Educational Leadership Commons^™

Staff Development With Internet, Denise Linneman

Institute for Educational Leadership Monograph Series

We have quickly learned in our information age that continual education is a necessity. Yet, the word "inservice" can create negative feelings among personnel. Our job is to inservice on the Internet in an easy, understandable, and efficient manner, yet make it pertinent to each subject area.

What is Internet? It has been described as "a room full of books scattered all over the floor with someone saying, 'Go ahead and dig around!"' The term "information overload" fits quite appropriately when searching the Internet.

As with any new technology. we must first learn to operate it ourselves. Courses, conferences, manuals, …

Staff Development: How And Who?, Rich Nicklay

Institute for Educational Leadership Monograph Series

The staff development plan involving Internet at Spirit Lake will be directly tied to the acquisition of a local area network and annual access to the Internet. The following is a preliminary plan for staff development at Spirit Lake Community Schools, assuming our implementation of the network and gateway will be implemented as planned. Plans are to include the Okoboji School District and the Harris-Lake Park School District as part of the network. Each of these districts has local dial-in to the Spirit Lake phone system.

Staff Development: Internet Critical Issues Concerning K-12 Internet Use, Diane White

Institute for Educational Leadership Monograph Series

Internet. I'd heard the word just a few times before I was asked to attend this conference. The mentioning of Internet conjured up all kinds of images of people speaking "techie" jargon that was very foreign to me. In the past 6 weeks, I've been briefly introduced to this vehicle on the information highway and have discovered a whole new horizon.

Right now I feel like the student driver. I've got this machine to get me somewhere, but I need to try out all the little gadgets to see how they work. I need to see what happens when I …

Technology Helps Close Information Gap In Rural Areas, Gerald A. Edgar

Institute for Educational Leadership Monograph Series

Our founding fathers, exposed as they had been to the inequities of a Europe that reserved education for the elite, placed a major emphasis on public education. Indeed America was the pioneer in many areas of equalizing opportunity by providing public schooling from kindergarten through high school as well as subsidizing higher education via such programs as the land grant schools. The private sector also generously empowered the masses through education by such means as Carnegie libraries.

Rural areas have always been at a disadvantage, however, due to their lack of resources and distance from the centers of power, whether …

Community Computing Networks, Carol French Johnson

Institute for Educational Leadership Monograph Series

With a smile on every single County Supervisors' face, the vote was unanimous to give Cedar Net $30,000 as a contribution from the seven Black Hawk County libraries. Cedar Net is the Cedar Valley area community computing network presently being formed in Northeast Iowa. While it was clear that no one really knew exactly how this network would evolve, or, more importantly, how it would impact the lives of county residents, the atmosphere was electrified with excitement from just considering the possibilities of a functioning local community computing network, often called a free-net.

Using Internet To Train Students In Civic, National Democracy, Jack Holzhauer

Institute for Educational Leadership Monograph Series

Internet access and, in a broader scope, access to the National Information Infrastructure (NII) will enable our educational system to personalize every aspect of our children's learning. The understanding of democracy and community life are but two facets of this learning environment that will be enhanced by such a powerful access to information and knowledge.

One can imagine two-way video and sound communication coming into any public building or public servant's office. This will enable students to exchange questions and ideas with the people who are directly involved, on a day-to-day basis, with the laws of our land and the …

Access To The World Includes Collective Global Values, Vicky M. Smith

Institute for Educational Leadership Monograph Series

Access to the world, I believe, will change the way we teach about community if what is gained from the world changes our concept of community. With a renewed concept of community, teachers will give up juggling manuals, textbooks, and worksheets and will guide students as they learn to juggle information, knowledge, and insight. To clarify what I mean by changing our concept of community, what follows is a simplistic glance at the evolution of these changes.

American Citizen: World Community Member, Sally C. Staley

Institute for Educational Leadership Monograph Series

Access to the world provided by communication networks and information technology will enable teachers to enrich existing curriculum. Textbooks and special units can be readily updated with new findings and augmented with visual and auditory information from the libraries and museums of the world. Comparative studies of communities will be possible: one culture's view can be compared to that of another with respect to given phenomena, the diarist's account of an event can be juxtaposed with the historian's who has the benefit of time and a larger repository of information. To the extent that we can excite and involve students …

Way Of Government Can Change With Technology, Gail L. Witt

Institute for Educational Leadership Monograph Series

When this country was founded, it consisted of communities separated by only a few hundred miles. Each community shared the same ancestral culture, religious beliefs, and work ethics. While living in these communities, young people were taught by the elders. Teaching was easy because it never varied in substance.

As time passed and people began to venture away from their community, teaching became more difficult. It was a struggle to insure that your community ideals were maintained. People thirsted for the knowledge of the neighboring communities. Documents, letters, and textbooks were printed to spread their ideals. Communities were small and …

The Connected Student, David L. Bullers

Institute for Educational Leadership Monograph Series

My interpretation of the assignment is designed as an orientation for the transfer student whose previous education has been in the traditional teacher-centered public school. This student is entering a high tech school system with highly-trained teachers, direct Internet connections, daily access to Internet workstations for each student, a restructured curriculum with clearly defined objectives, and a verified technology integration plan. It is not an exhaustive list, nor is it necessarily in a logical order.

Should The Internet Change The Focus Of Schools?, Larry A. Cohen

Institute for Educational Leadership Monograph Series

As a former teacher who left the education profession before many public schools even owned a personal computer, let alone had access to the Internet, I find the potential of this technology to change the way people teach, learn, and prepare almost beyond comprehension. As the father of three young girls who will all graduate from high school in the twenty-first century, I am excited by the opportunities this window on the world is going to afford them. However, I'm apprehensive as I read and listen to discussions advocating technology-driven changes in the purpose and process of public education.

I …

Just In Time, William D. Dutton

Institute for Educational Leadership Monograph Series

Twenty years ago I was a graduate student at the University of Illinois. While walking through the basement of the College of Education with a professor of mine, we passed a room which several students were seated around the table. In front of each student was a large box with a screen that emitted an orange glow. They had what looked like typewriter keyboards in front of them. I asked the professor, "What is that?" And he said, "Oh, that's Plato," and kind of dismissed it. So I didn't ask him anymore at the time.

But I went back later …

Some Thoughts From A Parent On How The Internet Will Change Education, Yvonne Karsten

Institute for Educational Leadership Monograph Series

I know more about the Internet than the average parent; I helped create a company to bring Internet access to a rural area. Also, as a Parent Teacher Organization (PTO) president, I probably talk to more parents and teachers than other parents and spend a little more time in our city’s schools observing how they run today. These are my thoughts and predictions, based on observation, reading, and many hours exploring the Internet and having conversations with librarians and teachers all over the globe. They may not pan out as described. Perhaps by sketching out some of these possibilities, we …

Where Do We Want To Be And What Road Will Take Us There?, Dean L. Simm

Institute for Educational Leadership Monograph Series

Education has traditionally been delivered by the teacher lecturing for four days and letting the students have a break on the fifth day with a test. Students in neat rows taking notes and passively soaking up the information that will be committed to memory long enough for a passing grade. This traditional model of education worked in the Industrial Age. The assembly line society worked in post World War II era. It helped to make the United States the industrial wonder of the world, and has given us the highest standard of living the world had ever seen. As time …

Internet Case Study, Jan Bolluyt

Institute for Educational Leadership Monograph Series

Spirit Lakes' involvement with the Internet and National Information Infrastructure (NII) appears to be typical of most schools' experiences. Awareness came through interested faculty and administration as well as returning alumni. Equipment was purchased for other purposes and Eisenhower Funds provided the original modems for PSI-NET (our predecessor to the Internet). Free online service from two commercial networks (American Online and Genie) allowed us to better understand their format. As always, the visual medias kept us informed about changes taking place in the structure, traffic, and transformations within the Internet as well as other parts of the NII. Once on …

Why Minnesota Students Need Access To The Internet, Doug Johnson

Institute for Educational Leadership Monograph Series

In its current incarnation, the Information Superhighway is hard to use and expensive to bring into classrooms. It contains materials which no teacher or parent in his or her right mind wants children to read-a condition which is pretty much fine with the current propeller-heads, researchers, and business folk who use the Internet and are not overjoyed at the prospect of children traipsing over what had been their private cyberspace.

Yet over the past two years, several public school districts around Minnesota, Mankato among them, have invested a great deal of scarce human and financial resources in computer networks and …

Providing Statewide Access To The Information Highway: Roadblocks May Appear On The Horizon, Gwen Wallace Nagle

Institute for Educational Leadership Monograph Series

The Internet has evolved from what began approximately 20 years ago in the Department of Defense as ARPAnet. It is not just one computer network, but a huge confederation of many national and international networks connecting, among other things, universities, research organizations, and government installations. Its backbone has been paid for primarily by MCI and IBM, with substantial contributions from the federal government.

According to recent statistics, 1994 brought with it a world wide increase of 81 % in computer systems providing access to the Internet. The United States account for the largest presence, maintaining approximately 63% of all host …

Access: Who And How?, Roger Rieck

Institute for Educational Leadership Monograph Series

Access to the Internet at Spirit Lake will be a three-phase process. The first phase will be implementation at the high school for all staff and students. That access will be for 24- hours a day and 7-days-a-week. Anyone with a modem and computer at home will be able to tap into Internet, and access to our two sister schools at Lake Park and Okoboji will also be included. Phase II of the project will include a fiber optics line to the elementary and middle school with available Internet at their lab sites and at work stations in individual rooms …

Internet Case Study, Steve Stafford

Institute for Educational Leadership Monograph Series

After using Dialogue Information Services to research the question, "Who should have access to Internet?" I realized how dependent we have become upon electronic information gathering. At one time, Dialog was also touted as the great learning tool of the future, yet no one worried about access to its data bases-we simply learned to use it for what it was. The same scenario will probably occur in the case of lnternet.

Although there are not a great many articles concerning access to Internet, many articles concern purposes for which Internet should be used. If purpose demands access, everyone in the …

Access For All: Free Or Fee, Ted Stark

Institute for Educational Leadership Monograph Series

What does access to the Internet mean? Does it mean access to the full suite of Internet services (File Transfer Protocol [FTP], E-mail, gopher, telnet, etc.) or only to limited services, such as telnet? Does access to the Internet mean the physical connection to a provider or some level of expertise in its use? Iowa's students must have full access and their training must be comprehensive or they are missing opportunities for growth. As The Project GAIN Report pointed out, connecting schools and libraries may not be the most difficult problem, but rather who will have access.

After The "How," Ask "Who" Will Have Access?, H. Troy Wentzien

Institute for Educational Leadership Monograph Series

I came to the Iowa City Community School District after working for four years in the Information Systems Division, Computer Operations Department at American College Testing (ACT). I started by managing approximately 80 DOS and 10 Macintosh computers on one Novell Netware Network. Select stations also had a second serial connection to an asynchronous switch that connected them to the mainframes at the University of Iowa and National Computer Systems. In the course of my time at ACT, we added approximately 600 DOS and 30 more Macintosh, all running on a now integrated Wide Area Network. The network consisted of …

How To Serve Student Needs, Promote Constitutional Freedoms On Internet, Ida Estes

Institute for Educational Leadership Monograph Series

The Internet reflects the character and philosophy of its developers. The academicians who defined its culture and labored over its unstructured design were empathic about their first amendment right-freedom of speech. We may have to temper that exuberance due to our moral and ethic responsibility to our children. Can we choose a path that will best serve student needs yet promote the Constitutional freedoms brandished daily on the Internet. Many of us must also contemplate the alternatives without a thorough knowledge of the intricacies and possibilities that the National Information Infrastructure (NII) will provide to our children.

Is It Safe To Put Kids On Internet?, Paul O'Neill

Institute for Educational Leadership Monograph Series

Give kids a new toy and they will test it to the "max." Give kids a computer game and they will strive to beat it. Give kids access to Internet and they will delve into every aspect of it. Kids will accept the challenge and do whatever is needed to meet and overcome that challenge. Because of their enthusiasm, curiosity, and adventuresome nature, it can be expected that they will attempt to gain access to all areas of interest. This brings about a concern parents and teachers have that certain areas of Internet should be restricted from use by students …

Community Education Offers Key To Fewer Problems On Internet, Christine Pruess

Institute for Educational Leadership Monograph Series

The Internet is an information/communication system for everyone and about everything. How can we provide access to that world within an open context that allows students to explore the system with freedom? Is it our responsibility to teach students the etiquette that has evolved among users of the Internet?

If our intent is to provide open Internet access to the K-12 community, we must prepare our students, staff, and ourselves with an understanding of the existing Internet culture and an understanding of the content Internet access offers us. Incorporation of Internet resources into the learning environment of the K-12 community …

How To Encourage Student Responsibility Maintain Student Creativity On Internet?, Sharman B. Smith

Institute for Educational Leadership Monograph Series

... 50,000 years of experience expressing ourselves with speech and gestures; 5,000 years of written expression; and over one hundred years of experience using the telephone. The ethics and etiquette of these modes have evolved with time and tenure. We have virtually just begun with the electronic age. (Szofran, 1994, p. 69)

This statement sums up the dilemma all institutions, including schools, are facing today. Schools face a particularly difficult task with society abdicating many responsibilities and expecting schools to provide for the moral as well as the intellectual development of students. At the same time, schools are often criticized …

Use Of Internet Will Be A Cooperative Effort, Keith Dwire

Institute for Educational Leadership Monograph Series

Use of the Internet and other branches of the National Information Infrastructure (NII) in our schools will demand a concerted effort from every facet of the global community. Before that can happen, we must enlighten our teachers, administrators, boards, students, and community. What are the benefits that use of the NII would produce? What could that vision be? Al Gore (1994), Vice President of the United States, gave us a glimpse of that vision in his NII Executive Summary.

Issue Area Four: Vision/Purpose: How Will The Internet Change The Focus Of Schools?, Thomas K. Wells

Institute for Educational Leadership Monograph Series

At first glance the question, VISION/PURPOSE: HOW WILL THE INTERNET CHANGE THE FOCUS OF SCHOOLS? seemed a fairly simple question. But as we examined it more closely we discovered complexity and ambiguity. What was our question really asking?

Vision and Purpose were manageable. What was our vision of what the Internet will be and for what purpose will it be put to use?

It is clear that the Internet will have the potential to change both the content of what we teach as well as the style of delivery, but the question asked something different. How will the Internet change …

Access, Censorship, Liability Questions, Daniel H. Smith

Institute for Educational Leadership Monograph Series

Discussion of ethical and legal issues associated with the Internet in the educational setting are many and diverse. In some ways they are issues similar to those faced by society at large when it deals with providing public education. From these many, I will focus on three legal issues: (a) access an ethical issue; (b) censorship/control; and (c) liability.

How Schools Can Properly Train Teachers For Internet, Kim Aneweer

Institute for Educational Leadership Monograph Series

With the information superhighway running through our backyard, teachers have little choice-either they hop on and explore, or they continue to walk the path traveled too often. Today's teachers are doing a tremendous job preparing students for the industrial age. Students of today are expected to produce a product. The product must be accurate and completed in a specified time. Although this approach worked well in the past, it is time to put it to rest. Teachers of today must better prepare our students to survive in a world of technology. The use of Internet in schools would be a …

Community, Self, Internet, Robert Muffoletto

Institute for Educational Leadership Monograph Series

A community is defined not only by its arbitrary borders but by the institutions, structures, spaces, and social relationships which form and give meaning to what we term as neighborhoods, cities, townships, and villages. A community, no matter how you wish to define it or set its boundaries, is a social place with a history and a future. We may wish to understand it in organic or mechanical terms and models, but it is the social fabric, the weaving of relationships, that give shape to our ways of knowing.

Communities have histories, they evolve, no definition can easily define or …