By Brigid Heckman
Last year, I finally received the Christmas present I'd been wishing
for: a new computer with an Internet hookup. Now, I thought, I would have
the world at my fingertips. Little did I know my Christmas gift would open
up a new world for me as a school board member.
My first ventures into cyberspace were e-mail communications with my
family back in Colorado. Then I started to figure out that I could use the
power of technology and the Internet for our schools to access resources
and information that would enhance the learning experiences of our students
and our staff. The Internet, I realized, could bring the world to the front
door of Greenwood Central School, a one-school rural district with 245 students,
K-12, and 23 teachers in southern New York.
In fact, I soon discovered that the Internet was an excellent source
of current education news and information that could help prepare me and
my colleagues on the school board to decide on the issues that came before
us. Last spring, for example, we were reviewing whether to define cheerleading
as a sport. I contacted the American Cheerleading Association to seek its
policies on this issue, and I found a web site with a number of school districts'
policies on cheerleading. I was able to share this information with my colleagues
at the next board meeting.
When we were pondering acceptable-use policies, I visited a number of
different web sites that included such policies. I printed several examples
and gave them to our superintendent and technology committee to review.
The Internet also was a vast resource of information when we were purchasing
a dehumidifier for our Olympic-sized swimming pool. We went online and requested
materials and information, which were helpful in selecting the proper equipment.
And this year, when we started a new preschool program, I turned to the
Internet again. I found many good links to early childhood programs, ideas
for class content, and research on what makes a good preschool program,
the benefits of a good program, and the lasting effect it has on children
before they start kindergarten.
Making connections
E-mail is another tool I have found extremely helpful. I found mailing
lists that are available to teachers, administrators, and board members.
Liszt, the mailing list directory, has
more than 70,000 e-mail lists from more than 2,000 web sites. Just typing
in the word "education" in the Liszt search engine yields more
than 725 matches.
The first listserv discussion group I subscribed to was called Kidsphere.
Now no longer active, Kidsphere was made up of teachers and other educators
from all over the world, who shared information on implementing technology
in the classroom, teaching styles and ideas, and opportunities for schools
with Internet access.
Thanks to Kidsphere, I was able to round up more than 150 e-mail message
greetings for my 5-year-old daughter's kindergarten class. I posted two
requests for e-mail greetings for the class's 100th
day of school. I received and printed out greetings from eight countries
and 48 states. The project gave my daughter and her classmates a taste of
world geography and a feeling of connection to other schools. The teacher
posted a map with pins marking where each message came from. Some were short,
simple messages; others told the history of their schools or their cities
or towns. The students' favorite message was from a school in Orlando, Fla.,
near Disney World: "Happy 100 Days From Kissimee Central School."
I recently started subscribing to a listserv called Net-Happenings, which
sends two or three e-mail messages to me every day. The messages list web
sites that offer educational resources for teachers. My daily mail from
Net-Happenings gives me direct links to resources that would be of interest
to anyone involved in K-12 education: curriculum ideas, online learning
projects, or web sites that might interest board members as well as teachers
and administrators.
Money and materials
A sense of connection is the great intangible benefit of going online.
But there are tangible benefits as well. For example, I've found resources
that allowed me to send for free materials for our school and teachers:
Maps, information from NASA, educational videos, and instructional comic
books from the Federal Reserve are some of the items in my free shopping
spree.
Many online companies are willing to send your school free
information and materials if you ask.
I also use the Internet to learn more about writing grants. In our small
district, no one works full-time on grant-writing. As a board member and
a stay-at-home mother, I can make a contribution by looking into the process.
The net has many resources available for grant-writers. Documentation is
an important part of grant-writing, and the Internet is a virtual library
of information. You can go to the Foundation
Center's web site to look for current grant and proposal deadlines and
to find other links for grant information.
If you don't have the time or money to attend a workshop to learn how
to write grant proposals, you can turn to web sites that train you in the
language of grant-writing and offer tips on getting money. For help writing
grants, visit Grant
Opportunity Resources or The
At-a-Glance Guide to Grants.
This strategy is already paying off for us. We recently planted four
trees in our playground, purchased by an environmental grant I found on
Wal-Mart's web site. And thanks to information gleaned through the Internet,
we are awaiting money from a not-for-profit corporation that will bring
to our school a traveling bus with state-of-the-art mobile electronic classrooms
with multimedia computer workstations. A state-certified teacher and technician
will come to our school once a week to train the teachers and then students
to become computer literate. Training will also be available for community
members who are interested in computers. This bus is a wonderful resource
for our rural community.
The Internet has allowed me to stay current with state education news,
as well. About once a week, I go to the New
York State Department of Education's web site and read news and current
information about education in New York. The New York web site also features
information on programs and services offered by the state, direct phone
numbers and e-mail addresses to state education officials, and archives
of past education articles. I have communicated with our state senator several
times via e-mail about issues that, as a school board member, I felt were
important to our school district.
Our state school boards association
has a web site where information for school board members is available.
Many state departments of education have web sites with similar information,
as do most state school boards associations. The National
School Boards Association has links
to most state school boards associations.
Being online offers much for school board members, be it exchanging ideas
and sharing experiences with others, staying up to date on current events,
or accessing educational opportunities you wouldn't know about otherwise.
Every day brings new opportunities for me and our school. I've only had
access to the Internet for a little more than a year, but already I can
hardly imagine how I managed without it.
Brigid Heckman is currently serving her third year as a school board member at
Greenwood Central School, Greenwood, N.Y. | 
