Dell's TechKnow program helps bridge 'digital divide'

By Jim Stafford

Published: May 20, 2008

Alia Matthews took apart a Dell desktop computer in her classroom at Rogers Middle School and put it back together again. It still worked.

Then the eighth-grader took the computer home, where it serves her and her family today.

Matthews, 14, was one of 380 middle school students from the Oklahoma City Public School District who graduated from Dell Inc.'s TechKnow program in a ceremony Monday on the Dell campus.

"I learned how to take apart a computer, reassemble it, and I learned how to download and upgrade my software,” Matthews said of the program that benefited an underserved student population enrolled in the after-school program.

"I just learned a lot about computers that I didn't know.”

Each of the participating students received 40 hours of instruction from a Dell TechKnow-trained teacher, learning how to break down a computer and reassemble it, as well as the finer points of installing software.

Then the participating students got to take the refurbished Dell computers home with them.

This was the second Oklahoma City Public School District graduating class in the Dell TechKnow program coordinated by Howard Walker, the district's educational technology coordinator.

Students gain more than just computer skills through the program, Walker said.

"We have a number of students who don't have a computer in their homes, so therefore it helped close the digital divide between the haves and have-nots,” Walker said.

"What we did over the last two years is send home approximately 600 computers to students and families who prior to that may not have had a computer in the home.”

Computer specialist Candi Ahrens at Telstar Elementary School worked with students drawn from several schools and saw the value of the program as a self-esteem builder.

"It really gives them a sense of possession, like their first primary possession or ownership of something that is theirs and only theirs,” Ahrens said.

"This really gave them more freedom with their own computer because there either wasn't a computer and they had to go to the public library, or there was a family computer and they had to wait for brother or sister or mom and dad to work on it before they could get on it.”

Dell has graduated 22,000 students at 60 school districts nationwide that have participated in the TechKnow program, said Tom Benson, Oklahoma City site director.

"The objectives are to provide these kids the opportunity to be part of a start-to-finish process in which they have the ability to either complete the program or back out of the program,” Benson said. "These kids have all accomplished that task.

"I think it is critical to provide these kids skills and abilities (they can apply later in life).”

The TechKnow program will evolve next year into more of a campus troubleshooting program for high schools students, said Allen Wilson, a Dell account executive for state and local governments in Oklahoma and North Texas.

TechKnow students will staff a campus "call center” set up to take calls about malfunctioning equipment, Wilson said.

"It gives them troubleshooting skills and also gives them skills they can take with them later on in life,” Wilson said of the new focus of the program.

That's the future that Rogers Middle School eighth-grader Matthews envisions for herself after learning new skills through the TechKnow program.

She was honored Monday as the Rogers Middle School TechKnow Student of the Year for sharing her skills with fellow students.

"I want to have a job that is something like this so I can work with computers,” Matthews said. "That's one reason I took the class. They just fascinate me, how they work. There are so many things you can do on them.”

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