Chapter 1: The Internet In Education Today

This Chapter is focused on the following questions:

• How does the Internet work?
• What major opportunities does the Internet offer for students and teachers?
• What are the basic hardware and software needs for anyone who wants to connect to the Internet?
• How might Internet projects change the traditional role of a classroom teacher?
• What are the present Internet capabilities of a typical school?

A. Themes of Internet Use in Education (pps. 10 - 13)

"Integrating the Internet ..." proposes that the Internet and the hardware and software resources necessary to take advantage of the Internet might be understood as a suite of tools that offer great promise for education. From this perspective, the purposes of the book are to:

• Familiarize teachers with the learning tools the Internet offers.
• Outline significant educational asks to which these tools might be applied.
• Develop the skills teachers need to assist students in applying Internet tools successfully.

In order to accomplish these goals, certain themes are prioritized:

• Integration of technology tools into content-area instruction

We feel it is important to help teachers go beyond mastery of technology skills to consider how their students will use technology to learn content area knowledge and skills. Thinking about curriculum integration is essential.

• Multidisciplinary or Integrated-Curriculum Approach

You will find that many of the applications of the Internet we describe involve students in activities that are complex and extend beyond a single discipline. When students explore authentic issues or problems, they usually have to draw on information from multiple disciplines and make use of a variety of information processing and communication skills.

• An active role for learners

We use the word active in reference to the mental behavior of students. The fundamental idea is that students can use Internet tools in ways that require them to "work with" important ideas rather than simply receive information. In various chapters, we may describe such mental work as information problem-solving (Chapter 5), constructive learning (Chapter 2), and knowledge as design (Chapter 6).

• Teacher as facilitator

If learners take a more active role and are expected to do more than receive information, the role of the teacher must shift somewhat from an emphasis on dispensing information. Teachers need to think in terms of designing learning experiences and to motivate, question, and evaluate student work as the students respond to these experiences.

• Cooperative learning

Many of the technology-based projects we describe involve student collaboration. Far from being the isolating force that some imagine, the Internet can bring learners together across distances and time or serve as a tool used collaboratively by a group of students as they work on authentic tasks.

B. What is the Internet? (pps. 13-16)

The Internet is an international collection of computer networks involving millions of users. Estimating the number of actual participants is difficult and any published number would soon be inaccurate. The descriptive data we provide comes from Global Reach. It is important to understand that while the Internet is certainly an important tool for educators, the Internet serves many different functions and these functions continue to evolve.

B.1 History of the Internet

The Internet we now use evolved from a research program of the U.S. Department of Defense. The original goal of the project was determine how multiple users could remain in contact despite unreliable channels of communication. Out of this basic research came applications based on two concepts:

B.1.a Networks

Networks connect two points in multiple ways allowing the flow of information when any given connection is unavailable.

B.1.b Information packets

Digital information is over the Internet in packets. A packet of digital information contains some information and information about this information. The information might be part of an e-mail message or part of the information necessary for a computer to display an image, video, or present sound. The information about information helps the packet reach the place it is intended to reach and helps the "system" recover if a packet fails to arrive or is corrupted in the process of moving across the Internet.

The Defense Department network (ARPANet - Advanced Research Projects Agency Network of the Department of Defense) eventually evolved into a network maintained by the National Science Foundation (NSFNET) and eventually into a network supported by commercial providers.

B.2 Some Technical Details

B.2.a TCP/IP protocol

The term protocol refers to an agreed upon set of rules for doing something. TCP/IP establishes the rules for computers communicating over the Internet. TCP concerns the flow and recovery of individual packets. IP concerns the system for addressing computers.

Each computer connected to the Internet has an IP number. When Mark Grabe's office computer is on, it is automatically connected to the Internet. It has the IP number 134.129.172.88. I run a server on this computer just for fun (see page 237). Try this. Use a web browser and enter this number of the address of the site you would like to visit. You will connect to this personal server.

Sometimes the IP number is assigned when a computer connects to the Internet. This is a dynamic IP system and the number assigned would vary with each connection. If you connect to the Internet using a modem, the IP number assigned to your computer during each connection probably varies from one connection to the next. This is not a problem when receiving information over the Internet because the IP number at the time you request information (e.g., when you attempt to connect to a web page) will still be the same during the time between when the information was sent and when it arrives. However, the dynamic assignment of an IP number would not be practical if you wanted to use your "modem-connected" computer as a server. Those trying to visit web material on your server would not know what IP number to use to find the server. While impractical, you can run a server over a telephone modem. However, to reach you, other users might first have to call you (on a second phone line) to find what IP number you were using.

If you would like to discover the IP number assigned to a computer you are using, connect to my server. The page you will encounter has been created to send your IP number back to you. If you are in a computer lab, try connecting from different computers and you will see the IP number changes. If you are connecting using a phone and modem, try connecting a second time and you will probably find that the IP number changes.

B.2.b Domain name

If you have any experience with the Internet, you probably realize you do not typically enter IP numbers. When you send e-mail or connect to a web page, you enter the address as text. The text probably consists of words separated by periods and sometimes slashes - e.g., und.nodak.edu. The text equivalent of the IP number is called the domain name. Special purpose computers on the Internet accept domain names and convert them to IP names. These special purpose computers are called domain name servers. The domain name for my desktop computer is grabe.psych.und.nodak.edu - try it with a web browser and you will reach the same destination as when you tried 134.129.172.88

B.2.c Clients and servers

The description of how information is sent across the Internet is sometimes described in terms of a client and a server. Any computer that makes a resource available to other computers is operating as a server and the software used can be called server software. A computer connecting to the server to gain access to the information is a client and the software operating on that computer is client software. If you attempted the little exercise I described in discussing IP numbers and domain names, the web browser you used was client software and the software running on my desktop computer sending you the web page was server software.

C. What Roles Can the Internet Play in Education? (pps. 16-24)

This book is organized around a structure proposed by Bruce and Levin (1997). This structure suggests that students and teachers can use the Internet as tools for: communication, inquiry, and construction.

C.1 Tools for communication

Communication is essential for education and the Internet offers new opportunities and convenience. Information can be exchanged in the form of text, audio, and video. Messages can be exchanged in real time (synchronously) or sent at one time and received at another (asychronously). In Chapter 3, you will encounter the following communication tools:

C.1.a E-mail

C.1.b Mailing lists

C.1.c Newsgroups

C.1.d Chat

C.1.e Videoconferencing

C.2 Tools for inquiry

The Internet offers a great and ever expanding amount of information. As we use the term, inquiry involves finding task appropriate information, working to understand this information, and when an action is expected, applying knowledge based on information to achieve a task appropriate goal. Information sources can be obtained through:

C.2.a World Wide Web

C.2.b File Transfer Protocol (FTP)

C.2.c Streaming Media

Inquiry tools are described in Chapter 4 and classroom projects based on inquiry tools are discussed in Chapter 5.

C.3 Tools for construction

The Internet provides an outlet for information products and these products can be the culmination of authentic student projects. In Chapter 6, we describe content-area web projects and explain how the construction of the products serves as the opportunity for students to summarize and present their learning. Chapters 7 and 8 deal with the concrete skills involved in creating web pages and making web pages available through the Internet.

D. What Is Needed to Start? (pps. 24-28)

Our simplified explanation of what it takes to connect to the Internet suggests that you think of "the system" as consisting of 5 components:

D.1 Internet backbone

The major trunk lines making up the Internet are owned by large telecommunications companies.

D.2 Internet service provider (ISP)

An ISP is a company or organization that connects multiple users to the Internet. Your college may function as an ISP. College students may take their connection to the Internet for granted because they have never gone through the process of contacting an ISP to purchase access. Look for Internet Service Provider or possibly Internet Access Provider in the yellow pages of your phone book to determine how many local businesses are offering this service. Large companies such as America Online also function as an ISP for many computer users.

D.3 The transfer line

Some type of transfer line must connect an individual computer to the ISP. The transfer line may be the same copper phone line that connects a standard telephone. Phone lines may carry information as an analog signal (see next section on analog modems), but also have the capability for some newer and higher capacity options (ISDN and DSL). The transfer line might also be the cable bringing television programs to a residence. Finally, many educational institutions rely on leased fiber optic lines.

D.4 Hardware for connecting to the transfer line

Some type of hardware is necessary to connect a computer to the transfer line. An analog modem converts digital information into an analog form so that it can be carried over a standard phone line. The word modem is derived from "modulate and demodulate" which refer to the processes of converting information back and forth between the digital and analog forms. An ISDN adapter or a DSL modem is required when using these higher-bandwidth forms of communication. Computers connecting to a fiber optic cable make use of special hardware called an ethernet card.

Wireless access - the new alternative

D.5 The computer and its software

Several types of software must be installed on a computer to connect to and take advantage of Internet resources and services.

D.5.a Making the connection

Computers connected to the Internet must have software enabling the TCP/IP protocol. Computers connected to the Internet by way of a modem must also run a program such as SLIP (Serial Line Internet Protocol) or PPP (Point to Point Protocol).

D.5.b Application software

Application software refers to the client software necessary to send e-mail, view web pages, participate in videoconferencing, or participate in any of the other Internet activities you will find described in this book. A great deal of this software is free. A few applications (e.g., special software for videoconferencing) must be purchased. You will find web address for downloading most of the free products at the end of chapters in which the software is described.

Note: You will encounter some unique terms on this web site and in the book. As you read and listen to those who work with technology, you will also encounter technical terms that may be unfamiliar to you. The Internet offers some sites devoted to helping you quickly find definitions and explanations of unfamiliar technical terms - e.g., www.whatis.com.

E. Trends in Internet Access (pps. 29-30)

If you are interested in using technology, you are probably interested in what typical schools and classrooms have in the way of Internet resources. What is typical is continually changing. The data we provide here is different from what we presented when we wrote the book. We will continue to make adjustments to our descriptive statistics as new data are published.

In 1994, after the National Information Infrastructure initiative committed the government to supporting Internet access, the National Center for Education Statistics began gathering descriptive data. The following data are from the most recent report (Feb, 2000).