The Denver Public Schools Computer Magnet program will open its doors to the public on Thursday, Nov. 21 from 6:00 p.m. to 7:30 p.m.

Parents, educators, local business partners, and all interested individuals are invited to tour the Computer Magnet program labs, including new Sun Microsystems technology.

Staff and students of the computer magnet programs along with Denver Hispanic Chamber of Commerce will host the Open Houses.

The magnet program is offered at two locations - North High School (2960 N. Speer Blvd) and Thomas Jefferson High (3950 S. Holly St). Simultaneous events will be held at each location.

Denver Public Schools has supported the computer magnet program for over fifteen years. Now in its second year of operation since a sweeping redesign, the Computer Magnet program offers a closely-knit curriculum to high school students in the Denver area.

Students gain hands-on experience crafting practical solutions to real-world problems through lab-based practice, projects solicited from the community, mentoring, and internships. Student interaction with peers, faculty, and mentors from the business community sharpens students’ communication skills.

At the Open Houses, students from the four-year DPSCM program will be sharing information about the strands in which they major:

• Technician
• Web Applications
• Software Engineering

The Open Houses will also honor Sun Microsystems, which donated the hardware, software, and training valued at over $60,000 to build brand-new Solaris Operating Environment computer labs at each high school. Sun employees also volunteered dozens of hours of time to coach school faculty and students on the installation, configuration and technical support of the labs.

The recent grant from Sun Microsystems expands the Computer Magnet program curriculum to include training in the Solaris™ Operating Environment, Sun's well-respected version of the UNIX® operating system. The addition of the Solaris/UNIX Operating Environment training to the curriculum enables the Computer Magnet program to offer every student experience using Macintosh, Windows and UNIX operating systems, at least one of which is running on nearly every computer in the world.

Computer Magnet program faculty will integrate Solaris training into each of its three strands:

• Students in the Technician strand will learn how to install and navigate the operating system.
• Students in the Software Engineering strand will work in the robust Java programming environment offered by the Sun Microsystems, the originators of Java technologies.
• Students in the Web Applications strand will be mounting web pages on the Sun server, gaining experience with the system that serves most large corporate web pages.

For more information, please contact computer magnet coordinator Gary W. Goodnight, 303-964-2894 or 303-691-7149.