In affluent school districts such as West Windsor-Plainsboro, “technology is not in the schools just for technology’s sake,” says Rick Cave, WW-P’s director of technology. “It is really here to support education. Technology is a tool that we can use to make learning a little better for the kids.”##M:[more]##
Just how good a tool technology can be — and how adept some students are at using it — will be on display at the third annual West Windsor-Plainsboro Technology Showcase on Tuesday, March 8, at 7 p.m. at the Millstone River School, 75 Grovers Mill Road, Plainsboro. Students — from elementary through high school — will demonstrate and exhibit between 30 and 40 individual and group projects that they created showing innovative technology at its best.
“It is an opportunity for kids to show off what they can do,” says Cave. “There are a lot of really good things going on in the classroom that very few people know about. This is an opportunity to bring out these end products and let people see them and what went into making them happen.”
This year’s highlights will include robots that can find their way out of a maze and a robotic dog that follows its master and does tricks. “The kids have either built these things from scratch or they worked on the programming in order to make them do what they do,” says Cave. Past projects include a computer game arcade, in which middle and high school students created all the programming, as well as an extensive report about computers and their usages, including all the necessary statistical analysis, created by a fourth grade student and read to the crowd.
Cave, who has worked in WW-P schools for the past 26 years, says that the integration of technology into the classroom came slowly. “When technology first started to hit education in the 1980s there was a much greater emphasis in technology as a skill,” says Cave. “This meant that students were taught to do tasks like word processing, spread sheets, and write programs for their own sake. Now the emphasis is more on learning, with technology as a tool. There are more options available.”
The biggest change, says Cave, “is in the attitudes of people. “Now most people feel that technology is a part of their lives. It is something that is expected. The bigger challenge (for school systems) is making sure there is enough equipment and that people have access to it and that it’s always working.”
As an example of the new integrated approach to technology in the classroom, Cave describes students in grades 2 through 5 and their approach to using computers. Formerly teachers used what is known as a “cycle program” in which a teacher would bring her students down to the computer lab once a week for 40 minutes and give her students specific instructions in how to work on computers. Now in the integrated approach to technology, the computer teacher and classroom teacher develop a project in tune with what is going on in the classroom.
“It is much less about the computer and more about the subject they are working on,” says Cave. “Students will use computers in a science unit where they research a topic, develop a hypothesis, develop an experiment, perform the experiment, and record data, take pictures and movies and things like that. At the end they reach a conclusion on their hypothesis based on the data they collected and make a presentation, using charts, pictures, to verify or disprove the hypothesis.”
Although students still employ the traditional scientific method on their projects, they also develop valuable computer skills — such as how to use a spreadsheet, make a chart, make a presentation, create a video — all of which can be used later on. “In the end they are getting the same experience, but the way it is being presented is much different,” says Cave. “When we first did it, there was still a few skeptics out there, but within two months we had people who at the start said ‘no way’ were now saying they would never go back to the old way.”
Cave was born and raised in Farmington and West Hartford, Connecticut. His mother was a stay-at-home mom and his father worked for Connecticut General Insurance (now Cigna), retiring after 40 years. He has a bachelors degree in education from Springfield College in Massachusetts and two masters degrees, one in mathematics from Trenton State (“At that time they didn’t have masters degrees in computer science,” says Cave.) He also earned a masters in education from Rider University.
After graduating from college in 1979, Cave wound up moving to New Jersey by pure accident. “One of my classmates in college, Pete Watson, was the son of the original principal at West Windsor-Plainsboro High School (Ron Watson),” says Cave. “My friend told me that his dad was looking for some math teachers. I’d never even been to New Jersey. But I went down, got hired. I thought I’d stay for a couple years and then move on. But the area has been great.” (Cave met his wife in here in New Jersey and they now have two children. “Three-quarters of my family were all born and raised in New Jersey,” quips Cave. “I’m the outsider.”)
Although WW-P is the only school district that he has ever worked in, Cave says that he does not take it for granted. “I know that not all districts have it as good as we do,” he says. “There’s great community and parental support. The kids are phenomenal. Sure, it can be hard sometimes because people have strong interests and they want to get things done in different ways. But that is a strength.”
Cave initially worked as a math teacher at the high school. He then began teaching computers in the early 1980s. But early on the practical aspects of technology in the district and its technical needs began taking up more of his working hours. His teaching responsibilities were reduced and during his last few years at High School South, they had dwindled to one class a day. In 2002 Cave was named the full-time director of technology.
Cave says that his role as technology director includes making sure that new software is compatible with the district’s computer systems. This includes the new bus route software that the district purchased last year to help simplify the transportation of children to and from school as well as the new phone system in 2003. “If it’s plugged in, then we are involved with it,” says Cave.
Although he enjoys his job, he does admit to missing the challenges of teaching. “That one period was the best part of the day,” he says. “The kids just give you energy. Sure, there certainly are days when you walk out of the classroom feeling frustrated because dealing with people can be that way. But the bad days were never that bad and the good days were great.”
While technology in the schools continues to develop successfully, Cave says that there are still some hurdles. “One of the biggest challenges right now is the generational difference in attitudes about technology between teachers and kids,” says Cave. “This is not true of all teachers and it’s not that people are not willing to learn. It’s just that fundamentally our generation grew up with information being on a piece of paper. Information was always paper-based and we have ways of doing things that are based exclusively on this.”
As an example, Cave offers the time-honored process of writing a term paper. “Most people in our generation know the rules,” he says. “You get your index cards, you go to the library, you make your outline and you write your drafts. But the process is also based on the notion that information is only available in the library and you can only go there at certain times. So you need to know ahead of time what information you are looking for. Then you start writing your paper.”
Today the rules have changed. While students still need to organize their thoughts, they no longer need to set their schedule around when the library will be open in order to get their information. “You can get your information 24 hours a day seven days a week,” he says. “You don’t have to do four drafts to get to final copy because you can have your final copy in an instant. The whole process is impacted.”
The way teachers deal with this problem and the way kids want to deal with it creates a conflict, according to Cave. “The teachers know the way that they’ve done it because that is how they learned it,” he says. “But they now have to transform their whole learning experience, based on 20 to 40 years of the way they’ve been doing things. Now this generation has what is called a ‘digital divide.’ It is really an issue in how we manage and communicate information.”
“If a student walks into a classroom and a teacher hands him a piece of paper, many students will not know what to do with it,” says Cave. “If you E-mailed him the information he knows how to process it and store it so that he has it with him. But with a piece of paper, some people will keep track of it, but others will just lose it.”
Cave says that the strategic plan, formally approved by the school board on February 8, will help to bridge the “digital divide.” “There is an opportunity for professional development,” says Cave. “The strategic plan will impact how we do things with technology. In the process of training staff, we will align our technology resources. In the past we gave technology workshops, but now technology is buried in all kinds of places because it is supporting so much of what we do.”
How will the district’s technological needs evolve in the future? Cave says because of rapid changes, it is an open question. “It is hard to sit here and say that in 10 years this is what technology will be doing for us,” he says. “There are those who will project into the future and some will be right and others will be wrong. But it is hard for anyone to say, ‘let’s head in that definite direction.’”
Ideally, Cave sees merit in proposals like the one in the Montgomery school district that sought to purchase laptop computers for every middle school student. But financial constraints make it impractical. “It would be great if we could provide those types of resources to help develop skills,” he says. “But the reality is that it would cost far more than most districts could ever afford.”
In addition to the expense, it would be premature. “Most public schools are not really aligned to benefit from such a program,” he says. “Many teachers are still book-oriented and are handing out information on papers. The full impact of such a program would not be felt. But I think, eventually, something like that will become the norm.”
Caves warns that because technology changes so quickly some people want to quickly acquire the latest and greatest. “We just can’t keep up with it,” he says. “There are people who want it here and that’s hard. We went from an environment 20 years ago where people didn’t want any technology to now where they want everything. You can’t give them everything they want. We don’t have the funding.”
With computer equipment constantly being improved upon, the district budgeted just $120,”000 specifically for “refreshing” (replacing outdated equipment with new ones). In addition there is additional money budgeted for maintenance and repair. “There is not a lot of money available,” says Cave.
The best way for the district to be certain that it is using developing technology to its fullest without straining the budget is constant monitoring. “We have to as, are we doing the right things,” says Cave. “Are we providing the right training for teachers? Are we providing the right equipment and resources for teachers, students, administrators, and parents? And philosophically, are we putting everything together so that we can move forward? We are in a constant evaluation process. We look at what other districts are doing. We read about what is going on with technology in general and how it is being used. How other people use technology can give us ideas on how were can use it in the future.”
