PLAYING COMPUTER CATCH-UP : VOLUNTEERS WIRE 20 MORE VALLEY SCHOOLS TO NET.

Byline: Eric Wahlgren Daily News Staff Writer

Saws wheezed and power drills whined across the San Fernando Valley on Saturday as hundreds of volunteers began wiring local schools to the information superhighway.

As part of NetDay2, parents and technicians at more than 20 Valley schools laid cables and set up other equipment that will enable the institutions to plug into the Internet.

The all-day blitz to propel mostly technology-poor schools into the high-tech age was essentially a replay of a March event organized by private companies and schools statewide.

``Everybody knows that computers are the wave of the future,'' said Gregg Mannon, the parent of a fifth-grader at John B. Monlux Elementary School in North Hollywood, where he was helping to install computer network wiring with a dozen other volunteers.

``These kids will be computer literate by the time they are ready to work,'' said Mannon, a 41-year-old self-employed handyman from Winnetka, making a plug for getting his son Ryan's school on line.

Chat with scientists at leading universities. Compare notes on research projects with elementary schools in England. Flick through photographs of the Great Depression. Or turn in homework from home.

These are all things students will be able to do once they fire up their computers and log on to the Internet, said the techno-happy crowd gathered at Monlux Elementary on Saturday.

``The Internet is more up to date than our textbooks,'' said teacher Brenda Gauff. ``This is something the students can immediately tap into, and it's relevant. It holds their interest.''

But Gauff said once the school is fully connected to the Internet sometime later this year, she has every intention of still making students learn the old way - with pencil, books and paper.

``We want to make sure the computers don't replace the teacher,'' Gauff said with a chuckle.

Like the more than 100 schools in the Los Angeles Unified School district that took part in Saturday's push to get wired, Monlux Elementary received a special $500 start-up kit from a private company.

The package - from Pacific Bell - included the cable and hardware needed to hook up five classrooms and a computer lab and came with some extra wiring donated by the city Department of Water and Power.

Among the computer-savvy types putting the jumble of cables and connectors to use were parents like Mannon and volunteers from the LAUSD's Information Technology Division.

``I never thought we would get the Internet,'' said Carol Umlas, a third-grade teacher, echoing the comments of many on the value of NetDay2. ``There's always a money shortage.''

The NetDay program was launched in March by John Gage of Palo Alto-based Sun Microsystems and Michael Kaufman of KQED, a San Francisco public television station, in an effort to boost computer literacy.

LAUSD officials estimate that about 50 of more than 600 city schools are already connected to the Internet, with at least 100 more in various stages of installing the hookups.

But the fact that Justice Street Elementary School in West Hills is an older campus did not intimidate the more than 15 volunteers, who turned out to help assemble computer cable conduits and lay wires.

Fifth-grade teacher Shep Ginzburg, who was listening to jazz piping out of the radio of his 1964 Valiant convertible while he was installing conduits, said he believed all this work would pay off in more opportunities for students.

He doubted that the Internet was just another fad, saying, ``We have to get these kids prepared for a future that is highly computerized.''

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2 Photos

Photo: (1) Russ Voyce lowers cable into a classroom at M onlux Elementary School in North Hollywood during Saturday's NetDay2.

(2) Volunteers wired classrooms for the Internet at more than 20 Valley schools.

David Richard Crane/Daily News