Introduction

As the twenty-first century approaches, computers play a more siginficant role in everyday life. Widespread use in nearly every field, students have limited options without computer literacy. Schools have begun to take up the challenge of teaching students how to use computers. Most teachers, while highly-trained, do not have the technical experience needed to design and support a district computer network.

This guide provides a step-by-step approach to networking a school or district for teachers, technical coordinators, and administrators. It provides much of the necessary information that teachers, technical coordinators, or administrators will need while deploying technology in their district. It is based upon two years of work by a group of people from diverse backgrounds. By combining all of this knowledge, the hope was that the group could investigate many new technologies and understand their capabilities.

The group included staff from the school districts in Champaign, Urbana, Mahomet, Tolono, Fisher, Marshall as well as staff from two Regional Offices of Education. The National Center for Supercomputing Applications (NCSA) Community Outreach group also provided expertise. Several members of the University's Computing and Communications Services Office (CCSO) have also participated.

1.1 Layout of the guide

The remainder of this chapter discusses the impact that technology can have on education andthus is useful for everyone to read. It presents reasons why a district should consider networking. A discussion is made concerning opportunities that technology provides to education, along with suggestions about ways to modify the curricula to take advantage of new technologies.

Chapter 2 focuses on the design phase of the networking process with more technical information than the first chapter. The steps involved in designing a network plan will be presented.

Chapter 3 becomes even more technical, presenting the specifics of the different technology choices available to a district. This chapter is necessary for anyone who will be involved in implementing the network plan.

Chapter 4 examines some of the issues a district will need to consider once it has a network in place. It also discusses long term technology planning.

The appendices contain samples of plans, proposals, and documents developed while networking several school districts. Samples include Local Area Networks (LANs), Wide Area Networks (WANs), technology plans, and acceptable use policies. Also included in the appendices is a checklist of steps that a district will need to follow in order to network all its buildings.

1.2 Advantages of networking

There are many advantages for students in an online world. With just a district network, students can share their work with others, in the same class, in the same building, or even in a different building. Networks support a teaching model that provides students the opportunity to learn by solving problems. This aids the teacher in becoming an education facilitator to the students in their search for knowledge and solutions.

Once the district and building networks connect to the Internet, the opportunities grow even larger. Students can share their work with others around the world, providing them access to diverse cultures and perspectives that they would not encounter in everyday experiences. Information is available on the World Wide Web that can provide students access to materials such as scientific journals and up-to-date research data that can take years for textbooks to offer. The Web can also provide access to mentors and experts that would not normally be accessible to children. Video-conferencing equipment allows a district to offer additional classes or supplements to current classes.

As they use the computer and the Internet, students will become more familiar and comfortable with technology, helping to prepare them for their futures in industry. With computer experience being a requirement for nearly all jobs, a lack of exposure to technology can place students at a grave disadvantage.

1.3 Changes to the curriculum

Once district staff have agreed to incorporate technology into their curricula, they can modify many areas. This section lists some of the possibilities, although many other possibilities exist.

Another easy use of the Internet is to allow students to post their work, either papers or electronic projects, on the Web. They can share this work with other students on the Internet, receiving comments from other people. Using these comments, students can improve their work and learn from the experiences of others.

Students can become involved in online research projects. After teaching students how to search the Web for information, a project could require them to search for information on a specific topic. The information found is often more up-to-date than available in a textbook. More importantly, it teaches a student how to solve a problem and given an opportunity to solve it.

Students or groups of students can compete to find a solution to a problem first for projects designed on the Web. These problems could be knowledge based such as identifying a particular species of bird. More complex projects are also available. An Urbana teacher has developed a class project where each group of students create their own stock portfolio. The groups perform research before selecting their stocks and justify their selections. After creating their portfolio, the groups track the value of their portfolio and compete to see whose performs the best. By creating a competitive environment, the competition encourages students to solve it to the best of their abilities.The groups can share their results, allowing students to see other ways of solving the same problem.

Classes or schools can pool their resources to provide students with larger and more complex problems than they would be able to solve otherwise. A group of students from several schools could conduct a survey. The larger pools of people at many schools would help to validate the results of the survey, especially for schools located in different parts of the world and having diverse backgrounds. A larger group of students often presents more hypotheses during the analysis of the data.

Virtual field trips could take students to locations that a student would not normally have access to such as the Louvre, in Paris, or the Smithsonian Institute, in Washington, D.C. Virtual experiments could show the reactions of dangerous chemicals. In both of these cases, instead of showing a film about the subject in which the student has no control over the content and presentation of the information, computers and networks could provide a student safe, controlled environment. Students could proceed at their own rate, reviewing unfamiliar ideas and skipping the ones with which they have already had experience.

Curriculum changes require some modification of the way a teacher operates in the classroom. Some of the changes are easy to implement and do not require a significant amount of work from the teacher. Others may require that a teacher understand how to place information on the Web, or how to create computer programs that will interact with students. The experiences and technical capabilities of teachers will dictate at what speed and what changes to make to their curriculum. Having established a need for a network in a school district, the next essential step is to develop a long tern plan to build the network.

1.4 Long term planning

This section lists some of the topics to include in a technology plan, but a district should add to this list if necessary. Along with this list, Appendix E includes the Urbana technology plan as an example.

1.4.1 Developing a technology plan

Technology provides tools for enhancing education. A district should explain how its education goals can be met using technology. Thus, a district should formally state its technology goals. If a district intends to have a computer in each classroom, the plan should state this. A district should decide if it wants to provide network access to each classroom at some point in the future, and if so, the plan should state this as well.

A district should state its goals on accessibility to computer equipment. If a district would like to offer after-hours access or community-access to its lab and classroom computers, the plan should include a section about their policies.

The plan should also include curricula development goals. The section should state a district's plans to update the curricula as well as how the district will encourage teachers to use the new technology as it becomes available. Staff development should also be included. This would include any goals for training staff involved in the network design and support, as well as plans for district-wide training programs.

Finally, a district should include its plans on upgrading the equipment and keeping the district current with new technology. Unlike other equipment that a district may own, computers will only have a useful lifetime of four to six years. By stating its goals for upgraded or new equipment, a district will have a plan in place to take advantage of new technology as it becomes available.

Overall, the technology plan should provide long-term direction. It should not include specific plans on how to reach the goals, leaving the specifics to be filled in as the district implements the plan.

1.5 Challenges to overcome

According to the Networks for Goals 2000 Reform study, the factor that most districts find to be the biggest challenge is finding adequate funding to design, implement, and support a network. To help districts solve this problem, Chapter 2.3 examines options available to help in finding outside sources of funding, such as grants.

Second on the list of difficulties found by most districts is a lack of technical support during the networking process. This guide is an attempt to aid with this problem, but finding outside help with computer and network experience is essential in developing a network.

Other areas where districts have significant problems were in professional development and training, online ethical and liability issues, and educational systems and policy barriers. Later sections in this guide present suggestions on ways to solve all of these problems.

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This file last updated on 05/09/96 at 13:43:39.