Commodore Goes to Class

by Robert Bernardo

It's another day at my middle school. I push the cart of four Commodore monitors to my classroom.
Not having an alarm in the class, I have to store the monitors in the library every night. After I reach the
class, I start unloading the monitors to different corners of the room--one 1701 on one table, two more
on another table, and the Magnovox 8563 at the front table. I open the locked, steel cabinet that
houses the 3 C64's, the 1571 drives, and the C128D. The C64's and 1571's go by the 1701's, and the
8563 is placed on the C128D. I start connecting all the various cables between computers, monitors,
drives, and power strips.

The power strips are cheap surge protectors bought from the local Target department store, and these
are connected to outlet surge protectors for double protection. It's questionable whether I have enough
electrical protection; the school has bad electricity, and several power supplies --heavy duty and
regular--have gone down in the past. It's too bad that I can't afford an uninterruptible power supply
(u.p.s.).

All of the equipment is my own property that I have gathered over the years. The school prefers to
spend their money on the latest computer fad. A few years ago it was a network of Macintosh LCII
computers connecting almost every classroom. This year it's a network of Pentium 133 computers.

"You are not to load any of your software into the PC's," says our principal. "If the software has a virus
or somehow brings down the system, then you will be held liable for the $750,000 network." Needless
to say, students cannot use the PC computer; it's only for teachers' use--taking attendance, searching
student records, sending grades to the office, e-mailing other teachers, and using the Internet. The PC
has crashed twice already in four weeks of use, and it takes a specialist to rescue it. The software is still
full of bugs; our principal throws up her hands, "No, you still can't use that... No, only the office can
correct that right now... No, I'll have to send over the specialist..." Meanwhile, my students are happily
using the Commodores.

Life is rough in the school world--students pounding on keys, forcing joysticks wrongly into the ports,
dropping keyboards and power supplies, throwing unsleeved disks around onto tabletops, spreading
chalk dust about. Extra C64's come in handy; as soon as one breaks down, I have another to replace it
immediately, without the need of a specialist.

I seem to have a philosophical difference with the administration; they want teachers to use computers.
That's fine, but where is the student exposure to computers? It's far easier to bring several Commodore
computers into the classroom for the students to use than to go through all the red tape and all the
committees to get just one, very expensive PC.

I've been using Commodore computers in the classroom since 1984. In those days I would transport
my one C64 and cassette drive back and forth between the class and home. Then I graduated to an
SX-64 portable with a real, built-in disk drive, and the students would use that. By the late 1980's, I
was able to afford a C128 and 1571 at home, and keep the SX strictly for student use. By the
mid-1990's, I was able to obtain more C64's, drives, and TV/monitors for the students to use.

This week the students are using Hangman is improve their word recognition skills. Last week it was
Word Invaders to improve their keyboarding skills. Next week it will be Word Guess, Wiz Type, or
Wheel of Fortune. When book reports come, the students will use the Write Stuff (talking version) for
their papers. To decorate the covers of their book reports, they'll use Koalapad or Koalapen art
programs. Printouts of the reports will be done on the Citizen 200GX (Epson-compatible), 9-pin
printer. The Koala pictures are printed on a Canon PJ-1080A color inkjet printer. Later in the school
year the students will do a bit of desktop publishing by making signs, cards, calendars, and banners
with Printmaster 1.1a. To improve skills like map-reading, the students will use Agent U.S.A.. If there
is time in the school year, they may do some creative writing and animation with Show Director. By the
end of the year, they start compiling lists of their friends' interests with the commercial database, DFile
64 v.4.

In the meantime, I keep busy with the Commodore in classroom and at home. Grades are done on
Vizastar 128, usually with three windows open onto this spreadsheet. Papers are written with the Write
Stuff 128 v.2, or if I don't need to format the text right away, then with Zed.077. Student records are
dutifully copied into DFile 128 v.1 or v.2. What is not finished with the C128D at school is transferred
to disk and then worked on with the other C128D at home. At the end of the day, if I get tired of
staring at numbers or words, I pop in a game disk, a music disk, or a picture disk and relax with my
Commodore.

The Commodore is my work partner. The Commodore is my play partner. The Commodore is a
friend, in comparison to the cold, all-business PC sitting in my classroom. The Commodore has a
personality all its own. I suppose I value the Commodore more than I do the PC. As proof, in my
classroom the district has provided an expensive Tripp Lite surge strip to be used with their PC. The
surge strip has 4 outlets--2 with 50 joules of electrical protection and 2 with 75 joules. The C128D and
its monitor get the outlets with more protection. You can guess which outlets the PC gets.

From The Interface, newsletter of Fresno Commodore User Group, via the Commodore Information
Center, http://home.att.net/~rmestel/commodore.html