Hello to the community.

My wife and I own a small private k-8 school in Costa Mesa, California. We are a high academic school with an extreme emphasis on technology. We have 50+ computers for our 65 students. Our fourth through eighth grade students have computers on their individual desktops.

Our technology component has taken us anywhere from communicating with astronauts aboard the space shuttle to video conferencing with our students in France, Fiji, London, or Abu Dhabi in an extended absence from school program we developed.

Our latest foray is in the field of dv. Bob Jones, of Skycrane, is a very good friend of mine. He has donated many hours filming our school events that raise scholorships for needy families. It is throuh his prodding that we now are developing a multi-media/dv program of our own.

In closing, I would just like to state that I have been "lurking" here for the past nine or so months and couldn't be more impressed with the integrity and quality of this board.

Keep up the great work Chris and friends. It is through helping others that we gain the most.

Sean (Mr. B)

Great to have you here Sean, please tell Bob and Barb that I said hello!

10-4 Chris. Thanks for the welcome.

Mr. B,
welcome aboard, your schools sounds great, I wish there were schools like that when I was growing up.

I'm curious to know what type of computers your school has and what DV software you guys are planning to use?

see you on the boards!

Hi Rik:

Yes, we do feel our school is quite unique.

Our computers are PCs of all types. Several have been sent in by parents of our students when they decide to upgrade. We accept anything they throw our way as we can always find something in it to use if it is not fully functioning.

The rest the 7th and 8th grade students build. I go out to the local computer shows, collect a bunch of components, and we have a workshop during the summer where they put them together. This is what makes it affordable, not to mention that when something goes wrong, I don't have to drop everything and go fix a problem; I just send a student to do the house call. They also maintain the network for the same reason. This last summer we built 8 AMD 1.8 GHZ machines and they are all humming away. If you're interested, you can see last year's workshop at http://www.klineschool.com/rm6/html/computers.html

We have been using Media 100's "Cinestream" for our DV software as it seems pretty straightforward for the kids. We are also looking into "Vegas Video" but that may have to wait until the summer break so I can sit down and spend some time with it.

So enough about my gig. How about yourself? What sent you down the DV track?

Sean

<<The rest the 7th and 8th grade students build....This is what makes it affordable, not to mention that when something goes wrong, I don't have to drop everything and go fix a problem; I just send a student to do the house call. They also maintain the network for the same reason.>>

If that isn't an example to schools all over the world on how to run a school, I don't know what is. Great, great program Sean.

Thanks John. Thanks a ton. We just feel that the higher you set the bar, the higher the kids (our future citizens) can jump.