Author: Tammy Lane • First Posted: Friday, October 01, 2010

Lafayette juniors Clay Colwell and Robert Cass are among the eight students across FCPS who signed up for the independent study. (Photo: Tammy L. Lane)

A handful of teenagers are taking an independent study with the school district’s coordinator of virtual classrooms – learning to test software, solve technical problems and install upgrades.

“By the time we’re done, we’re supposed to be able to maintain the production of iSchool,” said Clay Colwell, a junior at Lafayette High School, who described it as “another tool in the teacher’s arsenal.”

Technology resource teacher Jeff Jones oversees Fayette’s iSchool, along with its nearly 20,000 registered users and some 1,200 course shells for a variety of online classrooms. His independent study includes four students from Lafayette, two from Bryan Station and two from Paul Laurence Dunbar.

“They’re learning about open-source software – how to install it, how to make it work,” he explained. “When they’ve proved themselves in being trustworthy and in technical skills, they will be directly involved in supporting the back end of Fayette’s iSchool.”

The opportunity for hands-on experience was not lost on Robert Cass, also a junior at Lafayette.

“We have superiors with demands we have to implement, so it’s definitely more than a regular computer science class,” he said.

Fayette’s iSchool runs on the open-source platform Moodle, which is free for anyone to download and install. Dunbar student Tushar Patel managed the first Moodle install in Fayette County more than five years ago. Jones noted that student support remains an important part of the iSchool equation – thus his offering the independent study this year.

In Jones’ online course, each student has his own sandbox to play in, his own Moodle install for trial-and-error experiments. “Right now we can’t hurt anything,” Robert said, smiling.

In a few months, the teens will work with live iSchool data; and next year, they likely will help train the next wave of students.

“They meet virtually and exchange ideas and help each other solve problems directly through the online environment,” Jones said. “They are absolutely hands-on in supporting open-source software that is used by real universities in support of real instruction out in the real world.”

Jim Adams, a network technician at Dunbar, touted the overall concept of schools without walls, which fuels collaborative efforts and a sense of ownership.

“The kids are able to communicate with each other and an educator downtown,” he said, citing Jones’ class as an example. “They’ve got all these wonderful resources at their fingertips.”