Technology Class Prepares Students For Their Futures

The best high school technology classes in the region found their origins in a cramped arts and crafts room at Lakes Middle School.

In 1995, Mike Clabby acquired a small Macintosh computer for his art class. “They made me teach U.S. history in my tiny computer room, so I said: `You could do me a favor and just give me 25 kids instead of 35,’ and I told them I’m gonna try an experiment - we’re going to spend the entire year and create a historical CD-ROM.”

Since then, Clabby has accumulated more than $125,000 worth of equipment, and he’s using it to give hundreds of Lake City High School students high-tech skills in his computer graphics and multi-media classes.

The goal of Clabby’s classroom is unique. “I’ve gone to companies like Unique Printing and I’ve asked: `If you want me to bring you future employees, what do you want them to know? What do they need to be able to do?”’

“By the time we leave his class, he wants us to have the skills that highly paid professionals have,” said Lake City Senior Jared Jonas. “We’re getting skills that most other high school students aren’t getting. Partly because the hardware is just so advanced and so expensive, few high schools can find the funding for it.”

Clabby has come a long way since his classroom at Lakes Middle School. And, moving to Lake City was a big step forward for him. “At the middle school I was very limited because of the level of the kids, and the financial resources, and you just can’t do this without incredible backing from administrators. It is really hard to go out and ask for big donations when you’re at a middle school.”

His move to the high school gave him that final boost for technology. “When I got to the high school, I shot my vision really wide. I had spent years and years researching and dreaming. Now, I was getting the tech.”

And, with more advanced kids, he could use that technology more effectively. “Instead of me being the driving force, the kids pulled me along,” Clabby said. “They have incredible potential, and you never know which ones. So I’m just the facilitator. I bring them the tools, and they absolutely blow my minds with what they make with it.”

A current project that Clabby is working on involves a silicon graphics workstation (SGI), a high-level 3D animation computer that he bought with a grant. Worth about $16,000, this computer was his biggest purchase yet.

With this machine, his class is creating a CD-ROM about the history of North Idaho. The class will donate the creation to North Idaho Museum, and eventually it may see its way into other high school classrooms.

“Originally, I had some kids that were far out on the edge doing very professional work in the community,” he said. “They told me that I had nothing left for them. So I asked them what they needed. They told me that they wanted to sink their teeth into a big project; some serious animation.”

“I asked, how about if we create a CD-ROM about North Idaho, and incorporate 3D animation into it. We talked about it, and wrote the grant, and now I have a silicon graphics workstation, and they are making it a reality.”

Jonas is part of the six-person team working on the disk. “The independent study was designed around the SGI that we got,” he said. “And it was for a group of kids that he (Clabby) would choose, and produce a multi-media KIOSK for the museum. It’s meant to liven up the museum. It is totally interactive, and really high-level.”

So far, Jonas and the others have logged more than 90 hours in planning and producing. They plan to spend well over 100 before it’s completed.

Clabby said he’s also proud of a new high-tech printer that he acquired, called Juice Tiger Productions. The printer is capable of doing professional oversize printing jobs. And he is putting it to use.

“My goal is to promote this school and its students, to the kids, for the kids, and by the kids.”

There are backlit wooden boxes throughout the school, and he prints the material that goes in them. Right now, he is taking one full box, and using it to recognize one student a month.

“There are incredible achievements out there, and we have to recognize them,” he said. “We need to show the athletes that other kids are doing incredible things, too.”

This type of promotion was entirely run by Clabby and his graphics and media classes.

Clabby gets most of his money from grants, from organizations like the Excel Foundation.

“Without Excel, this program wouldn’t be here,” he said. “Every year they fund me.”

He also gets state, district and corporate grants. Macromedia and Adobe have donated software valued at $20,000.

Empire Airlines said it wanted to fund his program. The Idaho Community Foundation gave him the grant for the SGI machine. And, with a regular budget of only $900, he desperately needed the grants.

What do you need to run a program like this?

Clabby says you need a motivated facilitator, and a supportive administration like Lake City’s.

Jonas said you need Mike Clabby. “Clabby is extremely important,“ Jonas said. “Clabby doesn’t necessarily have all the skills that we do, but he is providing us with an opportunity to use the most cutting-edge technology; for us to learn it. He is throwing it out there, and saying: `Go fetch.’ Then he watches to see how far we take it. He really motivates us.”

Clabby agreed. “The kids get so far ahead of me,” he said. “While I’m teaching, they’re taking this technology and going places. And I’m not intimidated by that at all. That is how learning is supposed to be. I love it.

“I want this program to mimic the real world so closely that kids that come out of this classroom, no questions asked, get hired anywhere in the country for good jobs,” he said.

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