Schools on the Net

Background on the Internet

• Was for research & defense use
• Now, growth for commercial and home uses
• Important implications for education
  • computer-based learning
  • parent-teacher-student interaction
  • 24-hour school & classroom access
  • role of technologies for students to get jobs, get into college
  • access to educational materials (e.g., NASA, CPB)
• Near future: Further integration of media (cable TV, newspapers, Internet, telephone...)

Using the Internet

• Basic services
  • Email
  • The World Wide Web (WWW): "Power application"
  • WWW started as text; Mosaic introduced in 1993
  • WWW is now the major forum for self-published material
• Other services
  • Newsgroups
  • Mailing lists
  • Gopher
  • WAIS and other databases; search tools
  • FTP (File Transfer Protocol)

WWW explorations with Netscape

• The Mouse, the windows
• Scrolling
• Pointing and clicking

• Hyperlinks
• Forwards and backwards
• Using "go"
• Bookmarks
• Getting home

• Searching
• Graphics on and off
• Some advanced sites...
• Click here for some exercises

Getting on the Internet

• What to connect? (classrooms, a lab, administrative offices...)
• LAN connects to Internet at one point
• Costs for Internet: $700 - $2500 / month (24 hours)
• Cost sharing: Alliance with Community System project? Alliance with commercial providers?

What to do there?

• Creating an Internet presence: School information
• Putting classes on the Internet: Support for teachers
• Focus on local content and applications, not 'surfing'
• Going beyond existing instruction:
  • Collaboration with other areas
  • 24-hour access
  • More student involvement

Is this for everyone? Yes.

• Younger children may benefit most from local content
• Any age will benefit from interaction with remote students
• All students will need some computer and Internet skills
• The Internet is not better for some subjects than others

Issues and concerns

• Security: Use professionals; hackers will come
• Legitimate use: You need your own rules
• Illicit content: Again, choose appropriate rules
• Teacher and administration reluctance: Don't force them

Things to try now

Prairienet (http://www.prairient.org/) , a community computing system with over 400 content areas. Decatur will soon have its own system via Millikin University.

College and Universities are using the Internet for many courses. A good listing of these is at the University of Texas as Austin: The World Lecture Hall at http://www.utexas.edu/world/lecture/index.html.

Internet searching: There are about a dozen popular searching locations on the Internet. Some favorites are:

• Yahoo!
• AltaVista
• InfoSeek

Getting connected: Mecklermedia (a publisher) maintains http://thelist.com, a listing of Internet service providers for every area code.

RFC 1578, an Internet "Request for Comments," is a listing of frequently asked questions and answers for K-12 connectivity.

The workshop was presented by Dr. Gregory B. Newby, on the faculty of the Graduate School of Library and Information Science at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.