computerdisc-l: Laptops, Upgrades, Money, Money, Money

["Carol Broadus" <cbroadus@netdoor.com>]

I am a B site and I am very disappointed that I will not have the
opportunity to purchase a laptop when I upgrade.  I find myself at school
every day until 4:00 and some days until 5:00 preparing handouts and
lessons, grading, and posting to my computerized gradebook.  I have a
solution.......Ever heard of PC Anywhere?  It's a program which can be
installed on your machine at home and you can dial up your classroom
machine and access all your files from your home workstation.  Now if I can
just get a modem installed in my classroom and purchase the PC Anywhere
program, I won't gripe about not having a laptop.  I understand the PC
Anywhere software is about $125, modems run around $150.  This would be
feasible in leiu of the laptop as long as you already have the PC at home
with the modem installed.  You would have to leave your machine running in
the classroom so that you could access the files but I don't see any
problems with this as long as it is password protected.  And I would have
access to ALL my files.  I could just select what I wanted to print and
send it to the printer for a handout the next day and it would be ready
when I got to my classroom.  Maybe it won't be so bad after all.....

I am not looking forward to the lab upgrades for B sites.  My lab was one
that was not set up properly by the original vendor (Thank goodness I was
not there because the vendor would still be having nightmares about what
all this lady wanted) and I need quite a bit of work.  I am afraid I am
looking more at figure around $60,000 which is probably nowhere near what
will be allocated since so many labs are B sites.  Is the state just
allocating an equal figure for upgrades each year without considering the
number of sites which were included in the upgrade?  If so, I want to
change from a B site.......not near as many A sites as there are B.

What can we as B sites do to enlighten the "powers that be" that hold the
purse-strings on funding for upgrades that our labs are no longer going to
be considered technology of the future without the money to move from the
dark ages to the current technology?  Without moving to the future, my lab
will soon be considered the "Keyboarding Classroom."  It's sad that we now
have a Chapter lab in our school which has far surpassed the technology of
our Computer Discovery lab.

Carol Broadus
Seminary High School