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High school computer technician and webmaster extraordinaire
Looking for a webmaster or technical assistance for your school? Some of the most skilled computer users might be sitting in your classroom. By Alicia M. Bartol SCR*TEC |
 oday, a unique
group of students are leaving high school. These students were toddling as
game-systems took over our TV sets and the personal computer became increasingly
more common. Some of these teenagers, lucky enough to have had a clackety Commodore,
represent the first generation to have experienced computing from
a very early age. Increasingly now, we will meet these students in our schools as home and school computing expand. One such student, Thomas J. Rothwell, has become the local computer guru for his high school community in El Dorado, Kansas. Rothwell, who prefers to be called TJ, began gaining recognition when he became El Dorado High School's webmaster at the age of fifteen. Now a seventeen year-old junior, TJ not only manages all of the EHS Web pages, including an extensive school newspaper, but he also provides technical support, computer salvage, and repair services to the school. |
 TJ Rothwell, computer guru at El Dorado High School. |
 ven
before high school, TJ had learned a lot about computer technology from
his brother George, who bought a computer when TJ was still in grade school.
"We had a Commodore 64 in the eighties," says TJ. Being interested in computers,
and the Internet especially, TJ hoped to learn HTML at El Dorado High, which
already had an online newspaper that had been created by his brother. "My
brother was the digital imagist ... for the newspaper. He recommended me
to the journalism teacher, for a class that was only offered to juniors
and seniors," said TJ. Based on that recommendation, the journalism teacher invited TJ to enroll in a multimedia publications course for the '96-'97 school year, in which TJ would undertake a complete overhaul and reorganization of the school Web site and online newspaper. To prepare for this, he taught himself HTML over the summer, from a textbook that he would be using in the fall of that year. He also consulted online tutorials and archives to learn simple CGI. Needless to say, TJ's knowledge surpassed that of his classmates learning basic HTML tags. In response, "the journalism teacher adjusted the curriculum for [TJ] because [he] was doing the whole Web site," says TJ. |
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teacher gave TJ the latitude to spend time researching, designing, and implementing
the new Web sites. Although basic sites for the school were already online,
TJ had the task of merging the sites with a consistent, easy-to-follow design.
He wanted to integrate the school pages with the newspaper, the EHS Crier
Online. "I pretty much had to start from scratch," says TJ. "At first, I
created everything ... I had to make almost all the graphics." Although
a couple students helped with some images, TJ did most of the backgrounds,
buttons, and headlines on his own using Photoshop. To design the school homepage, TJ did research online. He looked at different school sites to get an idea of common organizational techniques and content. He also says he had to consider "how users would go through the pages," so he chose a design using frames that allowed for easy navigation. "The school I actually went with was Lakeside School ... where Bill Gates went to elementary. I just [saw] how they organized it." The two sites, Lakeside and EHS, are actually very different, but TJ utilized certain design aspects from Lakeside, such as category information, to help users navigate. |
 TJ is the webmaster for his school's web site and its online newspaper, the Crier Online. |
 ccording
to TJ, "it [took] pretty much all of last year, when I was working on the
layout and content, and on how to organize everything and put everything
in there." It's a job that's really never finished, considering there are
weekly updates to the school information sites and monthly updates to the
Crier. "I've been updating the front page and the weekly calendar, which
is a list of all of the activities," says TJ. He's developed a weekly routine
for the posting: "The Activity Director usually releases it Monday or Tuesday
... I get a file on disc from the secretary, then I just use the CGI and
I post it." To handle the work load and still have some free time of his
own, the librarian, Sheryl Connell, encouraged TJ to enroll as a library
aid this year. "The curriculum is more directed towards me so I have time
to put things on the Web," says TJ. |
 or
the Crier Online, TJ posts a new edition monthly. Many EHS students come
together to create the Crier, and TJ simply puts it online. To make this
possible, the journalists use Works to key in their documents, then use
Pagemaker for layout. They save their files as "text only" so TJ can use
HTML without a hassle. The photographers also produce images that are compatible
with the Web. "[They] have their own darkroom back there. They develop it
... and then they scan it," says TJ. The digital imagist, or "scanner guy,"
saves the files at 72 dpi in jpg format, perfect for Web pages. Having a student webmaster for the paper is an added benefit. Librarian Sheryl Connell, who reviews the sites with the journalism teacher before they go up, says TJ's skills are a real asset. "He's in touch with the students and can give a different perspective to the Web page, maybe a more youthful design too," she says. Students at EHS access the Crier Online and the EHS homepage during the seminar period of their eight-block schedule. During this time, they can also do research on the Internet on one of the three library computers that are linked up to the Net. For TJ, helping these students is another aspect of his library aid curriculum. Connell, who supervises his library aid period, says "he does some peer tutoring on doing searches on the Internet. He's very knowledgeable about that." That's not the only thing he's got a handle on though. |
| "We
do a lot of salvaging of old computers, putting two or three together to
make one good one ... and [TJ] figures out which parts we need. He also
does research [to find] the best prices on computer parts." -Sheryl Connell,
El Dorado Librarian |
J
is a pivotal player in helping his school keep their computers up and running.
Connell says, "TJ provides technical support and computer repair work. We
do a lot of salvaging of old computers, putting two or three together to
make one good one ... and he figures out which parts we need. He also does
research [to find] the best prices on computer parts." Unlike HMTL, CGI,
or JAVA, this is perhaps the skill area that computer teachers do not, or
often cannot, impart upon their computer-thirsty students. In some schools,
tech ed and voc ed programs allow students to learn computer repair, but
this is still not the norm. Other than TJ's constant exposure to computing
and likewise literate siblings, he had no training in computer salvage or
repair. Perhaps with more students growing up around computers, we'll run
into more intuitive students like TJ. For now, schools like El Dorado High School, which are not yet well funded for technology, have to make the most of grants, donations, and salvage. Moreover, students like TJ will continue to depend on the flexibility of teachers and administrators to help them achieve their goals by using individualized curriculums. Contributions such as TJ's are an immeasurable wealth to every school, one which we should try to build on and learn from. TJ anticipates even more extensive use of the sites he's created with future teacher involvement, such as pages concerning class activities and information. In fact, the pages are up, but "under construction," awaiting a brave teacher with an idea. In the meantime, high school graduation for TJ is just over a year away, and he and Connell are on the lookout for an apprentice to teach the trade. |
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