Going to School On the Internet

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Acknowledgments and Thanks

• Michele Huston, Global Schoolhouse Australia Project -Coordinator, for her assistance in producing this booklet
• Geoff Huston, for his support
• Yvonne Marie Andres, Global Schoolhouse United States Project -Coordinator, for her invaluable comments and review

Introduction

The Internet is a vast global network that links millions of computers ranging from the smallest handheld personal mobile digital assistants to the most powerful computer systems ever constructed.

The power of the Internet is that it allows a worldwide community comprising millions of people to communicate, access, and publish information. People are using the -Internet to gain access to libraries throughout the world, to aid in research projects and cross-cultural studies, to enhance foreign language skills, and to simply exchange ideas and studies with their peers.

Within a few short years the Internet has reached into many areas of activity, often acting as an agent of profound change. Much of the evolution of the Internet has occurred in the university and research environments, but more recently it has entered a larger public arena. It is now making major inroads into elementary and secondary school environments and creating a new model for classrooms across the globe.

The basic "glue" of the Internet is electronic messaging (e-mail). Through e-mail, teachers and students can explore the world from their classrooms, exchanging messages and ideas with other schools around the globe.

If the scope of the Internet in education was simply that of -"keypals" drawn from around the world, it would still be a valuable addition to the school environment. However the Internet offers far more extensive and valuable educational resources and services.

For example, the many electronic libraries available through the Internet greatly extend the research capabilities of both students and teachers. These libraries provide access to information from a wide variety of sources, combining text, pictures, sound, and even video clips.

The Internet also enables students and teachers to become contributors by allowing them to publish their own locally created reports or studies through Gopher and World Wide Web (WWW) servers.

The K-12 (kindergarten through 12th grade) Internet includes a massive selection of network-mediated projects in which classes can participate. Indeed, the most difficult part of this activity can be choosing which project!

One area of active research and experimentation on the Internet is voice and video transmission. Already the initial results of this work are being used in the school environment through projects like the Global Schoolhouse, which uses videoconferencing to bring students from different countries together to present research findings.

The introduction of networking technology can appear daunting in the elementary school setting, because this is not an environment that traditionally has been technology rich. However, the combination of communications technology and approachable computing is changing this thinking.

Through the Internet, teachers and students are gaining access to information and people resources that can easily be integrated into all areas of the curriculum. Consequently the many projects offered on the Internet can be used to enhance a classroom theme or supplement required coursework.

The following are just a few examples of the many and varied ways the Internet can be put to use by imaginative teachers.

• Where on the Globe Is Roger?--Roger Williams, global adventurer and -raconteur, communicates with students worldwide while driving around the world in his 1982 Dodge truck. He sends e-mail reports about the exotic places he visits and introduces the students he meets to students from other parts of the world. Students communicate with Roger and each other via e-mail or postal services and are encouraged to participate in geography and cultural exchanges.
• The Geogame--Classes around the globe complete questionnaires involving geographical information about their locations. A coordinator collects responses from all the participating sites, scrambles the information, and returns the data to participants as puzzles for the classes to solve. Students, with help from maps, atlases, and other reference materials, match the descriptions with the names of the corresponding cities. At the conclusion of the project, the coordinator e-mails the correct answers.
• NASA Scientists--Opportunities arise in which students can exchange e-mail with NASA scientists. The projects are coordinated by NASA's education service and involve regular bulletins about scientists' research and living conditions while on expeditions. Previous projects have included a journey to the Antarctic and reports from astronomers studying the collision of the comet Shoemaker-Levy with Jupiter.
• Newsday Project--Students create their own newspapers using not only local information, but information obtained from their peers and other sources across the Internet. The schools publish their newspapers on the WWW servers and send copies of the newspapers produced via postal services.

Many opportunities for classroom activities arise from friendships made on the network. Often the most productive uses of the Internet result from classroom-to-classroom contact where teachers have exchanged e-mail over a period of time and have developed topics of study that are of mutual interest. The following are just a few examples of activities that have been made possible because of the Internet.

• Koala Information--The Indianapolis Zoo received a donation of a koala, but no accompanying reference information. Children around the world answered the -Internet plea to provide information for the zoo's thousands of annual visitors. The children have provided a unique set of resources the zoo is now using within its koala exhibit. All the material (with the exception of the koala!) was collected and dispatched using the Internet.
• Christmas Cultural Exchange--Kindergarten, grade 1, and grade 2 students participate in a project to share Christmas traditions across the globe. Students exchange songs, celebrations, and recipes, in addition to designing a summer wardrobe for Santa and an alternative mode of transportation.
• Travel Brochures--Students exchange information about the local attractions in their regions (from the perspective of an 11 year old) for equivalent information from around the world.
• Collaborative Story Writing--An interesting cultural exchange can be achieved from collaborative story writing. Participating students add to stories using language and ideas that are unique to their cultures.

The Internet in the Secondary School Classroom

The Internet's potential as an agent for change in secondary school classrooms will only be realized if it is first used within the existing curriculum and organizational structure. However, many teachers who have spent the time and effort learning this technology feel that they have already been amply rewarded. The use of computers and networks can be a motivator for students and encourages the level of learning independence and autonomy that many educators agree are important for students to achieve.

A good way to start in the secondary school is to establish a telecommunications club of interested students and provide these students with the motivation and training they need to explore specific topics using Internet resources. These students are then in a position to share their acquired knowledge with their peers and teachers. This approach has the added benefit of encouraging students and teachers to work and learn together.

The Internet also lends itself to individual usage. This can be -beneficial for -students with special interests, where teachers may not have the expertise or time to provide the necessary -individual attention.

Following are some examples of Internet services that have been successfully used in the secondary environment.

• Ask a Geologist, Ask a Scientist, and Ask Dr. Math--Provides opportunities for students and teachers to communicate with experts in various fields of study.
• Language Study--Students can communicate with their peers from non-English-speaking countries to enhance their language skills and further their cultural knowledge. There are also full French and Spanish courses available via the World Wide Web that include audio clips to teach pronunciation.
• Questionnaires and Survey Results posted to Internet mailing lists can provide up-to-date information for students to analyze. While these projects may begin with specific geographic, historical, or -scientific themes, they often develop into cultural exchanges with ongoing friendships.
• William Shakespeare Project--Students share ideas about Romeo and Juliet with their peers in addition to writing to "William Shakespeare" himself in a project involving students from the USA, Russia, and Australia.
• Weather Information--There is a vast array of weather-related information available on the Internet including current satellite data. Some of these resources have been developed especially for use by K-12 schools.

Professional Development

Teachers are using electronic mail and newsgroups to discuss teaching practices with their peers worldwide. Many are also publishing their lesson plans and information about local programs via Gopher or the World Wide Web, as well as downloading these materials from other schools. Several regularly updated curriculum and study guides exist on line to help teachers with current events and science projects.

It requires some effort to establish an Internet connection within a school. These notes are based on observations of how other schools have obtained connections.

Using the Internet is not a skill that can be taught in a 90-minute group training session. It is an extended process of personal exploration, fueled by Internet companions gathered along the way. One of the most effective training models is one or two staff members working with teachers over a period of weeks, introducing them to the Internet applications and resources that are relevant to the grade levels and subjects they teach. Teachers are interested in publishing their lesson plans and being able to access other teachers' lesson plans, so showing them how this is done will likely turn them into Internet supporters! Typically, enthusiasm will "infect" the school, and the first teachers will in turn become trainers for other staff members and interested parents and students.

There are many ways to connect to the Internet. Schools can start "small," but should keep in mind scalable connectivity options that will accommodate an increasing number of users without requiring entire new networking solutions.

nce you have established a dial-up connection, several things will probably happen. Word will rapidly spread around the school, and you may find your modem and Internet access being borrowed throughout the day. You'll also most likely discover that your modem connection isn't fast enough to -accommodate the bandwidth needs of the increasingly popular multimedia applications and resources available via the Internet. (Bandwidth simply refers to the speed or throughput of your connection.) Think of your connection to the Internet as a pipe that transports water--the larger the pipe, the more water (or data) that can be transported. Many of today's Internet applications, such as interactive audio and video and access to the World Wide Web, pump a larger amount of data through network pipes, more than most modem-type -connections can handle.

Realizing that it's likely that many people at your school will desire high-speed multimedia Internet access, you should start planning on building a local area network (LAN) and obtaining a higher-bandwidth connection to the Internet.

A LAN connects the computers in your school to allow printers, databases, and file servers to be shared, as well as enabling intraschool communication using electronic mail and conferencing software. Common LAN technologies in schools include LocalTalk, Ethernet, Token Ring, and Fiber Distributed Data Interface (FDDI) and typically operate at high speeds ranging from 230 kbps to 100 Mbps. Computers on LANs also use network -protocols to communicate with each other. These protocols or standards are simply the languages with which the computers speak to each other. The most popular protocols on school LANs are AppleTalk, TCP/IP, and NetWare.

Once a LAN is in place, an Internet connection can be made by using a local router to link the LAN to the Internet. A router is an integral component of today's networks. It does just what its name implies; it routes information from one place to another or from one network to another. It is a network -"traffic cop," directing packets--or digital chunks of information--through the internetwork highways. The router can be either a separate unit or a card inserted into an IBM-compatible PC. The router connects to your school LAN (or LANs) on one side and the wide-area network (WAN) link on the other side. The WAN link -provides the connection to your Internet service provider and is obtained from your local phone company or a long distance company (or both). There are different WAN technologies to choose from; choices depend on your bandwidth needs, geographical area, and budget. Common WAN speeds range from 9.6 kbps to 45 Mbps, and link options include dial-up phone lines, ISDN, leased lines, or Frame Relay. Once you have made the WAN connection and installed desktop Internet software, the computers on your LAN have "direct" Internet connectivity, meaning you don't need a modem to make the connection.

The PC or Macintosh is the interface between the user and the Internet. In general, the only change required to use your computer on the Internet is installing Internet access software on the computer.

While almost any Macintosh computer can be used with Internet access software, it is recommended that you choose a system with at least 4 megabytes of memory and use the Macintosh System 7.0 (or later).

Internet access software is based on the Internet protocols or Transmission Control Protocol/Internet Protocol (TCP/IP) and is supported on Apple Macintosh computers and most IBM PC-compatible computers. Fortunately the software need not be expensive. For Macintosh computers this software (Mac TCP) can be purchased for the price of a book (and in some cases is bundled with a book), and for IBM-compatible systems there is a range of free software packages, shareware, and commercial packages.

Choosing an Internet service provider (ISP) is similar to selecting a long distance carrier: in most areas the choices are many and the there are a wide range of services and pricing structures. ISPs can be universities, community colleges, state agencies, small and large businesses, and nonprofit organizations. You can find out about ISPs in your area through local online forums and computer clubs, newspaper and magazine advertisements, and lists published in Internet books and guides.

Some Internet service providers offer access at a fixed rate per month or year. Others offer service at an hourly rate or by charging per megabyte of data transferred or archives. While it is easy to compare pricing structures once a stable pattern of usage has been established, it is often difficult to forecast usage levels in advance.

If your school does not have its own networking staff, then extra support from the Internet service provider is a necessity. Ask the provider about on-site configuration services, training services, startup software supplied with the service, and whether the provider operates a help desk with phone or e-mail consultation.

Internet connectivity requires ongoing network administration configuration and maintenance. Your ISP may offer these services, so be sure to ask.

For dial-up users: maintenance of a user account and mailbox on your behalf with preferably at least one megabyte of mail spool space. The spool space is very important because it holds your mailbox. Ask also about Post Office Protocol (POP) or Interactive Message Access Protocol (IMAP) access to your mailbox--these technologies enable your computer to retrieve electronic mail more conveniently from the ISP spool area, and allow you to use a graphical "point-and-click" e-mail application off line.

For direct access users: registration of network identifiers, such as Internet domain name (for example, cisco.com) and Internet network number. You will also need an Internet server computer that performs the following functions:

• Domain Name Service (DNS)--Provides translation from Internet computer names (for example, mac10.planet.com) to numerical addresses (161.44.128.70).
• Electronic mail service--Establishes e-mail accounts and allows people at a school to receive and send e-mail.
• USENET News--Maintains a local usenet news conferencing system.
• Gopher or WWW Publishing--Allows you to publish information accessible to the Internet community.

It is important to establish how the service provider is connected to the Internet. It is not effective to have a high-bandwidth, leased-line connection to an ISP if it is connected to the Internet by a 9.6-kbps modem connection. Generally, higher connection speeds allow the service provider to accommodate many users and operate more efficiently. It is also reasonable to inquire whether the Service Provider supplies regular reports to clients on service quality, including details regarding service reliability, modem availability, and congestion events.

Electronic Mail (E-mail)