In addition to a general survey of the network, individual progress reports from several of the participants are attached below.
This report is available on-line as <URL:http://darkwing.uoregon.edu/~jqj/LEN/LEN_10-15-95.html> as well as in hard copy.
July 15, 1995 KLCC 89.7 FM broadcasts "DaVinci Days", with signal
transmitted via Lane Education Network. (see "Lane
Community College" report below)
August 8, 1995 presentation on LEN to the Advisory Council of the
National Information Infrastructure (see "University of
Oregon" report below)
August 16, 1995 workshop on Internet acceptable use, "Treading Carefully
on the InfoCowPath" (see "University of Oregon" report
below)
August 28, 1995 LEN partner Sacred Heart is connected (see "PeaceHealth"
report below)
September 1995 established USEnet news servers using NTIA-funded
servers for LCC and 4J
September 9, 1995 first Internet college football cybercast (see
"University of Oregon" report below)
Of particular note are the information sheets discussing major current topics and controversies in local government. For example, the plan by Hyundai Electronics Corp. to build a 1.3 billion dollar factory on 210 acres in the Willow Creek Industrial Park has generated intense community discussion. The City of Eugene Web Server provides a major source up to date of information about the project.
These computers and Internet connections will give students and teachers many great learning and teaching opportunities, but none of the bond money or NTIA grant can be used to train people how to use computers and networks to take advantage of these opportunities. The 4J system will soon have about 1000 teachers, 100 administrators, 800 classified and 18,000 students who will want to use our new computer networks, but do not know how.
Training all these people seems impossible. Luckily, we do have one asset that is often overlooked when designing Internet training -- we have some really great students!
Asafo consists of an advisor and a group of students who help everyone at their school learn about technology. Hopefully, all K-12 schools in District 4J will have Asafo chapters. Asafo chapters are presently being established throughout the school district, and are beginning to provide a scalable model for training students and staff in the use of technology.
See <URL:http://www.4j.lane.edu/RTT/Asafo/Asafo.html> for more information on the Asafo program.
The CyberSchool program currently consists of nine courses which are limited to small classes, some as small as ten students, taught entirely over the Internet.
There are four basic subject areas: English, social sciences, mathematics and technology. Classes include Russian Literature: the Great Writers and their Culture; Statistics for the Social Sciences; Baseball: The Impact of the National Pastime on America; Special Projects in U.S. History; Deaf Culture; CyberCraft; and Global Network Geography.
CyberSchool may be accessed on the World Wide Web at <URL:http://www.4J.edu/CyberSchool/CyberSchool.html>.
Each CyberSchool class contains a course description, prerequisites, registration, grades, lists of books (also videos, movies, Internet addresses and other resources) and some costs such as video rental, travel for class meetings and books. All 1995-96 classes are free of charge and are taught on a voluntary basis by teachers in the Eugene 4J District, Marist High School and the Oregon School for the Deaf. Students can request either a letter grade or a pass/no pass and contract with the Teacher of Record for the number of credits. Credit is granted through Eugene 4J School District.
There are already plans for additional classes such as 1939-1989: Humanity's Most Dramatic Half Century, The Civil War Era (1844-1877), Quest for Women's Rights, African American History, The Media and the American Political Process and World Religions (this is just a partial list) scheduled for next year.
Eugene's CyberSchool has received national as well as local media exposure which has generated hundreds of e-mail messages. There is much interest from students and parents as well as from other school districts that have been contemplating ideas like CyberSchool. They want to know how to solve all the problems and are still trying to foresee all the difficulties before they implement similar programs.
When CyberSchool made the leap, creativity seemed to explode because it wasn't all predetermined and mapped out. Because we were inventing everything as we went along, barriers were broken. Alice Jagger, instructor for the Global History class, realized that we could conduct classes any time by comparing enrollment to museum tours: when ten people arrive, the tour begins and when the next ten arrive, another tour takes off. Bob Veeck, instructor for the Baseball class, determined that teachers could teach fifteen different classes of ten students each instead of the limit of five classes dictated in our regular schools now. Classes have unlimited resources, not just the local and school libraries.
CyberSchool will probably have to charge for its classes next year due to costs incurred and the need to pay teachers for all their efforts. It is possible that state school funding could be restructured to allow for non-geographically based schools, but that couldn't happen for two years. It is a complicated problem because funds are currently dispersed geographically with apportionment for each child attending a specific school. CyberSchool has no geographic limits. In fact, two of the students currently enrolled live in Seattle, Washington, and Mesa, Arizona. Existing schools might also dedicate some of their funding for CyberSchool and/or teachers could teach four regular classes and one CyberSchool class.
CyberSchool team leader Tom Layton wants to allay fears that students will sit and stare at a box all day or that CyberSchool will replace school. CyberSchool might possibly consist of 20% of the school day which is equal to one class. It will simply provide an alternative to the regular classroom, a new approach to learning, wider access to resources and a connection to people outside the school's geographic area. Parents, teachers and students should understand that CyberSchool is not just about accessing information in a new and faster way but that it is about connecting people with similar interests. It is teaching, learning, and communicating around the world over horizons that span the globe.
The Lane Education Network Access Point has been established in the LCC Library. Workstation hardware, including Pentium PCs and Macintosh stations, has been delivered and is currently being configured.
On July 15, the LCC radio station, KLCC 89.7FM, achieved what we believe was a first on the Internet -- a live FM stereo concert transmitted for broadcast to the studio over the Internet. The concert was "DaVinci Days," a music festival originating at Oregon State University in Corvallis OR on July 14 through 16. On July 15, the LCC radio station, KLCC 89.7 FM, broadcast the DaVinci Days concert, with the signal being transmitted from Corvallis digitally over the Internet via the NERO network (a state-wide ATM network linking the major engineering research centers in the state) and Lane Education Network. For more information on the project, see <URL:http://lanecc.edu/davinci.press.html>.
OPN is a non-profit, public interest, community network attempting to provide universal access in Lane County to the information infrastructure. We are NTIA partners in the Lane Education Network. The NTIA partnership enabled OPN to create exciting community links with the local university and community college, the School District, Eugene and Springfield City Governments, and many local businesses. It was the connections, as much as any particular funding, that the NTIA helped us establish.
From a grassroots organization that began on less than $10,000 about three years ago, OPN has currently achieved the following success:
Plans call for establishing a World Wide Web server on the system to provide information from Sacred Heart to the other LEN partners. The Sacred Heart web server will provide easy access to the many public health services, educational seminars, social services and other community health information currently published in a variety of written materials, but not currently available on the Net. We are also working with other community health service agencies (White Bird Clinic, et al.) to contribute to and coordinate a community -wide social service agency directory of phone numbers and schedules.
.Please see the Springfield Public Schools World Wide Web server, <URL:http://www.sps.lane.edu/>, for additional information.
On August 8, Joanne Hugi (UO), Bill Davis (Springfield Schools), and Randy Kolb (City of Eugene) made a presentation to the Advisory Council of the National Information Infrastructure. The meeting was held at Microsoft in Seattle. This group has 37 members appointed by the Secretary of Commerce and is co-chaired by Ed McCracken, CEO of Silicon Graphics and Delano Lewis, CEO of National Public Radio. Other interesting members include John Sculley, former CEO of Apple, Jack Valenti, CEO of Motion Picture Association of America, Bert Roberts, CEO of MCI, Joan Smith, Chair of Oregon PUC, and Nathan Myhrvold, Sr. Vice President of Advanced Technology Microsoft. Assistant Secretary of Commerce, Larry Irving, represented the Dept. of Commerce. Our part was a panel discussion with two representatives from an Eastern Washington community network. We described LEN and Randy and Bill both gave excellent human interest stories on the community impact of the network. We provided a one page summary of the project and one page outlining the lessons learned for future NTIA community networking grant applicants.
The workshop was very well received by the participants, and will be the basis for an ongoing series of group discussions on policy and access issues.
The audio-on-demand element of the Sept. 9 cybercast, available both during and after the game, allowed listeners to tune in to the game at a convenient time and to return to the game as many times as they wished. "Our purpose is to explore new ways that sports are being brought to the consumer and to understand how businesses can use the Internet," says Warsaw Center Director Mike Ritchey. "The technologies we will be using are on the cutting edge. However, we're still just looking at the age-old process of connecting buyers with sellers."
Businesses are just beginning to see the potential of the Internet in reaching millions of customers worldwide, but only a few entrepreneurial marketers have figured out how to plug into the untested on-line customer network. . "Our purpose is to explore new ways that sports are being brought to the consumer and to understand how businesses can use the Internet," says Warsaw Center Director Mike Ritchey. "The technologies we will be using are on the cutting edge. However, we're still just looking at the age-old process of connecting buyers with sellers."
UO Internet cybercasts are continuing throughout the fall. Further information on the program, plus access to software for downloading and links to the actual transmissions, are available at <URL:http://www.goducks.com/>.