Q. What does PTC have to offer middle and high schools?

A. Commitment to secondary education is one of the cornerstones of the PTC Partnership for Innovative Learning. Already, over one million secondary school students use Pro/DESKTOP on a daily basis, many of them in the United Kingdom. PTC has agreed to provide our software free of charge if teachers become proficient in the package and agree to use it in the classroom. The results have been stunning. According to several sources in the U.K., PTC is being credited with turning around several inner-city schools, closing the gender gap in test scores, and changing the way that thousands of kids think about school. The fast growth of the program - from 55 trained teachers in August, 1999 to over 4,000 today - is a testament to its success.

PTC is seeking to aggressively expand the Design & Technology in Schools Program. The College of New Jersey, a leading advocate for the teaching of technology, has partnered with PTC to make our program broadly available to middle and high school technology teachers across North America. Teachers who complete a short training course can receive the software and the rights to use it for educational purposes. This means that teachers can install the program on their personal machines, their schools' machines, and allow their students to take it home - something no other CAD program offers.

Besides comprehensive teacher training and hundreds of seats of Pro/DESKTOP, the program includes curriculum, online events, contests, and discussion groups, and web-based resources for collaborative design between schools.

Q. How much does it cost?

A. PTC is receiving no revenue from this initiative, and is donating Pro/DESKTOP to schools for educational use at no charge, provided that teachers who intend to use the software complete a training. Please contact PTC so we can tell you about training options in your area.

Q. How do I receive training?

Please email [email protected] with the following information:

Name Address (please specify major cities you are near) Phone Fax Email School

Principal School address School phone School fax Subject/grade level you teach Number/years you have taught these subjects/grade levels

We will let you know which independent trainers and/or Regional Training Centers are closest to you. Independent trainers will travel to you or hold a training session in their area. Regional Training Centers, located at colleges and universities around the country, will offer trainings for teachers, and will also offer train-the-trainer programs for teachers who would like to become trainers. Each Center will have certified trainers on staff who will conduct trainings and, like independent trainers, will be resources for teachers when they are back in the classroom. If you are near The College of New Jersey, you can call them directly to find out about their training schedule at 609-771-2361.

Q. What happens during the training?

A. The training course is 12 hours of training over two days, and includes an introduction to using Pro/DESKTOP, some tips on how to use it in the classroom, and an introduction to designing and building through CAM. It is important that all training attendees are Microsoft Windows literate in order to keep up with the class.

At the training, teachers receive a temporary license, the software, class materials, and an assignment to complete that demonstrates they understand Pro/DESKTOP basics. After the assignment is approved by the trainer, the teacher receives a certificate of completion and a license for 300 classroom seats, and students can also take copies home. Completion of the training and use of the software also gives teachers access to an international community of teachers and designers. This will include an email discussion list for teachers, more classroom resources via the Web, and access to the first-ever School-to-School Internet Exchange, which will allow schools to collaborate on projects with other students - across a campus or an ocean.

Q. How can I become a trainer?

A. Any teacher can become a trainer with a second training of three days. The runaway success of the program in the U.K. is largely due to the large number of excellent trainers available. Most are or were teachers who discovered a second career training other schools in their district or area. Teachers who want to get involved with this program and become trainers will be crucial to its continued success. The first step is to sign up for the program - all trainers are recruited from the group of teachers using the software in classrooms. If you think you would like to be a trainer, let us know when you sign up for a training or request to be updated as the program expands.

Q. If it's not possible for me to be trained right now, how can I stay informed?

A. Join our teachers' discussion group! This is an email discussion group in which teachers involved or interested in the program trade ideas, discuss strategies, and ask questions. It's also PTC's forum for communicating exciting developments in the Design & Technology in Schools Program. To join, email [email protected] and specify that you want to join the teachers' discussion group.

Also, please encourage your students to enter our design contests, which can be found at our Design & Technology in Schools home page: http://www.ptc.com/go/schools.

Q. Teachers at my school are under a lot of pressure to improve students' performance on standardized tests. Why should we spend time teaching CAD?

A. CAD is only the beginning. The fundamental skills that are required to be successful at design are the same skills that teachers seek to instill in their students. Simply put, using design software teaches students to apply critical thinking to solve multidimensional problems. The visual nature of 3-D modeling software appeals to students across a wide range of abilities, offering a new and natural avenue of communication for students. We have found that students who struggle with written communication often show phenomenal growth, as they are empowered to express their ideas for the first time.

The results from the U.K. suggest that students who use CAD software improve their performance on a wide variety of standardized assessments. The software also offers a great context for collaboration with other students. Most designers work in teams. Thanks to the Internet, and the fact that Pro/DESKTOP is being used all over the world, these teams involve students in another classroom - or on another continent. Don't hesitate to read some of the feature articles on http://www.ptc.com/go/schools. for more information on how schools that have implemented PTC's design software have dramatically improved.

Q. I teach drafting (or another subject), so I already have an appreciation for the value of teaching CAD. Why should I be using PTC's CAD software instead of what I'm using now?

A. You mean besides the fact that it's free? PTC is the CAD market leader around the world. Companies such as John Deere, Jaguar, Lockheed Martin, BAE Systems, Hasbro, U.S. Surgical, Caterpillar, Ferrari, Motorola, Hasbro, and tens of thousands of others use Pro/DESKTOP to design products. If you haven't heard of us, it's probably because the $1 billion in revenue we earn every year comes from large companies, not from schools or consumers.

Many of the CAD packages that have been marketed to schools and consumers are simply not as powerful or as easy to use as our design software. The most commonly used drafting software used in U.S. schools requires very tedious sectional drawings in order to display a 3-D model. This software is built on a seventeen year-old 2-D foundation - its only practical use is architectural drafting. Plus it costs schools $1,000 per copy!

Contrast that to PTC's offerings, which allow immediate exploration of a design in 3-D without the use of manual constraints and dimensions. Students can, with very little effort, quickly create a design on the screen that looks exactly as the 3-D objects would in real life. It is then no challenge to create modifications, enhancements, and then finally standard drawings and renderings of the product. Students can create multiple configurations of a design, then animate them. Standard parts, materials, holes, and textures are included.

The bottom line is that PTC's software leaves the teacher's attention focused squarely on teaching - whether it's drafting, design, physics, math, or business class. With other software, teachers end up spending most of the year teaching the arcane and unintuitive software. Writing teachers teach writing, not how to use a pencil.

Tired of your students knowing more about technology than you do? PTC's emphasis on teacher training gives us a big advantage as well. The teachers who use our software not only feel very comfortable using the program, but know how to use it to be a better teacher as well. That is why PTC has partnered with the College of New Jersey, a leading college of education. Our training is a wealth of practical knowledge for the classroom - not a celebration of technical knowledge.

Plus, did we mention that the software is free?

Q. What are the system requirements?

A. You'll need Pentium computers, 233 MHz or higher, with 64MB of RAM, running either Microsoft Windows 95, 98, ME, NT 4.0, or 2000. A fast video card and a big screen are nice but not required. Teachers have reported that the software also runs nicely on a Power Macintosh G4 using Connectix Virtual PC.