Aspiring Teacher Wants Kids to Know Their Computer ABCs

From the time Karen Yip was about the age her pupils are now, she aspired to be a teacher. Around the same time, she got her first introduction to computers.

“I was in the third grade, and we had two Apple computers and the old-type mouse,” Yip recalls. “The only program we had was ‘Move the mouse 90 degrees; now, move the mouse 160 degrees.’ All I remember doing in the third grade was clicking. Now, I look back and that was so pointless. It wasn’t until high school that I learned how to type.”

Today, at 21, Yip is making sure the kids she instructs acquire an early understanding of the technical tools they’ll need for the future.

The Cal State L.A. senior is one of two para-educators teaching basic computer skills to third- through sixth-graders in the new computer lab at Betty Plasencia Elementary School in Echo Park. The part-time job suits Yip’s schedule and career goals, and she plans to continue it while working toward her teaching credential and a master’s degree in education.

“I think what is offered here for children now is so rewarding,” says Yip, who in her black jeans, oversize sweater and loafers, could pass for a big sister to the youngsters in her class. “Many people come from low-income families, where they don’t have access to computers unless they go to a library or computer lab.”

Yip conducts three 45-minute classes a day to 15 to 30 pupils on the lab’s 16 computers. As they wait for the software to connect online, Yip uses the time to teach basic typing. The computers also came equipped with a sign language program, which she uses to familiarize pupils with signing. “I’m letting them know communication is worldwide, with hands, verbally, e-mail,” she explains.

Yip began working at the school last year as a teacher’s aide through the Los Angeles Unified School District’s para-educator program. The program, begun about three years ago, has produced 600 K-12 teachers by providing partial tuition reimbursement, job counseling and mentor support. Pay ranges from $8 to $9 an hour for teacher’s aides to $18 an hour for special-education workers. “We not only get very good aides for a while, but we also get very good teachers,” says program director Steve Brandick.

The program coincided with the district’s launching of the LAUSDnet Internet program and the creation of a Web page (https://www.lausd. k12.ca.us). To date, LAUSDnet provides Internet access to about 225 of the district’s approximately 600 schools, and about 40,000 teachers and students have LAUSDnet accounts. That makes the district the largest public educational institution in the country with Internet access, says Andy Rogers, coordinator of the district’s instructional technology.

For Yip, the technological advances fit nicely into her ambition to one day run her own preschool.

“I already have a sense of what it will look like, and computers are definitely involved,” Yip says. “They are so important in learning.

“I want to make every child a well-rounded person.”

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Bio Box

Name: Karen Yip

Position: Para-educator, Los Angeles Unified School District

Education: Bachelor’s degree candidate, Cal State Los Angeles