CHAPTER 13: EDUCATION AND THE NET

13.1 THE NET IN THE CLASSROOM

If you're a teacher, you've probably already begun to see the potential
the Net has for use in the class. Usenet, the Web and ftp have
tremendous educational potential, from keeping up with world events to
arranging international science experiments.

Because the Net now reaches so many countries and often stays online even
when the phones go down, you and your students can "tune in" to first-
hand accounts during international conflicts. Look at your system's list
of Usenet soc.culture groups to see if there is one about the country or
region you're interested in. Even in peacetime, these newsgroups can be
great places to find people from countries you might be studying.

The biggest problem may be getting accounts for your students, if you're
not lucky enough to live within the local calling area of a Free-Net
system. Many colleges and universities, however, are willing to discuss
providing accounts for secondary students at little or no cost. Several
states, including California and Texas, have Internet-linked networks for
teachers and students.

13.2 SOME SPECIFIC RESOURCES FOR STUDENTS AND TEACHERS

In addition, there are a number of resources on the Internet aimed
specifically at elementary and secondary students and teachers. You can
use these to set up science experiments with classes in another country,
learn how to use computers in the classroom or keep up with the latest
advances in teaching everything from physics to physical education.

Among them:

ArtsEdge Federally sponsored Online arts resources for students
and teachers, it's available on the web at

http://k12.cnidr.org/janice_k12/artsedge/artsedge2.html

Ask Dr. Math Math professors and college students help k12 students
with tough math questions. Students can ask questions
by e-mail and browse past answers on the Web. The
e-mail address is dr.math@forum.swarthmore.edu; the Web
url http://olmo.swarthmore.edu/dr-math/dr-math.html

AskERIC Run by the Educational Resource and Information Center,

AskERIC provides a way for educators, librarians and

others interested in K-12 education to get more

information about virtually everything. The center

maintains an e-mail address (askeric@ericir.syr.edu) for

questions and promises answers within 48 hours. It also

maintains a Web site that contains digests of

questions and answers, lesson plans in a variety of

fields and other educationally related information. The

Web address is http://ericir.syr.edu/.

Health-Ed A mailing list for health educators. Send a request to

health-ed-request@stjhmc.fidonet.org

K12Net Begun on the Fidonet hobbyist network, K12Net is now also

carried on many Usenet systems and provides a host of

interesting and valuable services. These include

international chat for students, foreign-language

discussions (for example, there are French and German-

only conference where American students can practice

those languages with students from Quebec and German).

There are also conferences aimed at teachers of specific

subjects, from physical education to physics. The K12

network still has limited distribution, so ask your

system administrator if your system carries it.

Kidsphere Kidsphere is a mailing list for elementary and secondary

teachers, who use it to arrange joint projects and

discuss educational telecommunications. You will find

news of new software, lists of sites from which you can

get computer-graphics pictures from various NASA

satellites and probes and other news of interest to

modem-using teachers.

To subscribe, send a request by e-mail to kidsphere-

request@vms.cis.pitt.edu or joinkids@vms.cis.pitt.edu and

you will start receiving messages within a couple of

days.

To contribute to the discussion, send messages to

kidsphere@vms.cis.pitt.edu.

KIDS is a spin-off of KIDSPHERE just for students

who want to contact students. To subscribe, send a

request to joinkids@vms.cis.pitt.edu, as above. To

contribute, send messages to kids@vms.cist.pitt.edu.

MicroMUSE This is an online, futuristic city, built entirely by

participants (see chapter 12 for information on MUSEs

and MUDs in general). Hundreds of students from all

over have participated in this educational exercise,

coordinated by MIT. Telnet to michael.ai.mit.edu.

Log on as guest and then follow the prompts for more

information.

NASA Spacelink This system, run by NASA in Huntsville, Ala.,

provides all sorts of reports and data about NASA, its

history and its various missions, past and present.

Telnet spacelink.msfc.nasa.gov or 128.158.13.250.

When you connect, you'll be given an overview of the

system and asked to register. The system maintains a

large file library of GIF-format space graphics, but note

that you can't download these through telnet. If you want

to, you have to dial the system directly, at (205) 895-

0028. Many can be obtained through ftp from

ames.arc.nasa.gov, however.

Newton Run by the Argonne National Laboratory, it offers

conferences for teachers and students, including one

called "Ask a Scientist."

Telnet: newton.dep.anl.gov.

Log in as: cocotext

You'll be asked to provide your name and address. When

you get the main menu, hit 4 for the various conferences.

The "Ask a Scientist" category lets you ask questions of

scientists in fields from biology to earth science.

Other categories let you discuss teaching, sports and

computer networks.

OERI The U.S. Department of Education's Office of Educational
Resources and Improvement runs a gopher system that
provides numerous educational resources, information and
statistics for teachers. Use gopher to connect to

gopher.ed.gov.

Spacemet Forum If your system doesn't carry the K12 conferences, but

does provide you with telnet, you can reach the

conferences through SpaceMet Forum, a bulletin-board

system aimed at teachers and students that is run by the

physics and astronomy department at the University of

Massachusetts at Amherst.

Telnet: spacemet.phast.umass.edu.

When you connect, hit escape once, after which you'll be

asked to log on. Like K12Net, SpaceMet Forum began as a

Fidonet system, but has since grown much larger. Mort

and Helen Sternheim, professors at the university,

started SpaceMet as a one-line bulletin-board system

several years ago to help bolster middle-school science

education in nearby towns.

In addition to the K12 conferences, SpaceMet carries

numerous educationally oriented conferences. It also has

a large file library of interest to educators and

students, but be aware that getting files to your site

could be difficult and maybe even impossible. Unlike

most other Internet sites, Spacemet does not use an ftp

interface. The Sternheims say ZMODEM sometimes works over

the network, but don't count on it.

Yahoo This Stanford University web service provides an archive of

links to other educational resources on the net at

http://akebono.stanford.edu/yahoo/Education/

13.3 USENET AND BITNET IN THE CLASSROOM

There are numerous Usenet newsgroups of potential interest to
teachers and students.

As you might expect, many are of a scientific bent. You can find these by
typing l sci. in rn or using nngrep sci. for nn. There are now close to
40, with subjects ranging from archaeology to economics (the "dismal
science," remember?) to astronomy to nanotechnology (the construction of
microscopically small machines).

One thing students will quickly learn from many of these groups: science
is not just dull, boring facts. Science is argument and standing your
ground and making your case. The Usenet sci. groups encourage critical
thinking.

Beyond science, social-studies and history classes can keep busy learning
about other countries, through the soc.culture newsgroups.

Most of these newsgroups originated as ways for expatriates of a given
country to keep in touch with their homeland and its culture. In times
of crisis, however, these groups often become places to disseminate
information from or into the country and to discuss what is happening.
From Afghanistan to Yugoslavia, close to 50 countries are now represented
on Usenet. To see which groups are available, use l soc.culture. in rn
or nngrep soc.culture. for nn.

Several "talk" newsgroups provide additional topical discussions, but
teachers should screen them first before recommending them to students.
They range from talk.abortion and talk.politics.guns to
talk.politics.space and talk.environment.

One caveat: Teachers might want to peruse particular newsgroups before
setting their students loose in them. Some have higher levels of flaming
and blather than others, not to mention content that some might not
consider appropriate in a school setting. Some schools have developed
"contracts" that students are required to sign that set out acceptable
Net behavior.

There are also a number of Bitnet discussion groups of potential interest
to students and teachers. See Chapter 5 for information on finding and
subscribing to Bitnet discussion groups. Some with an educational
orientation include:

biopi-l ksuvm.bitnet Secondary biology education

chemed-l uwf.bitnet Chemistry education

dts-l iubvm.bitnet The Dead Teacher's Society list

phys-l uwf.bitnet Discussions for physics teachers

physhare psuvm.bitnet Where physics teachers share resources

scimath-l psuvm.bitnet Science and math education

To get a list of ftp sites that carry astronomical images in the GIF
graphics format, use ftp to connect to nic.funet.fi. Switch to the
/pub/astro/general directory and get the file astroftp.txt. Among the
sites listed is ames.arc.nasa.gov, which carries images taken by the
Voyager and Galileo probes, among other pictures.

CHAPTER 14: BUSINESS ON THE NET

14.1 SETTING UP SHOP

Back in olden days, oh, before 1990 or so, there were no markets in the
virtual community -- if you wanted to buy a book, you still had to jump
in your car and drive to the nearest bookstore.

This was because back then, the Net consisted mainly of a series of
government-funded networks on which explicit commercial activity was
forbidden. Today, much of the Net is run by private companies, which
generally have no such restrictions, and businesses are falling over
themselves to get online -- from giant companies like AT&T to small
flower shops. In 1994, Home Shopping Network, better known for selling
cubic zirconia on cable TV, bought the Internet Shopping Network, an
online computer store. Its rival, QVC, also has plans for an Internet
service.

So with an Internet account today, you can buy everything from computers
to condoms. Much of this is being driven by the World-Wide Web, which
makes possible such things as online catalogs and order forms. To be
sure, there were online stores before the Web took off, but the Web lets
a company show off its wares, and logo, in an easy-on-the-eyes (and easy-
to-use) format. And pre-Web efforts concentrated more on giving you
limited access to an online catalog -- you still had to call a phone
number somewhere to actually place an order.

14.2 ONLINE STOREFRONTS

Some companies, particularly large computer companies such as Digital
Equipment Corp. and Sun Microsystems, Inc., have set up their own online
storefronts. Smaller companies, though, are increasingly setting up shop
in online "malls." The idea behind these malls is similar to that of
real ones -- you go to the mall for one particular item, and then browse
around seeing what else there is (for stores, the advantages are also
similar -- the mall owner is responsible for advertising, promises a
certain amount of "foot traffic" and does all the maintenance).

One of the earliest malls, in fact, one based on gopher, is run by Msen,
a public-access Internet provider in Ann Arbor, Mich. Its Msen
Marketplace offers a travel agency, "Internet Business Pages" listing
companies with services available on the Internet, and an "Online Career
Center, offering help-wanted ads from across the U.S. You can reach Msen
through gopher at

gopher.msen.com

At the main menu, select "Msen Marketplace."

As of this writing (November, 1994), CommerceNet remains more a concept
than an actual online mall. But if you want to take a peek through a
knothole at the construction, point your Web browser at

http://www.commerce.net

HotWired and the Global Network Navigator represent two other ways to do
business on the Internet. Both are online magazines on the Web,
featuring not only links to other services, but original writing, as well
(HotWired, started by Wired magazine, even lets readers participate in
public forums on the articles). Both carry advertising in the form of
icons. Click on the icons (or in the case of Lynx, move your cursor to
the advertiser's name and hit enter) and you'll be connected to
advertising material related to whatever the company in question is
trying to sell. You can try HotWired at

http://www.hotwired.com

and Global Network Navigator at

http://gnn.com

For the former, you'll have to register first (unusual for a Web
resource); for the latter, you'll have to chose a local GNN server first.

14.3 THE CHECK IS IN THE (E)-MAIL

But are *you* going to buy something over the Internet? For all the hype
over small florists getting international orders over the Internet, one
has to wonder whether these storefronts will ultimately prove more
successful than the ones that have long been present on commercial
networks such as CompuServe and Prodigy. Are you going to entrust your
credit-card number to the Internet, a network on which security concerns
have made front-page news more than once?

Some electronic merchants say that sending your credit-card number over
the Internet is really no more risky than handing it over to a clerk in a
department store. Their argument is base on security through obscurity --
there are so many e-mail messages pouring through the Internet each day
that it would be virtually impossible for a hacker to find the ones
containing credit-card information.

Others, however, are more wary -- as are their potential customers.
Merchants also want some assurances that the person making an order
really is who she says she is. Internet e-mail is simply ASCII text, and
while the sheer volume of it these days would make it difficult to find
specific messages, one should never underestimate the ability of a
harcker with a computer to find a needle in a haystack (i.e., one credit
card number out of thousands of messages).

As you might expect, a number of companies are working on making the
Internet safe for business. CommerceNet, a joint venture between the U.S.
government and companies in California's Silicon Valley, has developed a
system based on encryption. When you fill out an online order form, it
is encoded in such a way that only the merchant you're sending it to can
de-code it -- and inside will be your unique "digital signature," proving
you are, in fact, you.

But this approach relies on you having a special piece of software on
your computer to encrypt the order form. Netscape's World-Wide Web
browser is the first to incorporate this software (that's what the little
broken key in the lower left hand corner is for), but other companies
that sell Web browsers will be adding it over the next few months.

The basic way it works relies on a technique known as public-key
encryption. In this system, the merchant has a public key, or
mathematical formula, that can be used to encrypt messages meant for him.
Anybody can use this key, but only the merchant has the private key that
can open up the message. Now you can fill out an online order form and
include your credit-card number -- and be assured that nobody can

But some argue this sort of technique would impede impulse purchase
(surely a right enshrined in the U.S.
Constitution), because you need the right software to handle the
encryption on your computer.

So other companies are working on the online equivalent of credit cards
good at participating merchants. First, you apply for an account with
one of these companies the old-fashioned way -- by telephone or postal
mail.

Then, when you connect to a participating merchant and submit an order,
the merchant's computer sends a message to the "credit card" computer.
That computer then sends a message to you, asking you to confirm the
order. One company's computer will even ask you to answer a question
only you could answer (such as your mother's maiden name or your dog's
name). Assuming you answer affirmatively, the transaction is then
completed.

A third approach involves an attempt to create an electronic equivalent
of cold, hard cash. Proponents say one of the problems with the first
two approaches is that somebody, somewhere, is keeping track of who you
are and what you buy. Instead, in an approach developed by a Dutch
company called DigiCash, your bank essentially lets you withdraw funds
into a digital account that sits on your personal computer. Then when
you enter an online store that accepts this digital money, you can pay
them with these funds.

This approach, like the cryptography one, requires special software
(which creates your "digital signature"), as well as an account with a
participating bank.

Now proponents of the last two methods argue that, ultimately, the bulk
of Internet business will center not on big-ticket items such as
computers or cars, but on information. Right now, information for sale
tends to be very expensive and sold on the basis of high hourly rates.
With the potential mass market represented by the Internet, though,
people with information to sell might find it more lucrative to lower
their rates and go for volume. With an all electronic system, it might
become possible, say, to sell information for a small per-article or per-
search charge.

Over the next year or so, you'll see all three types of systems become
more common in online stores. Expect some confusion as merchants and
users try to figure out which system to use.

14.4 THE GOOD, THE BAD AND THE UGLY

1994 represented something of a watershed for the Internet -- it was the
year the people who normally advertise in the back of the National
Inquirer and Cosmopolitan discovered the Net.

Usenet participants found their favorite conferences filled with ads for
everything from thigh-reducing cream to pornography. Canter and Siegel,
a pair of lawyers in Phoenix, Ariz., gained national media attention when
they flooded some 6,000 separate Usenet newsgroups with ads for a $99
immigration service.

The reason they gained such notice was not because they had done
something unique (in January, 1994, a system administrator at a small
college in Pennsylvania did much the same thing with postings about how
the Los Angeles earthquake proved the Second Coming was imminent), but
because of the reaction of Internet users. Simply, they were outraged
that no matter what newsgroup they went into, whether it was to discuss
Unix programming or planning a wedding, they found the same darn ad, over
and over and over. Some responded by posting messages on how to get the
same services offered by the lawyers for free. More deluged the lawyers
-- and the administrators at the system they used -- with protest
messages, some 200 megabytes worth in just two days. Suddenly, the once
obscure Usenet phrase "to spam" (from the Monty Python skit about the
restaurant that only serves the stuff) was making the pages of the New
York Times.

But what the lawyers pulled may be the last time anybody gets away with
something like that. Today, numerous Usenet users stay on the alert for
spamming. Using a technique known as "cancelling," they are able to wipe
out such messages almost as soon as they pop up.

The moral of the story is that Internet users do not object to
advertising in general, but that many feel it has a proper place -- in
online catalogs that users have to make a point of going to, not shoved
down people's throats in discussion areas.

14.5 FYI

You can read about Digicash's e-cash proposal at its Web site:
http://www.digicash.com.

Open Marketplace, Inc., is developing a credit-card type of approach
to commerce. You can get a look on the Web at
http://www.openmarket.com/omp.html.

Dave Taylor's "Internet Shopping Mall" is a comprehensive listing of
online stores. You can get it via anonymous FTP at ftp.netcom.com.
Look in the /pub/Gu/Guides directory. It's also available via Gopher
at peg.cwis.uci.edu. From the main menu, select Accessing the
Internet, PEG, Internet Assistance and then Internet Shopping Mall
(you may have to go down a couple of pages to get there).

If you want to discuss the online shopping experience, the imall-chat
mailing list is for you. To subscribe, write to listserv@netcom.com.
Leave your subject line blank, and as your message, write: subscribe
imall-chat.

Bob O'Keefe at Renssalaer Polytechnic Institute maintains an extensive
listing of businesses on the Net. It's available via the Web at
http://www.rpi.edu/okeefe/businss.html.

You'll find another extensive listing at Stanford University's Yahoo
site on the Web: http://akebono.stanford.edu/yahoo/Business/Corporations

Kent State University in Ohio maintains a repository of "Business Sources
on the Net." Use gopher to connect to refmac.kent.edu.

Two books to take a look at are Jill Ellsworth's "The Internet
Business Book" (John Wiley and Sons) and Mary Cronin's "Doing Business
on the Internet" (1994, Van Nostrand Reinhold).

The alt.current-events.net-abuse Usenet newsgroup is the place to discuss
spamming and other obnoxious advertising.

CHAPTER 15: THE END?

The revolution is just beginning. New communications systems and digital
technologies have already meant dramatic changes in the way we live.
Think of what is already routine that would have been considered
impossible just ten years ago. You can browse through the holdings of
your local library -- or of libraries halfway around the world -- do your
banking and see if your neighbor has gone bankrupt, all through a
computer and modem.

Imploding costs coupled with exploding power are bringing ever more
powerful computer and digital systems to ever growing numbers of people.
The Net, with its rapidly expanding collection of databases and other
information sources, is no longer limited to the industrialized nations
of the West; today it extends from Siberia to Zimbabwe. The cost
of computers and modems used to plug into the Net, meanwhile, continue
to plummet, making them ever more affordable, even as the Internet
becomes easier to use.

Cyberspace has become a vital part of millions of people's daily
lives. People form relationships online, they fall in love, they get
married, all because of initial contacts in cyberspace, that ephemeral
``place'' that transcends national and state boundaries. Business
deals are transacted entirely in ASCII. Political and social
movements begin online, coordinated by people who could be thousands
of miles apart.

Yet this is only the beginning.

We live in an age of communication, yet the various media we use to talk
to one another remain largely separate systems. One day, however, your
telephone, TV, fax machine and personal computer will be replaced by a
single ``information processor'' linked to the worldwide Net by strands
of optical fiber.

Beyond databases and file libraries, power will be at your fingertips.
Linked to thousands, even millions of like-minded people, you'll be able
to participate in social and political movements across the country and
around the world.

How does this happen? In part, it will come about through new
technologies. High-definition television will require the development of
inexpensive computers that can process as much information as today's
workstations. Telephone and cable companies will cooperate, or in some
cases compete, to bring those fiber-optic cables into your home.

The Clinton administration, arguably the first led by people who know how
to use not only computer networks but computers, is pushing for creation
of a series of "information superhighways" comparable in scope to the
Interstate highway system of the 1950s (one of whose champions in the
Senate has a son elected vice president in 1992).

Right now, we are in the network equivalent of the early 1950s, just
before the creation of that massive highway network. Sure, there are
plenty of interesting things out there, but you have to meander along
two-lane roads, and have a good map, to get to them.

Creation of this new Net will require more than just high-speed channels
and routing equipment; it will require a new communications paradigm: the
Net as information utility. The Net remains a somewhat complicated and
mysterious place. To get something out of the Net today, you have to
spend a fair amount of time with a Net veteran or a manual like this.
You have to learn such arcana as the vagaries of the Unix cd command.

Contrast this with the telephone, which now also provides access to large
amounts of information through push buttons, or a computer network such
as Prodigy, which one navigates through simple commands and mouse clicks.

Internet system administrators have begun to realize that not all people
want to learn the intricacies of Unix, and that that fact does not make
them bad people. We are already seeing the development of simple
interfaces that will put the Net's power to use by millions of people.
You can already see their influence in the menus of gophers and the
World-Wide Web, which require no complex computing skills but which open
the gates to thousands of information resources. Mail programs and text
editors such as pico and pine promise much of the power of older programs
such as emacs at a fraction of the complexity.

Some software engineers are taking this even further, by creating
graphical interfaces that will let somebody navigate the Internet just by
clicking on the screen with a mouse or by calling up an easy text editor,
sort of the way one can now navigate a Macintosh computer -- or a
commercial online service such as Prodigy.

Then there are the Internet services themselves.

For every database now available through the Internet, there are probably
three or four that are not. Government agencies are only now beginning
to connect their storehouses of information to the Net. Several
commercial vendors, from database services to booksellers, have made
their services available through the Net.

Few people now use one of the Net's more interesting applications. A
standard known as MIME lets one send audio and graphics files along with
an E-mail message. Imagine opening your e-mail one day to hear your
granddaughter's first words, or a "photo" of your friend's new house.
Eventually, this standard could allow for distribution of even small
video displays over the Net.

All of this will require vast new amounts of Net power, to handle both
the millions of new people who will jump onto the Net and the new
applications they want. Replicating a moving image on a computer screen
alone takes a phenomenal amount of computer bits, and computing power to
arrange them.

All of this combines into a National Information Infrastructure able to
move billions of bits of information in one second -- the kind of power
needed to hook information "hoses" into every business and house.

As these "superhighways" grow, so will the "on ramps," for a high-speed
road does you little good if you can't get to it. The costs of modems
seem to fall as fast as those of computers. High-speed modems (9600 baud
and up) are becoming increasingly affordable. At 9600 baud, you can
download a satellite weather image of North America in less than two
minutes, a file that, with a slower modem could take up to 20 minutes to
download. Eventually, homes could be connected directly to a national
digital network. Most long-distance phone traffic is already carried in
digital form, through high-volume optical fibers. Phone companies are
ever so slowly working to extend these fibers the "final mile" to the
home. The Electronic Frontier Foundation is working to ensure these
links are affordable.

Beyond the technical questions are increasingly thorny social, political
and economic issues. Who is to have access to these services, and at what
cost? If we live in an information age, are we laying the seeds for a
new information under class, unable to compete with those fortunate
enough to have the money and skills needed to manipulate new
communications channels? Who, in fact, decides who has access to what?
As more companies realize the potential profits to be made in the new
information infrastructure, what happens to such systems as Usenet,
possibly the world's first successful anarchistic system, where everybody
can say whatever they want?

What are the laws of the electronic frontier? When national and state
boundaries lose their meaning in cyberspace, the question might even be:
WHO is the law? What if a practice that is legal in one country is
"committed" in another country where it is illegal, over a computer
network that crosses through a third country? Who goes after computer
crackers?

What role will you play in the revolution?