TIPS Volume 3, No. 7
March, 2003

     Grade Level Key 
     = Elem, = Middle
     = High, = Teachers

PLD Project at Garden Springs

by J.D. Stucker

The STLP at Paul Laurence Dunbar has been giving technical assistance to Garden Springs Elementary since the spring of 2002. We have been arriving at Garden Springs every week and helping them around their school. We do things such as teach their students new skills as well as improve on the hardware that they currently have. This significantly aids the staff at Gardens Springs because it allows them additional time with their every growing STLP and they spend less time fixing problems.

I began this project in my freshman year with a team of five people. I had assisted Garden Springs in elementary and middle school and then when I got to PLD I decided to begin a service project of my own helping my former elementary school. I recruited four new STLP members in the spring of 2002 and we began helping Garden Springs for the remainder of the 2002 school year. Then in the beginning of my sophomore year I found another two STLP members and continued my service project. It has been continuing ever since.

We have taught the students how to work with different Microsoft programs and even how to install software and new pieces of hardware. We also have installed new computers around the school and eliminated problems with malfunctioning hardware. A large project that is still continuing is the reorganization of the Garden Springs wiring closet. We recorded where all of the wires in the school were going and what drops needed to be active and then removed all of the wires. When all of the wires were removed we replaced them with shorter more efficient wires. Our next step is to install wire management in the closet to insure that the wiring stays clean and organized.

The reason that we started to help Gardens Springs was because of their growing need for technical assistance and their growing STLP program. Garden Springs had just started a STLP when PLD began coming and we wanted to lend them a hand in getting started and going somewhere with it. They now have a very active STLP program full of curious students. We hope that by familiarizing the younger STLP members we will better prepare them for STLP in middle and high school.