Educational Technology

On Monday, before we left for the South Rim, Andy took us to his school, Boulder Creek High School. It was built in 2006 so is about as modern as one might dream a school to be. Andy's lab includes 32 graphics-strength PCs, the technology for an interactive white board, and a 24"x36" poster printer (Andy's hoping his request for a 60" printer will be approved). The lab was a real "wow!" as I recalled working, in the '80s, with Caltech, UCLA, and USC to establish experimental labs of maybe 20 IBM PS2s - we in IBM were trying to learn how PCs could be used in education. Now Andy's lab has more computer power than you could find in many so-called supercomputer centers 20 years ago. More impressive, it is being used effectively in well-designed curricula.