USING TELECOMMUNICATIONS CAN HELP TEACH AT-RISK 

       STUDENTS  

  by Shirley Hasche 

    Jolene Langan 

 Barbara Renkenberger 

 The number of students that are not graduating from traditional schools is increasing.  We, as educators, need to find a way to make these at risk students become contributing members of society.  As the computer becomes a vital part of the future job market, we need to make sure that at risk students are empowered with the knowledge of computers so that they may join the next generation of productive thinkers.  SCANS Goals  According to the Department of Labor, SCANS (Secretary's Commission of Achieving Necessary Skills), there is a three- part foundation that students need to have in order to find and hold jobs.  The first one is the need for Basic Skills which deals with reading, writing, performing arithmetic and mathematical operations, listening and speaking.  The second one is Thinking Skills which deals with thinking creatively, making decisions, solving problems, visualizing, knowing how to learn, and reasoning.  The final part is Personal Qualities that display responsibility, self-esteem, sociability, self- management, integrity and honesty.  Infusing telecommunications into the education of at risk students will help achieve SCANS goals.  The Project  The at risk students attending two high schools will be involved in telecommunicating with each other as they learn to use the computer skills needed for their future.  Computers will be integrated into every class that the at risk students attend and will be used for homework, extra credit projects and classroom work.  The introduction to computer use will start with these different levels.  Level 1:  One-Way Electronic Mail Level 2:  Online - Participative (Bulletin Board) Level 3:  Online - Full Interactive Communications Level 4:  Online - Interactive and Planning  E-Mail and Bulletin Boards  There will be a bulletin board and E-mail system set up so that both schools can link up.  Students will start by sending surveys to each other about cars, sports and other topics of interest.  They will be required to report in their English and Speech classes the results. The bulletin board will be designed as a place where they can relax, chit chat and compare problems. By using the bulletin board, the students will be improving their listening (reading) and speaking skills as well as learning proper social skills (avoid flaming) and relating to peers in a positive ways.  This will also improve their self-esteem.  File Transfer Protocol Sites (FTP)  The fine arts will be the FTP Archives site Lyric and Discograph (FTP cs.uwp.edu) where the students will be able to get information about music, it's lyrics, and information about the classical and popular musicians.  The students will be assigned a song, composer or band and will have to research and gather data about that time period.  The students will have to do a report about their topic for Social Studies about the mood of society in that time frame.  The use of computers in this area will aid in the development of reading, writing, gathering data, decision making, and creative thinking.  Telnet Sites  The students will work on the computer for math class by developing story problems.  The students will be given zip codes for the 24 cities that contain professional football leagues. Each school will receive 12 zip codes.  The students must create two step word problems that have the zip code as the answer. They will exchange the problems and then solve the ones sent to them. They will have to use the Geographic Name Server (telnet martini.eecs.umich.edu 3000 or telnet 141.212.100.9 3000) to discover the teams that they had correct.  This will help in the acquisition of such skills as performing arithmetic and mathematical operations, problem solving, reasoning and cooperative learning.  The spinoff from this Level 3:  Full Interactive Communication will be to use other telnet sites for a host of integrated activities that the at risk students can identify with as relevant to their lives.  For example, in the area of Science, the students will be able to use telnet sites to: find out the weather in all parts of the world (Weather Underground: telnet hermes.merit.edu or telent 35.1.48.150), to check natural disasters that are happening, to get updated on ecology, and to do comparison shopping of staple food items of our global village.  The at risk students also need to have the experiences of art and P.E. Telecommunications will provide exposure to ASCII Art which will provide humor, creativity, and positive self-expression.  the P.E. experience will include building manipulative dexterity, improving left and right brained crossover activities, and eye/hand coordination.  Conclusion  The use of telecommunications by at risk students will help them to change from being possible dropouts to becoming positive, enthusiastic members of society.  By including telecommunications within the education of at risk students, we are adding to their education, the goals that SCANS demands for productive members of society.  The addresses given were current at the time of writing, but could change in the future.  Teachers need to use their own experiences to explore other sites and develop other uses of telecommunications. They need to expand the suggestions above to teach students in a new way which is exciting to both the teacher and students.  References  Drucker, P.F., (1992). Performance, accountability, and results.  The American School Board, March. A4-A11.  Frymier, J.R., (1989). The phi delta kappa study of students at risk. Phi Delta Kappan, October. 142-146.  Gross, B. (1990). Here dropouts drop in and stay! Phi Beta Kappan. April. 625-627.  Kagan, D.M., (1990). How schools alienate students at risk: a model for examining proximal classroom variables. Educational Psychologist, Vol.25, 2: 105-125.  Kagan, D.M., (1988) How do teacher define students at risk? The Clearing House / AEIS / ASU. Vol.61, 7: 320-324.  Mailing address:                      Arizona Educational Information System                      Bureau of Educational Research and Services                      Tempe College of Education                      Arizona Stat University                      Tempe, AZ 85287-2611  U.S. Government Department of Labor. (1991). What work requires of schools / a scans report for america 2000.  U.S.Government Printing Office. Telephone 1-800-788-SKILL for a free publication.