Pupils Ready School for Infobahn Trips

On NetDay last Saturday, when schools across California recruited volunteers to help them hook up to the Internet, Kaiser Elementary School turned away extra hands. The Costa Mesa school’s staff decided to let its students take charge of the new technology.

A group of fifth- and sixth-graders set up 30 new computers in the school’s computer lab. Under the supervision of Bruce Hall, a sixth-grade teacher at Kaiser, the students put in motherboards, added memory to make the systems faster and installed all the software.

This week, the students went to work wiring all the computers in the school, in both the classroom and the lab, to the Internet.

“I want them to know not just how to operate the computer but also how the computer works,” said Hall, who directs technology projects at the school. Having the students set up the machines themselves, he said, will make them more inclined to use them.

“I think it gives them a sense of ownership,” he said.