An Economical Package for Acceptable I.T. Facilities in High Schools

(Paper Presented in the 2nd National E-learning Conference, August 7-8, 2003)


Abstract

The study formulated an economical package for quickly bringing I.T. facilities to the hands of secondary school constituencies. The guiding principle is that once the facilities are made available in the schools, educational content will be easy to deliver. The study also explored what other public high schools can learn from the experiences of leading public high schools in the towns of Los Baños and Sta. Cruz in Laguna.

The per-student cost of the formulated economical package is identical to what is currently being incurred in the Los Baños high schools. There is an annual student fee of P450-500 being supported by parents through their Parent-Teacher Associations. Target exposure of students to I.T facilities, such as number of hands-on hours per week, needs to be clearly specified. Greater participation of the clientele, such as parents and students, is needed to set and work towards a hands-on target. All the schools surveyed are procuring I.T. facilities on their own, with some grants obtained from DOST or DTI.

Background

With the country's ICT Plan up for implementation, the public education sector is expecting substantial investments in I.T. facilities. What are the acceptable and economical facilities suitable for high school education? This question needs to be answered given the reality of scarce resources.
Public high schools in Laguna, specifically in the towns of Los Baños and Sta. Cruz, are in an enviable position given their proximity to a large science and education community. The experiences of these schools in making I.T services available to students can offer guidance to other schools in the country.
What can other public high schools learn from the experiences of leading public high schools in the Los Baños and Sta. Cruz communities? The study focused on this question in relation to the provision of basic I.T. facilities for students. The assumption is that once the facilities are made available in the schools, educational content will be easy to deliver.

Objectives

The study was aimed to formulate an economical package for quickly bringing I.T. facilities to the hands of secondary school students.

The specific objectives were:

Methodology

Benchmarks were obtained about the type of acceptable facilities from three sources:

1. From the I.T. instructors;

2. From the system requirements of browsers and popular Learning Management Systems (LMS);

3. From the system requirements of Microsoft Windows Media Player for Windows 95 and later Windows® releases.

These benchmarks were considered in formulating the acceptable mix of I.T. facilities for the proposed model.

In addition, cost data from Internet Cafes were surveyed and input to the model.

Stories and insights from school officials were also obtained to verify the applicability of the proposed model and showcase relevant experiences.

Field data were gathered from the UP Rural High School (UPRHS), Los Baños National High School (LBNHS) and Pedro Guevara National High School (PGNHS), as well as from Internet cafes in Los Baños.

Results and Discussion

A.  Benchmarks

Students interface with Internet browsers in accessing educational content. In turn, browsers interface with Learning Management Systems (LMS) in delivering content. Many popular LMSes (an example is Claroline[1]) only requires that browsers be at least version 4 of Internet Explorer or Netscape, or version 5 of Opera. These browsers may be run in a PC-486 with at least 8 megabytes (Mb) of memory. The usual operating system for these browsers is Windows 95, which runs in a PC-486 with 8 Mb memory. More memory would mean faster performance, and a 16-Mb memory is preferred.

More sophisticated content may require audio-video capability. In this regard, Windows Media Player[2] for Windows 95 only requires a Pentium 90 megahertz (Mhz) PC with 16-bit sound card and 16-color display capability. For voice messaging over the network, a Pentium 100 Mhz is generally adequate. Pentium-class PCs are usually configured with 32 Mb memory, although 16 Mb is the required minimum in audio-video rendering in Windows 95. Also, Pentium PCs are usually capable of 256-color display. More advanced versions of media players require more advanced PC and operating system, but Windows 98 and Pentium 166 Mhz PC with 32 Mb memory, 16-bit sound card and 256-color display are generally adequate[3].

The expectations from I.T. instructors proved to be much higher than these specifications. Responses to the distributed questionnaire indicated a multimedia PC not lower than a Pentium III and browsers not earlier than Internet Explorer 5 or Netscape Navigator 6. Not surprisingly, the operating system mentioned was Windows 98 or more recent versions of Windows®. No mention was made of any operating system other than Microsoft Windows®. Thus, the instructors' expectations about I.T. facilities follow closely the trends in the commercial I.T. segment (distinct from that of open source).

B.  Internet Café Operations

Most Internet cafes in the UPLB community use Digital Service Line (DSL) at 256 Kbps speed. A café with 10 workstations pay a monthly fee of P4,500. Internet access by students in these cafes costs from P20 to P25 per hour.

Prepaid cards, the alternative means for Internet access, are also available, with a P100 card good for 5-7 hours, resulting to individual cost of P15-P20 per hour for Internet access. This is a useful cost benchmark for the model.

C.  The Model Package

Model formulation started with a desired two-hour weekly hands-on by students, as practiced in PGNHS (Sta Cruz). Thus, one computer may be used by 20 students, given 40 hours of I.T. classes per week.

This will distribute the cost of ownership of one PC to 20 students. If a modest Pentium 100 Mhz PC with 32 Mb memory and multimedia/network capability were to be purchased today, the cost will be about P5,000, or P250 per student.

A PC consuming 100 watts of power on average will consume about 1 kw-hr of electricity per day. At P6 total power charge per hour, this will give a P6 daily cost of electricity. However, some overhead will be needed for the server and printers, so a daily cost of P8 per workstation may be assumed.

The P4,500 monthly DSL Internet connection charge, when applied to 10 PCs and 22 days,  will result to a cost of about P20 per PC per day.

The total daily operating cost would therefore be P28, or P3.50 per hour (given 8 hours per day), or P7 per week per student (who is allowed 2 hours hands-on per week). On an annual basis, this will give P252 per year (given 36 weeks per school year).

Combining the cost of PC acquisition (P250 per student) and the annual cost of PC operation (P252 per student), the model results to P502 cost per student. If the prospect of buying a PC every year is questioned, one may instead consider buying a new PC and distributing the cost over 3 years. This way, a P5,000 cost per PC per year will also result, as a new PC currently costs P15,000.

The final adjusted per-hour cost of usage (given the P502 annual cost) is therefore P7 per hour or P14 per week. This cost is still very much lower than the P20-P25 charged by the Internet cafes, or the P15 hourly cost of prepaid cards.

D.  Experiences and Insights

Both high schools surveyed in Los Baños (LBNHS and UPRHS) have parents and teachers agreeing to contribute P450-P500 per year for the I.T. needs of their students.

Thus, the model economical package for making I.T. facilities accessible to students does not differ from what is currently being practiced in the leading Los Baños high schools. Moreover, the schools are actively soliciting funds from outside sources, and they were able to receive grants from DOST and DTI in the past.

Conclusions and Recommendations

An annual fee of P500 per student will enable high schools to procure acceptable I.T. facilities and Internet services independently. A hands-on of 2 hours per week is assumed in the plan.

This example economical model for acceptable I.T. facilities in high schools can simplify planning and procurement of I.T. facilities and services This will enable stakeholders, such as parents, students and teachers to work closely together and get quick results for the students' I.T. needs.

Literature Cited

1. System Requirements for Claroline (www.claroline.net) Accessed July 16, 2003.

2. Windows Media Player 6.4 System Requirements (https://www.microsoft.com/windows/windowsmedia/software/v7/sysreq.aspx) Accessed July 16, 2003.

3. Windows Media Player 7.1 System Requirements (https://www.microsoft.com/windows/windowsmedia/software/win32othersysreq.aspx) Accessed July 16, 2003.