ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Friday, March 29, 1996 TAG: 9603290055
SECTION: CURRENT PAGE: NRV-1 EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY
SOURCE: HALE SHEIKERZ STAFF WRITER
Getting down-right dirty is not what most students want to do at school.
But this is exactly what a class of high school students has been doing in the past few months. A
Tommy Lyttle and Jacob Walker have had to slide through a 6-inch opening and crawl through a 2-foot space where "at any moment you could fall through the ceiling."
The experience, however, has been interesting for the boys. They have encountered a lot of trash during their crawl - everything from empty soda cans and lunch trays to rolls of film and negatives.
"If you don't like to get dirty, don't need to go up there," Lyttle said.
Lyttle and Walker are students in Rick Weaver's industrial and commercial wiring class at Christiansburg High School and their current project is to wire and connect the entire vocational education wing at the school and have it ready for on-line access.
When Weaver started teaching vocational education in 1984 in Montgomery County, his students primarily worked on toasters, lamps, lawn mowers, and the wiring of residential and commercial buildings - anything with electricity.
But today, like much of the country, his students also have moved into the information age of computer systems and the Internet.
The 14 boys in Weaver's class are in the process of installing a new computer network. They are responsible for all phases of installation. The process includes installing cable throughout the wing, which is about 60,000 square feet, connecting the cables to computers and upgrading the computers with memory and cards. The cables that the students install will then be connected to the already installed fiber-optic cables at a network hub.
Once completed, the vocational wing will be Ethernet-ready. An Ethernet is an interconnection of computer terminals in order for the computers to work with each other. The connection will further enable each computer to communicate to the "outside" world, such as Internet sites, the World Wide Web and other cyber locales.
"It's good experience. We can say now we've done computer wiring and installation," said Ryan Rose. Rose and Darrin Slusher, both seniors, were responsible for stripping the cables and putting them into connectors after it was installed in the ceiling.
"Most people wouldn't be able to do something like that," Slusher said. Both students are interested in pursuing careers in the electricity field, and now knowing about computer installation and wiring they have another possibility.
This is the first year Weaver's students have had the opportunity to work with computers - something that Weaver thinks is essential. While some of the students in the class already are computer literate, others have only had minimum exposure - at most a required keyboard class.
When he first started teaching the class more than 10 years ago, Weaver said there only were a few Apple computers in the entire school. Now, most classrooms have at least one computer. The additions of computers and computer technology, as far as working with trouble-shooting and actually constructing the computers, are the biggest changes the course has seen in the past decade.
"This is extensive and technical," Weaver said about the project. "It's also new to me ... and relatively new for the maintenance department also."
Weaver describes the processes as including a "steep learning curve" for everyone. He said he relies on Harvey Booth and his technical staff whenever he or the class runs into something new.
Booth, supervisor of electronic maintenance for Montgomery County schools, suggested the project. The project will cost about $3,700, including upgrades for the 12 computers and installation of the network. Part of the funds are being supplied through the electrical instructional equipment budget. The material for hard-wired networks is is being provided by the county's service and maintenance department.
He also recently used additional money from the electricity fund to build a new computer that will be used as the server, or heart, of the network. Students are expected to start assembling the new computer in the next few weeks.
James Hanauer and Kevin Bishop are the two students who opted not to get dirty in the project. Their responsibilities include setting up the computers and determining hardware configuration, such as memory upgrades.
In the past, Weaver's students mostly were occupied with projects such as residential wiring, commercial and industrial wiring, appliance repair, and electronics and product servicing and trouble-shooting. While they still continue such activities - they rewired a small commercial building near Riner, for example - the high-tech wiring of the vocational wing is something of an accomplishment.
"I feel strongly that they learn the best when they have real projects, like this to work on ... real rather than simulated in the classroom," Weaver said. "They enjoy it. They have taken on a great deal and I'm proud of the fact that we are involved in the process."
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