CURRENT_MEETING_REPORT_
Reported by Jennifer Sellers/NASA NREN
Minutes of the Internet School Networking Working Group (ISN)
Introductions
The meeting opened with a sharing of experiences as the participants
introduced themselves and told of projects in school networking of which
they are aware. Projects mentioned were:
o Merit Network's efforts in K-12 education headed by Dana Sitzler
(not present);
o Elementary and secondary school telecommunications in Germany,
coordinated by educator Klaus Fuller;
o European Schools Project using ``teletrips,'' curriculum-based
projects including the AquaData project, reported by Aad Nienhuis;
o The Internet Society's K-12 Committee, which is chaired by Bruce
Nelson;
o California initiatives for training teachers to educate using the
Internet reported by Joyce Reynolds of Information Sciences
Institute, who has been working with Carol Teach in the California
Department of Education, and Joan Gargano of the University of
California at Davis;
o Pandora Systems's World Classroom Project, and the Pacific Bell
(California, US) system now under development reported by Mitra of
Pandora Systems;
o AT&T Learning Network (US) reported by Paul Lustgarten of AT&T;
o Rutgers University's efforts in the elementary and secondary school
arena providing accounts to teachers in the area local to Rutgers,
reported by Mel Pleasant;
o The (US) National School Network Testbed Project developed by Bolt
Beranek and Newman, reported by Cindy Mills of BBN; a University of
Hawaii pilot project with 25 school teachers to produce
curriculum-based lesson plans using networks, reported by Jody Chu
of the university;
o A number of schools are connected to SURFnet (Netherlands),
reported Maria Heijne of SURFnet; and
o (US) NASA NREN's project which has a pilot project with several
schools across the US and is developing a set of tutorial videos
for informing/motivating schools about the Internet and also for
training educators and students to use Internet tools, reported by
Jennifer Sellers, NASA National Research and Education Network.
A number of other group members introduced themselves and gave their
affiliations.
Educator Presentation
Klaus Fueller, a German educator, gave a presentation on his
perspectives in school networking. He mentioned that some of the
pedigogical potential of networks is that using them in instruction can
encourage students to read, write, follow discourse and discussion, and
practice foreign language as a means of communication rather than as a
classroom exercise. For teachers, the use of networks can allow for
collaboration. In teaching students about networks, they learn a new
means of information retrieval, how to make (local and international)
contacts, and how to use network resources. Klaus emphasized the use of
e-mail and suggested that e-mail-only, rather than full Internet access,
may serve many schools very well. He suggested that non-technical
teacher training materials, developed by teachers on the net, are sorely
needed. He will be giving a teacher training course on 20 September and
is looking for teacher volunteers around the world to coordinate with
him. If interested, please contact him.
Klaus then gave an overview of the domain naming of schools in Germany,
which follows the scheme of school_name.county_name.state_name.schule.de.
Finally, Klaus mentioned the technical issues and barriers to elementary
and secondary school networking, some of which are that there are no
technical people at the local level, materials for technical training
are scarce, software is needed to simplify use of the network, and
schools without LANs and only stand-alone machines need to be
considered.
For further information, send mail to postmaster@schule.de.
Review of FAQ Document
The FAQ document, which is now an Internet-Draft,
draft-ietf-isn-faq-01.txt, will be an RFC FYI document by the time of
the Houston IETF in November. There will be information added on
``low-low'' level connectivity, that is, mail and news only. The
document is currently extremely US-centric, and those outside the US are
encouraged to give input that will help broaden it, both in choice of
vocabulary and in scope. It is hoped that all members of the working
group will not only review the document themselves but also disseminate
it to the educators with whom they work, for review and comment. A
number of comments for improvement were made during the meeting. Thanks
to all who gave feedback, and please follow up by posting the feedback
electronically to this list or directly to Jennifer Sellers by 6 August
if possible.
Connectivity Models Document
The group discussed Gene Hastings' (hastings@psc.edu) document,
``Connectivity Models for Internet Access'' (available via anonymous FTP
as models.mar93/a.psc.edu). Ellen Hoffman, co-Chair of the USERDOC2
Working Group, will coordinate with Gene and Jennifer to add to the
beginning of the connectivity models document some general issues
covered in the ``How to Connect'' document of the USERDOC2 Working
Group. The ISN Working Group hopes to release the document, at a
minimum, as an Internet-Draft, and possibly an FYI RFC, by the Houston
IETF in November.
Review and Revise Charter
The milestone stating that the group will release a directory (X.500) of
people involved in networks in elementary and secondary education was
revised. It had been expected that Merit would receive funds to carry
out much of this task, and those funds were not forthcoming.
Additionally, it is outside the scope of a working group to maintain
data, and in order to make this directory useful, data would need to be
maintained. Some discussion of directory services offered by the
InterNIC ensued, and April Marine will coordinate with InterNIC staff to
discover what precisely is available and if it might serve the original
intent of the group's milestone. April will also talk to the players in
RIPE who might be able to coordinate the service in Europe.
The text of the charter was also discussed, and the group agreed that a
few key concepts should be incorporated into the new charter:
o The group should be international in focus.
o The wording ``primary and secondary'' (education) should replace
``K-12.''
o The group could be most useful by identifying barriers and/or
problems in the area of school networking around the world and
proposing solutions.
o The group will work to identify gaps where solutions are not
readily available or don't seem to be on the horizon.
Klaus Fueller, Bruce Nelson, and Aad Nienhuis volunteered to craft a
draft charter and post it to the ISN mailing list for comments.
The meeting lasted approximately two hours and was adjourned around
15:30 local time. Thanks to Ray Harder who took notes for the minutes
during the meeting.
Attendees
Rich Bowen rkb@ralvm11.vnet.ibm.com
Thomas Brisco brisco@pilot.njin.net
J. Nevil Brownlee nevil@ccu1.aukuni.ac.nz
Jodi-Ann Chu jodi@uhunix.uhcc.hawaii.edu
Jill Foster Jill.Foster@newcastle.ac.uk
Klaus Fueller klausf@osgo.ks.he.schule.de
Raymond Harder rharder@eis.calstate.edu
Maria Heijne maria.heijne@surfnet.nl
Marco Hernandez marco@mh-slip.cren.edu
Ellen Hoffman ellen@merit.edu
Andrew Knutsen andrewk@sco.com
John Larson jlarson@parc.xerox.com
Thomas Lenggenhager lenggenhager@switch.ch
Paul Lustgarten Paul.Lustgarten@att.com
Paolo Malara malara@crs4.it
April Marine april@atlas.arc.nasa.gov
Cynthia Mills cmills@bbn.com
Mitra mitra@pandora.sf.ca.us
Bruce Nelson bnelson@novell.com
David O'Leary doleary@cisco.com
Mel Pleasant pleasant@hardees.rutgers.edu
Joyce K. Reynolds jkrey@isi.edu
Jennifer Sellers sellers@nsipo.nasa.gov
Patricia Smith psmith@merit.edu
Milan Sova sova@feld.cvut.cz
Claudio Topolcic topolcic@cnri.reston.va.us
Marc van der Noordaa noordaa@rare.nl
Ruediger Volk rv@informatik.uni-dortmund.de
Sam Wilson sam.wilson@ed.ac.uk