Computer Education

The Clinton administration just announced an ambitious plan to meet the growing demand for high-tech workers, an effort that would include millions of dollars for recruitment and training. At the same time, Gov. Pete Wilson's plan for California Virtual University has received a financial endorsement from five major high-tech firms. But the number of computer science majors in American universities is dropping, raising fears that the technology engine driving our economy may run out of fuel.

Before heading to his job as a machine operator, Danilo Perez perches in front of a computer screen glowing with an Excel spreadsheet. Perez, 44, is learning computer basics at the nonprofit Academia Computer Learning Center, which was opened in an office building in October by two high-tech specialists who want to close the gap between computer haves and have-nots among Spanish speakers.

There used to be waiting lists for Rick Ord's classes as students packed 200-seat auditoriums to scribble down bits of code once thought to unlock a life of riches and security. These days, Ord's lectures on systems programming at UC San Diego convene in smaller halls with plenty of empty seats. It's the same scene on campuses across the country, as enrollment in computer science programs has dropped sharply -- down 23% from 2002 to 2003.

The Kremlin has a problem. The Soviet Union cannot allow itself to be left hopelessly behind in the computer revolution that is sweeping the world. But Communist rulers break into a cold sweat at the thought of giving millions of Soviet citizens access to computerized information banks. The question is how many bytes the Kremlin thinks that it can take before the computer gnaws holes in the country's internal walls of secrecy.

California leads the world in technological innovation but trails the nation in the percentage of students with access to computers in the classroom. A study last year by Education Week magazine ranked California dead last among states, with 8.1 students per classroom computer compared with a national average of 5.7. State legislators and the Gray Davis administration are planning several major initiatives to bridge this digital gap.

Last month, I testified at a hearing in the Texas State Capitol about the proposal under consideration here to replace public school textbooks with laptop computers and CD-ROMs. I attended this event at the invitation of Dr. Jack Christie, the chairman of the Texas State Board of Education and the man behind this idea. Dr.

In a bid to expand its presence in the education, home and small-business markets, IBM on Tuesday introduced a small, low-priced personal computer that is expected to compete with equipment made by Tandy Corp. and Apple Computer. The new Personal System/2 Model 25 is the lowest-priced offering of the Personal System/2 line of computers unveiled by IBM in April.

When I was a college student, luxuriating in the liberal arts and thinking as little as possible about my career, I decided to fulfill a (minimal) math and science requirement by taking an introductory computer course--and thus learned to program in a language called Fortran. The textbook was titled "Fortran for Humans"--today it would undoubtedly be called "Fortran for Dummies," a shift whose symbolism I don't even want to contemplate--and that's the main thing I remember about the class.

Betty Aten, principal of Orion Elementary School in Redwood City, Calif., is part of the new breed of educators well versed in teaching the three R's--RAM, ROM and Relational Database. Orion, the public school that my two children attend, is a veritable playground for the technologically inclined. The school serves kindergarten through sixth-graders from a variety of ethnic and economic backgrounds.

Brian Schwartz, 16, practically grew up with a computer mouse in his hand, so he doesn't think twice about the high-speed benefits of e-mail. Ruth Smith, 76, came of age writing letters in painstakingly precise cursive, then waiting several days for a response. Now, the tech-savvy teen and the traditional senior have been matched in an innovative one-on-one computer class designed to narrow the generation gap.

They call it the Hackademy. The so-called hackers school, on a dead-end street in a residential Paris neighborhood, is run by wiz kids who crack computer security codes as a sort of cyber-sport. Now they're taking what they've learned to the computer illiterati--regular people with a limited understanding of technology. "We are trying to make the underground go overground," said a 23-year-old instructor who calls himself Fozzy, his English thick with French during a telephone interview.

When Vicenta Velez was growing up in Jalisco, Mexico, her elementary school emphasized reading, writing and arithmetic--not FTP, Usenet and Unix. These days, Velez and her fourth-grade daughter, Mariela, are both learning computer literacy under a program that aims to bridge the "digital divide" in the working-class neighborhood of Pacoima.

While Magic Johnson has won many basketball games, his biggest victory, he says, will be when there is no technological divide in South Los Angeles. To make sure that happens, the Magic Johnson Foundation and Hewlett-Packard Co., along with the Los Angeles County Community Development Commission and AT&T, opened a renovated computer center Friday at the Ujima Village Housing Development. The center shows its technological and athletic roots.

Wearing flip-flops and shorts, low-income families who live at the Evergreen Royale Motel slipped out of their cramped rooms on a recent weekday and hopped on a state-of-the-art trailer. They aren't leaving town. They are poised to learn basic computer skills. Just in front of Room 715, behind the dull beige stucco buildings and beyond the unkempt lawn of the Anaheim motel, the Orange County Rescue Mission's computer-equipped trailer hums.

Twenty-five computers intended to help low-income residents in nearby apartments "bridge the digital divide" were stolen from the Dunbar Hotel, local community development officials said Thursday. The computers, worth $25,000 and most of them in their boxes, were in the second-floor computer lab run by the Dunbar Economic Development Corp., said agency Director Reginald Chapple. The hotel is at 4225 S. Central Ave.

When you're very young, mathematics can be a daunting prospect. It's somehow more palatable portrayed on a computer screen as a game of environmentally correct Math Blaster, or an old card game in Roxie's Math Fish. Those are two of the programs Dotti Swanson uses in her classes at Carden School of Camarillo, where she teaches computer lessons to seven-student classes from kindergarten to eighth grade.

It took the birth of her son Colin two years ago to show Liz Henry how to realize a lifelong dream of owning her own business. "Once you have a child, what the education system will do for you becomes a focus," Henry said. "There are real problems in the public school system. My husband felt as I do that we need to do some supplemental things for our children's lives that will give them as much of a boost as possible."

Leandro Oliveira flew in from Brazil to learn how to hack. Little did he know he'd be breaking into his own computer. During a class, the security consultant put into practice some newfound skills. He typed a few simple commands into a PC and bypassed a security firewall--at his company in Brasilia--meant to block intruders. Oliveira smiled. "I have to go back now and reconfigure my firewall and my machine," he said, shrugging.

Everywhere you looked at Animo Leadership High School on Sunday there were laptop computers. All 140 students at the new charter school serving the largely Latino community of Lennox were issued their own laptops to use for the school year. Fiorella Hernandez, 14, and her mother, Ana, were among those who went through a two-hour class to learn how to use her new Apple Computer iBook.