Suggestions for the Educational Component

of the National Information Infrastructure

Robert D. Carlitz

Department of Physics & Astronomy

University of Pittsburgh

Pittsburgh, PA 15260

Laurie E. Maak

Science Resources in Education

1456 Campus Drive

Berkeley, CA 94708

(February 21, 1994)

Summary

We suggest a three-pronged strategy for the development of an infrastructure for school networking. The three areas of concentration are connectivity, services and support. We elaborate on how these three areas should be developed to provide a strong educational component in the National Information Infrastructure.

I. Rationale

A. Economics

B. Education

C. Society

D. Networks

A. Economics

Economic issues make the development of wide area computer networks a compelling national goal. Such networks allow companies, individuals and government agencies to access and disseminate information on a global basis. As information takes on an increasing role as the lifeblood of international economy the development of national networks becomes an increasingly vital element of national economic policy.

Restructuring of the nation's economic base has led to a shift from centralized structures to distributed ones. Networks are essential to support distributed structures of this sort and are the key to creating new economic structures and activities. These activities range from telecommuting, which allows companies to maintain a workforce widely distributed geographically, to systems of distributed information servers. Thus wide area networking can help existing industries to operate more efficiently, and it can lead to the creation of entirely new industries.

The United States is presently a major player in the international market for the technology of wide area networking. It is reasonable to expect that this country should continue to be a major supplier of both networking technology and of the services that can be built on this technology. This is not to advocate a monopolistic position, since the growth potential of this new industry is closely tied to the concepts of interoperability and scalability, both of which are assisted by free and open competition. Applications of computer networks are probably more advanced in the United States than anywhere else in the world, and this is certainly an area in which one can expect economic benefits which can be counted in the hundreds of billions of dollars annually.

The development of distributed economic operations and the increasing reliance upon information as the currency of commerce requires essential new work skills. Obviously a fluency in the use of computer networks to access information, evaluate this information and assimilate it into a body of accepted knowledge will be necessary for the majority of future information workers. The development of networks which reach all levels of our educational system is essential to foster these new skills. By allowing today's students to become conversant with networking, we will assure that our future workforce will be well-prepared for the workplace of tomorrow. This workforce will be flexible in terms of when and where people will work, and it will be more sophisticated in terms of people's ability to access and manipulate information.

B. Education

We have argued that computer networks are an essential element for the creation of a workforce adequate to staff new information industries and compete in an international marketplace dominated by these industries. There is another sense in which computer networks are essential for education; this has to do with educational goals and methods. Of course these goals were developed in response to precisely the types of issues that we have just discussed, so it should not be surprising that there should be a convergence of methods in reaching these goals.

A major educational issue for which wide area computer networks can be of clear benefit has to do with the isolation of the teacher and students in the traditional classroom. Since the traditional classroom was modeled on the industrial workplace of the nineteenth century, it is not surprising that it appears increasingly obsolete in the modern context. What's missing are the links to the world outside the classroom, and computer networks effectively provide such links. These links bring new resources into the classroom, both in terms of contacts with subject experts and access to rich resources in all fields. For teachers, the ready access to peers, resource experts and data will bring a significant new level of professionalism to their jobs. The cost of such resources is minimal, since no physical transportation of the resources is necessary, and available resources can often be shared by large numbers of students and teachers.

A second major educational issue upon which computer networks have a clear impact is that of equity. As information resources become an increasingly important element of international currency, the question of who can reach these resources becomes an increasingly important social issue. If our schools are to educate all students and allow for every individual to develop her full intellectual capacity, then the schools should have equal access to major information resources. The extension of wide area computer networks to reach all of the nation's classrooms can accomplish this goal. The price of such an infrastructure is not negligible, but it is a minuscule cost in comparison to other programs which might attempt to bring true equity to the nation's classrooms.

The third point we would like to make about educational issues has to do with the movement toward school restructuring. This movement is one under which local control and site-based management are emphasized at the school level, along with a problem-solving approach and an emphasis upon team teaching and group learning in the classroom. Such efforts make education more relevant and more effective. Computer networks are a tool to support these efforts, and it is unlikely that these efforts can ever succeed on a large scale and involve the majority of all schools without the widespread implementation of networking technology.

The idea of school restructuring has obvious parallels in the commercial sphere, where corporations have been downsizing and decentralizing operations for several decades. One can thus look upon restructuring as an example of efforts to make the learning place, or school, look more like the workplace. This outlook reinforces the idea that the schools should be integrated into the National Information infrastructure on the same level as other elements of the community.

C. Society

The topics that we have mentioned in connection with the workplace and the school environment have obvious parallels in the wider society. The issues of isolation and equity are issues of obvious social importance, and insofar as computer networks can address these issues, they are a significant instrument of social change.

For people who have not been part of the social movement that describes the early development of the Internet, this may seem like a major logical leap. But the people who use wide area computer networks organize themselves into clear social structures. These structures - virtual communities if you like - are vibrant and productive places to inhabit. They lack, by nature of their construction, some of the social indices which divide our physical society. People are not categorized by age or race or physical status in these virtual communities; they are valued for their specific intellectual contributions to the community. While one should not expect a rosy virtual reality to replace the real difficulties of the world in which we live, it is not unreasonable to expect the networked world to offer some genuine social benefits for the real world it serves.

An interesting feature of the emerging network community is the richness of its resources. Computers on the global Internet appear as equal entities on the network, and resources on these computers are equally available to all. This has created an environment of Network Democracy, in which all groups have an equal voice on the network. This concept has its technical basis in the fact that computer networks are a two-way means of communication. Computers on the network need not be categorized as information receivers or information distributors; they serve both purposes, and this makes for a profound difference between the technology of wide area computer networks and the technologies of broadcast communication which have preceded these networks.

The place of the schools in a Network Democracy is quite clear. Students and teachers use the network to explore the world, develop a knowledge of available resources and form collaborations with their peers and with subject experts in a wide range of fields. But the schools are also a major source of information on the network. Teachers and students publish their work through this medium, to an audience of peers, parents and the community at large.

D. Networks

In order to meet the needs that have been discussed in the preceding sections the computer networks which serve the National Information Infrastructure must have a number of general characteristics. These features will enable the networks to serve the entire population in an economical and extensible manner. Listed below are the characteristics we would like to emphasize. We feel that it is important to incorporate these features into the design of the NII.

Scalability. Networks should be able to serve an expanding number of users with an expanding demand for services. The present Internet achieves its scalability through a distributed architecture and a massively shared infrastructure.

Interoperability. Equipment from different vendors should be usable on the same network. The route to interoperability is through published public protocols. The Internet achieves interoperability by virtue of the fact that the Internet protocol is publicly available and has been implemented by a large number of vendors.

Bidirectionality. The National Information Infrastructure should allow for the dissemination of information from all sectors of society. This requires a two-way, symmetrical communications system. A bidirectional allows for the development of a Network Democracy, where all groups in society have an equal voice.

Packet-based services. Services based on packets of information allow for sharing of the network infrastructure on a large scale. This leads to significant economies and a more flexible network environment.

II. Recommendations

A. Connectivity

B. Services

C. Support

We would like to suggest a three-pronged approach for the development of an infrastructure adequate to meet the needs of our nation's schools, teachers and children. This approach recognizes three essential elements to the successful implementation of national networks for education. The first element has to do with connectivity, the need to provide network access for all students and teachers. The second element has to do with the educational services which these people can expect to find through the connectivity that school networks will establish. Finally there is the need for support, both in terms of teaching people who to use the network and its associated resources, and in terms of how school systems and communities should be able to maintain their essential network infrastructure.

The recommendations which follow are arranged around these three topic areas. We believe that these three areas deserve equal emphasis, both in terms of the range of programs that should be developed in each of the areas and in terms of the fiscal support that should be provided for each area. We suggest a timeline which would put all proposed services and structures fully in place by the end of the decade. Thus, as one contemplates a networked nation in the twenty-first century, one can look forward to an educational environment adequate to serve that nation and its people.

A. Connectivity.

By the year 2000 every classroom in grades K-12 should be connected to the Internet. Classroom access should be provided by computers with graphical user interfaces where appropriate and with specialized interfaces to meet special needs.

Within each school there should be servers to allow for individual use of the network by all teachers and students in that school. These servers will also permit schools to disseminate materials developed by their students and teachers to other schools and to the community at large.

The bandwidth supplied to each school should be adequate to allow for the use packet-based video, voice and data services. Pricing for this connectivity must be flat rate, independent of time charges and traffic charges, but plausibly linked to average or maximal bandwidth.

B. Services.

Services should be based upon published public protocols to allow for complete interoperability. Services should be based upon client/server technology or other suitably scalable architectures to allow use by millions of students and teachers. Client software should be implemented on all commonly available platforms. Server software should also be available on a variety of different hardware platforms.

Federal, state and local government agencies should make available via the network information from all publicly-funded projects. There should be a system of multiple linked servers adequate to disseminate these materials to their specific audiences. These public services should be interoperable with commercial services for education and business.

School connections and school servers should have the capacity to allow schools to produce and disseminate multi-media presentations to other schools and to parents in their communities.

C. Support.

Schools of education should provide Internet access for all their students and should train all new teachers in the use of network technology in support of classroom curricular activities. These schools should then use the network to maintain contact with teachers during their first year of classroom service.

In-service programs should be established to provide instruction in the use of the network during the period in which the network is being deployed to all schools and classrooms.

The network should be the primary mechanism for ongoing teacher training efforts, both in the area of educational theory and research and in specific subject areas.

Programs should be established to provide technical support personnel in the schools with the skills needed to maintain school networks at a high level of reliability (which, ideally, should approximate the level of reliability of the schools' electrical power systems).