TECHNOLOGY CONFERENCE WILL AID SCHOOL DISTRICTS

School officials, hoping to upgrade the technology they use in the classroom and in operation of their schools, attended a Technology Conference Wednesday at the Cape Girardeau Area Vocational-Technical School.

Schools from throughout Southeast Missouri were represented.

"Technology shows are usually held in metropolitan area, St. Louis and Kansas City," said Fred Becker, with Computer Junction, the company which put on the conference. "We decided to bring some equipment and software down here to let school officials get a hands-on look at what's available."

Cape Girardeau schools hosted the conference. Superintendent Neyland Clark said, "We are looking at where Cape Girardeau is and where it is moving in the area of technology and what's available. We have had discussions about micros, minis, mainframes, networking and multi-media.

"We decided we needed to explore what's out there and educate ourselves a little."

Clark said, "We have a tremendous obligation to maintain this type of atmosphere for our students where there is interaction between machines and people."

He said upgrading technology requires a plan.

The conference included presentations on equipment and software and discussions about what would be appropriate depending on what schools need done.

Robert Bax, a principal from Jennings High School in St. Louis, spoke about his school district's move to computerization, with very little cash investment.

The district was spending $42,000 each year in a cooperative arrangement to have attendance reports, report cards and historical records compiled. "We were spending $42,000 and the grade point averages came out wrong," Bax said, "We said `Let's try it on our own.'"

The school district now utilizes computers for interoffice mail, purchasing, testing, curriculum guides, state reporting, scheduling, health and immunization record-keeping, and student instruction.

"We put our typewriters up this year for the first time," said Bax. "We teach a keyboarding class now instead of Typing I."

In addition to discussions about equipment, the school officials got a chance to actually use the computer equipment.