Thursday
The Sandia mountains, which help remind everyone in Albuquerque which way is east, silently preside over the commotion. Lots of easterners are walking around from 3 to 5 AM, and I'm convinced it's not just jetlag. I, for one, reread several chapters of Paul Lindner's Gopher Guide, in preparation for my workshop with Don Perkins later today. Two hours later, the sun rises, and I join hundreds of others descending on the Convention Center via shuttle buses that must have once been yellow.
This is only the third conference of this magnitude I've attended, and so I'm not surprised, but still amazed at the reaction of people who know each other on the net meeting each other for the first time. The logistical nightmare involved in realizing the dream of this event took months of work by dozens of people, and has been lovingly guided along by Celia Einhorn, ringmistress of this circus. Don Perkins slides in, to learn as I did that our session will be at a remote location, and Celia fits a gaggle of us into her car, and heads over so we may prepare the network for some envelope stretching. On the way, I innocently ask about lunch, and in a heartbeat, Celia has pointed her car in the opposite direction and we're on our way to a favorite *New Mexican* restaurant for takeout of the authentic item. The flavor of this place goes beyond sky, mountain, green chili...it is an oft to be repeated story of kindness and consideration that permeates the anecdotes exchanged throughout the conference.
What we're trying to do is take 25 or 30 people who've never done it before, and turn them into gophermakers, in two hours. As we get closer to it, Don and I both realize that the potential for absolute failure is much greater than we were willing to previously admit. We start out anyway, and before long get to the guts of the matter. We put people into the Armadillo gopher looking at three sets of examples. In each set, they see the gopher menu, then the directory contents, and finally the file that controls how the menu appears. The first time, it doesn't make sense. The second time, people are more confused. The third time, about half the folks are beginning to get a glimmer, but the other half are wondering about the wisdom of their workshop choice.
Then, we have them create a text file with their name and email address. Next we have them go over to the CoSN gopher and snag the pointer to their favorite K12 gopher site. Now we have them save this information as a file in the gopher. Finally, we have them look at what they've done by using Turbogopher. The wave of elation that broke over everyone in the room, as they see that they *can* create resources does two things at once: they suddenly understand the function and relation of the previous exercise, and know that anyone else on the Internet can now see anything they create in this manner. The risk paid off, and Don and I return, exhausted but very, very satisfied.
Conferencing, I am learning, is a skill unto itself. Not only are 1600 telecommunicating educators forming a critical social mass here, but the Chief States School Officers are also having a technology conference, and tonight is a joint reception. It is interesting to observe how people who gracefullly flow across boundaries and timezones online react differently to the presence of the decisionmakers who shape their local and state realities. I love it when a prestigious state person, who hopes to get the ear of Linda Roberts, is bypassed as Linda recognizes an online champion, embraces, and asks the surprised official if they are acquainted (and in this case were not!). Some midlevel managers are having a difficult time with the flattened heirarchy within which our pioneering work flourishes.
For my part, I've been reduced to writing the time and location of every workshop I'm doing on a single sheet of paper, and scouting out when and where the people I want to have conversations with are presenting. I've even schemed to intercept them in order to schedule times when we can discuss various projects. The amazing thing is not that this works (it does) but that at least 50% of the best interactions turn out to be completely spontaneous.
Point in case. As I was setting up for the Gopher Growers workshop, Betsy Frederick (a prime mover of the conference) was taking a group on a tour of the Albuquerque Public Schools technology center, and one of the participants was Patricia Wang-Iverso, from Research for Better Schools. I'd first met Patricia last February, while working on New Jersey's National Science Foundation Networking Infrastructure for Education grant. We decided we had lots to talk about, and over the next three days found more time for interaction than we'd been able to in the preceeding 9 months. By chance, Bonnie Bracey spotted me eating lunch with Patricia and brought over Steve Hodas, so he could see what I look like. You see, this is a sport at TelEd and NECC - finding out the reality behind the bytes. I was knocked out to meet Steve, whose Technology Refusal papers have deepened our understanding of an important dynamic in extending networking to all classrooms. In any event, it turned out that this chance meeting between Patricia and Steve, thanks to Bonnie, with my postings as a catalyst, may result in electrifying results for many, many learners in Washington DC.
Following the reception, Frank Odasz convened the first gathering of the CoSN curriculum committee, which had been preparing to share materials at the conference with the view of creating a "starter kit" for teachers to help them develop skills of "telecollaboration". For me, a highlight was meeting Carmen Gonzales, who runs SalsaNet. This BBS is one of the most powerful uses of networking I've ever seen, and employs low cost, high value, innovative technologies to extend the benefits of telecom in a multicultural, multilingual manner. I found the true feeling and spirit of Resolana comes across the wires (resolana having been explained to me by Dave Hughes as the location on the south side of a building on the public square where people gather to form and nourish their community by the stories they exchange). You *must* check it out, which you can do by telnet to salsa.umn.edu and login: salsa. After the assembled 40 people introduced themselves, we dove into a pile of pizzas. Larry Anderson took the prize for contributions by bringing 6 ringbinders full of materials a pair of his graduate students had assembled as being most needed by teachers new to telecommunications. Chad Anderson and I created an improvisation where he beat on Larry's binders with my sticks, while I reacted to his rhythms on my flute, which changed to a rendition of "Birks Works" aimed squarely at Bonnie. Then we went out to do some serious musical investigations.
Friday Workshop reflections:
Friday's workshops were the CoSN Curriculum presentation, the CoSN Support and Training presentation, and my Forming Robin Hood's Band session.
If you'd been out until midnight at a blues jam at the Dingo Bar in downtown Albuquerque, I'm sure you'd be as excited to have an 8AM call for a panel presentation as I was! Actually, it was the hour and not the topic that seemed odd, but you must remember to factor in the energy that was crackling through the conference attendees. I'd been up since 5 anyway, so by the time Gwen Solomon convened the Curriculum session, it seemed like a normal day!
For me, the Curriculum highlights included Kay Abernathy's description of a project by a student with Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, and Stephanie Stevenson's description of how the Internet has elevated the conceptual level of discourse with her At-Risk students. Sally Laughn and Frank Odasz described the different yet powerful ways each is collecting and disseminating telecurricular project for the entire Internet community. I presented a description of how we in Princeton are reinventing our curriculum around the computer as a tool for learning (having replaced Computer Literacy with a team approach whereby subject area teachers teach in the lab, facilitated by pre-project planning sessions and my presence as needed to make things work) and used the KidLink projects as a centerpiece for curriculum integration. All of our 575 students are answering the Four Questions, and if your students are ages 10 - 15 you ought to become familiar with their array of exciting, teacher crafted activities. (To get there, gopher kids.ccit.duq.edu).
After the session, I went down to the exhibit hall, and heard that David Hughes was demonstrating his innovative system, called HiCom, and packet radio modems that permit connections at speeds of 19.2K (all the way up to 115K!) at ranges of up to 20 miles, all without any phone bill at all! His system was in operation, with a laptop connected by radio into the server across the room. His LORA software runs on OS/2, and does so many things I'd be reluctant to describe it all, but includes BBS, Unix, netnews, a very flexible graphics system called NAPLPS. He described, for example, how one school used the 8 phone lines it had coming in. During the day, they were used for phones (of course not in any teacher's room ;->) and at night, they were connected to modems, which in turn connected to the server via a DigiCard, which in turn connected to a packet radio modem. This radio modem connected to a machine across town which was directly on the Internet, effectively providing 8 dialup lines for direct internet access at no cost for line charges or connectivity, beyond the one time cost of $500 per packet radio modem on each end. You must check this out!
While Hughes was explaining this to me, he was approached by a German film crew who'd interviewed him for a feature they were doing on the Internet in Education in America. With a straight face, he introduced me as the person they needed to interview to see how it's used in real life in the classroom (I'd have blushed, but I was too shocked...) and the next thing I knew I was explaining to the German people why we feel it is so important to offer our students the Internet as a tool for learning. Again, magic from this conference abounded.
After recovering from this experience by snagging a junkfood lunch (particularly poignant, given the proximity of some of the best Southwest food, just out of reach beyond the Convention Center) it was time for the next session.
The Support and Training session demonstrated how resourceful people can be. In Chip Daley's case, the people in Las Vegas have established a foundation to raise funds for education. Under the dynamic leadership of Judi Steele, since 1992 this foundation has brought in $3.6 *million* dollars to support curriculum in a school district that comprises 75% of the State's student population. Teachers apply for grants from these funds, and successful projects are analysed, documented and then "franchised" to other schools. Just as we do in Princeton, a FirstClass BBS system is used to provide online training and coordination to teachers throughout the district.
Mon, 14 Nov 1994
Ferdi Serim
Princeton Regional Schools
Computer Teacher/ District Computer Coordinator
ferdi_serim@monet.prs.k12.nj.us (school) phone: 609 683-4699
ferdi@cosn.org (Consortium for School Networking)
"When you're a dreamer, who needs to sleep?"