Recycling computers and putting those computers into the homes of students was one of the goals in the Delaware Education Connection Project this year. The experiences gained in the recycling process, distribution and support of those computers should prove very helpful in the planning and management of the project next year. Some of the experiences gained are described below.

How did the recycling process work?

Since there were no local recycling efforts at the time the grant was written, WHYY met with the Delaware Center for Educational Technology to discuss plans that the State of Delaware had of setting up a recycling center that would be staffed by Americorps workers. Although the centers plan was to only recycle computers for use in the classrooms of public schools, we successfully negotiated the use of up to 76 computers in the homes of both Catholic and Public School students. Once that hurdle was crossed, WHYY set out to find a secondary source of computers to back up the primary state source. The secondary source turned out to be C2 services, a private company that had a history as a factory authorized refurbisher of computer monitors and was interested in expanding into the computer recycling business.

Beginning in the summer of 1997 we negotiated the actual specifications of the computers which we were to buy in September and October. Both organizations were told that we could only pay $350 per computer and that the computer had to be a 486 33/DX with a 170 meg hard drive, 8 meg RAM, VGA Monitor, CDROM drive, SoundCard, speakers and 33.6 modem. Before long, it became clear that our secondary source could get computers of higher quality and at a lower price so we made the decision to only purchase 20 computers from the State center and the balance of more than 50 computers from C2 Services. By the end of the year, the state would only be able to deliver 12 of the 20 computers with C2 services delivering 60.

In retrospect, it is clear that recycling computers is not for the novice. There were many issues around the effectiveness of the computers that were not considered during the specification phase of the project. Issues like: "Can the video card support the 256 colors that are required to show pictures correctly?","Are all of the drivers installed correctly?", "Is the software to play audio CDs loaded and installed correctly?", "Is the soundcard and CDROM compatible so that audio CDs will play out the speakers attached to the soundcard?", "Do the computers have a local bus connection to the video and hard drive so that a 486 will run Windows95 with adequate speed.?", "Have the default online services that normally come with Windows95 been deleted so that the students wont be tempted to install America Online and mess-up the projects internet configuration?". Needless to say, next years project will consider all of these questions from the beginning.

How was distribution to the homes handled?

Early in the project it was decided that we would ask the entire class to come to the WHYY studios and "meet" the computer that they would take home that evening. Every computer was custom configured with the students internet account and password already entered into the computer. In addition, WHYY had installed 32 simultaneous phone lines so that every student could try logging into his or her account during the training event. The plan was that all the student needed to do was go home that evening and put the computer together and plug it in.

The entire school day was scheduled around this event. The students came to the studio in the morning to get trained by the official project trainers. The trainers gave an introduction to the software that was already installed on their computers, how to put their computers together when they home that evening, and how to connect to the internet. These project trainers would later continue the training of the students by coming to the class every other week throughout the year. Eventually the students would learn html and use the projects digital camera and scanner to create their own personal web pages.

Once the students completed the hands-on training in the WHYY studios, they returned back to their school for questions and answers while the computers in the studios were packed up and delivered to the school for the parents to take them home that evening. According the students homework, they were supposed to put their computers together that night and log into the internet. Over the next several days, WHYY visited their classrooms in order to make sure that everything was working properly.

Looking back, this turned out to be a very successful idea and implementation. Most students were up and running with their computers within a week or so. Next year, we will allow more time for the packing and delivery of the computers to the school. Also, there will be immediate followup from the support and trainers as well as from WHYY.

How was support handled?

Although we anticipated support as an issue, it turned out to be more problematic that even we expected. We contracted for unlimited telephone support and 70 hours of repair time from DCANet. In addition, we had a one year repair policy with C2 services and the project manager was also experienced with computer repair as a back up.

Unfortunately, the configuration process used up the 70 hours of repair time before the students ever received the computers. As a courtesy, DCANet continued to repair the computers at no cost to the project, but many computers were taken back to C2 and even more were personally repaired by the project manager and the staff of WHYY.

It is easy to look back and be overwhelmed by the support needs of a project like this one. But several experiences took place that indicate that support for this kind of project is possible. One experience was that we asked the students to bring their computer back to the school for repair instead of the project going to their home. This saved a great deal of time on the part of the project and the students didnt even seem to have a problem bringing the CPU back and forth on the bus. Another experience was the use of the public school as an on-location repair site. If possible, we will try and arrange for this in every school next year. The next significant experience was that most of the problems were due to bad hardware which should be correctable with better purchasing next year. The last significant issue was that of the development of an online technical support question and answer forum. It is hoped that this will also help in alleviating some of the support issues next year.

How do you feel about computer recycling now?

I am convinced that computer recycling can work, but the issues involved are not trivial. One of the hidden support structures that was not tapped in this project this year was the family. The amount of desired participation, particularly in the Catholic School was overwhelming. It was as likely that I would receive calls from parents as I would from the students. The idea that the family could be tied into the project and the educational process to the benefit of the teacher, the project, the family and the student looks very promising.

As we begin the planning for next year, much of what we did last year will be replicated. In addition, there are going to be the improvements mentioned above as well as others that we are considering. Next year should prove to be very exciting as we put all of these experiences to work in our second year of recycled computers in the home.