The Classroom

by Tracy Keirns

The school where I teach had a ton of Macs donated by a local college. They were older than what we were already using in our classrooms, so we came up with a way to get them out in the community...we raffled them off at our school carnival. I volunteered to clean, test, and reformat them in exchange for all of the compact black and white Macs. I ended up with about 15 of them. Anyway, I found a site on the internet that showed how to paint a SE, and that gave me the idea to do it in my classroom. I teach 4th and 5th grade special education, and had about 17 kids last year. We took the computers apart. I removed the CRT, and would not let the students around that part of the computer. We blew them out really good with an air compressor. Popped the Apple off the front with a paperclip. Taped over the name on the front, and took the cases outside. In groups of 3 they spray painted the cases, using about a can of spray paint per computer. Funny thing, it was the first time all year that they actually listened to me for more than a minute or two! Anyway, after the cases dried (we had also popped the keyboard apart and painted the top of it as well) we put them back together and fired them up. All had been tested before the project began to make sure we were working on computers that actually worked. Then we reformatted them with OS 6.0.8, installed some software, and tested them out. The kids learned how to install software, the parts inside a computer, etc. Once the project was completed the kids were able to use the computers when they had free time. I have an iMac, 3 5500's, and all of those colorful SE's. The kids prefer to use the old "outdated" computers over the iMac! Guess it is because they did the work themselves.

We had to stop our project before actually finishing all of the SE's I had accumulated because administration was concerned about the liability issues if a kid got shocked. Our tech coordinator told me the superintendant had ordered that no computers were to be opened in any classrooms where kids had access to them. So I took the rest of the computers home. I will probably take them apart at home and take the cases in to be painted by the students that I will have this year.

So, that's pretty much it. A great way to get kids hooked on the Mac!