COMPUTER UPGRADE IN CLASSROOMS.

Byline: Sonia Giordani Daily News Staff Writer

Bryan Weiser pulled his chair up to a computer at the back of his fourth-grade classroom and settled in to edit a writing assignment he had started the day before.

Instead of gripping a pencil to correct his printed essay, the Round Meadow Elementary School pupil lay a steady hand on the computer mouse and proceeded through an electronic spell check.

``I'm going to save it on my disk and then print it and turn it in,'' said Weiser, 9, who later helped classmate Alex Contis create a file and start an assignment based on Judy Blume's classic ``Tales of a Fourth Grade Nothing.''

``Most of these kids have had experience on the computers from their earliest years,'' said the boys' teacher, Linda McIndoe. ``At this age, learning is a really visual process. So working with a spell checker to go over spelling or using a graphics program to make a map to teach a history lesson can be a big advantage.''

With a generation of children growing up with electronic devices of all sorts wrapped in their nimble fingers, area schools have been stepping up to the challenge of the technology revolution. By training teachers and bringing computers into the classroom, school districts are hoping to give education new life.

``We have to seek out new ways to motivate our students,'' said John Fitzpatrick, superintendent of the Las Virgenes Unified School District, which encompasses 13 schools.

``Last year, we had a big push in staff development to help teachers utilize the technology as a tool. Now we are trying to have greater inclusion of the computers in the actual instruction of math and language arts, where students can learn and understand the material through computers,'' he said.

In the past two years, Fitzpatrick said the district has invested more than $500,000 in technology upgrades, putting more PCs in computer laboratories - where their use is taught as a separate discipline - but also right into the classrooms.

Each of Las Virgenes' eight elementary schools has at least one computer per classroom, although most have three to five, said Deputy Superintendent Don Zimring. And at Lindero Canyon and A.E. Wright Middle schools, 60 percent to 70 percent of the classrooms have at least one computer.

``We want technology to be as integral a part of the classroom as a pencil or a textbook,'' Zimring said.

To help, the Las Virgenes school board last month approved hiring two computer experts to support teacher and student training efforts.

``The goal is really to have the kids using these computers as a tool in their learning,'' said Gina Amenta, the district's technology specialist for the past three years. ``What I have proposed is having teachers rethink how they teach and to get the students actively involved in the learning process.''

Of the district's more than 500 teachers, just over 300 have been trained in computer basics and Internet use, she said.

``As teachers learn to use the computers more effectively in their presentations, they can better involve the kids in their learning,'' Amenta said.

The notion of transforming computers into a learning tool rather than diversionary games for kids was taken up a couple years ago by the Education Technology Office, a division of the State Department of Education.

``Our goal is to integrate computers into the curriculum to better teach science and math and to improve writing and research skills,'' said Glen Thomas, manager of the Sacramento-based office.

But California has a ways to go in achieving its goal. The state ranked 45th in the nation in the ratio of computers to students in a 1995 study, Thomas said.

But the state hopes to use grants and voter initiatives to finance more hardware and teacher instruction, he said, so that every teacher undergoes training by the turn of the century.

Thomas added that the new academic standards, which the state is expected to pass within the year, will call for new skills that students can achieve only by using a computer.

``The tighter the connection with the instruction, the better the use of the technology we are installing in the classrooms,'' he said.

CAPTION(S):

Photo: Teacher Linda McIndoe instructs her fourth-grade students onthe basics of using computers.

Evan Yee/Daily News