will be available in the Math Lab, because they have been added in other labs.  One such program is OFFICE PRO.   Business is adding it this summer.

Much more software is available in my school.  Nearly 200 programs are inventoried for the high school, divided by departments and format.   There are DOS programs, windows programs, software for stand alone department computers, as well as network programs.  Some titles include: Quicken, Publish It, SchoolWorks: Teacher, MS Office Pro, Encarta, Borland dBase 4.0, and many, many others.  The scope of this assignment was for software in my curricular area.

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