StRUT brings computers to schools

Technology directors from 15 education service districts throughout the state met last week in Sisters to learn how to take advantage of two major gifts to Oregon schools.

Under a program called StRUT (Students Recycling Used Technology), Intel has donated 10,000 Pentium II computers to be dispersed to school districts in Oregon, with 2,000 going to each congressional district in the state.

Oregon Graduate Institute (OGI) is making available a new program for the class-room that lets students build their own spoken language systems that use speech recognition, speech synthesis and facial animation.

"With these combined tools, students from the smallest school districts in the state to those in metropolitan areas like Portland will be able to experience state-of-the-art technology," said Dee Carlson, statewide director for StRUT.

"The CSLU tool kit provides teachers and students, for the first time ever, with leading-edge speech technologies for learning and language training," says Professor Ron Cole, director of the Center for Spoken Language Understanding at OGI.

The class in Sisters was taught by Sisters High School teacher Jon Renner. Educational service district representatives from all around the state came to learn how to use the CSLU software on the Pentium computers donated by Intel.

"Jon Renner's skills lead us to Sisters for the class," said Gary McFarlane, of Roseburg. McFarlane is an Instructional Technology Specialist at Douglas Education Service District. "He (Renner) did an excellent job. He's a great resource to have."

Renner said that "one of the best things to come from this workshop was learning about the Pentium II grant program, the one where 10,000 computers are to be placed into Oregon schoolsthe computers distributed through this program will be fully equipped too, not bottom-of-the-barrel models, so that they will be able to run all the new software available, and stay "current' for a time."

For Sisters schools, according to Renner, the program also offers the possibility of the "creation of a real language lab, something (Spanish teacher) Ms. Quiros has been after for years, but which has always been beyond our district's reach another is putting these computers in classrooms where they can be connected to the world as well as each other."

In Sisters, the ESD representatives also learned how to work with graphics, and multimedia. The skills that were learned at the workshop will be put into use as soon as this coming school year.

The Intel Pentium II computers were assembled by the representatives themselves. OutlawNet employees assisted when needed.

Grants for this class were provided by the Intel Corporation, The Fred Meyer foundation and other foundations that support StRUT.

Schools will begin receiving the new Pentium (R) II processor based computers with CSLU software by mid-September, according to StRUT's Carlson.