However, on a handful of occasions he has been called out of class to help. For his efforts, he will receive credit toward the 40 hours of volunteer work all Ontario high-school students are now required to fulfill by the end of Grade 12, Ms. Little says. At Pleasant Park Public School in Ottawa, parents and a grandfather help to keep computers running smoothly, principal Scott Andrew says. Every day of the school week, these adults volunteer in the computer lab, where about a dozen kindergarten to Grade 6 students at a time use computers to do mathematics, play English and French word games, learn keyboarding and conduct Internet research. Although much of the adults' role is supervisory, they're often called on to retrieve files that mysteriously disappear, reboot computers and fix printers.
Parents are essential. . . .
At Don Mills Collegiate Institute in Toronto, the troubleshooters are Grade 11 and 12 students enrolled in the school's technology program. The students, whose course includes basic networking principles, Windows NT and network management, regularly help teachers repair keyboards and printers and often drop into classrooms to help instructors with other tasks, such as linking computers to film projectors. Sholom Eisenstat, program team leader for the school's technology department, sees real benefit in that. We are not faking it here. Rarely does what they are doing go perfectly smooth, so they are getting great experience and picking up some valuable knowledge.