Background
Davis Senior High School (DSHS) initiated its access to telecommunications with an AppleTalk network in its computer lab connecting twenty Macintosh computers. Jan Meizel, the computer science teacher at the high school, had little background and no formal education in the field of data communications when she embarked on improving the school's networking resources. However, she was able to establish a vital relationship with a University of California Network Administrator, Joan Gargano. Gargano provided training and technical assistance to Meizel and together they began to create a vision for the school's internetworking.
Meizel, who quickly recognized the potential value of internetworking, has, over the past few years, found ways to incorporate internetworking into the curriculum, training interested teachers at the school and lobbying for network expansion in other areas of the school to facilitate further use of the resource.
Meizel, students, and other faculty continually investigate the network in order to identify resources which enhance and expand their curricula. For example, projects have been created by Kathy Juncker and Meizel to use the San Diego Supercomputer, with local Macintosh software (provided by Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory), to enhance the mathematics and computer science curricula. Writing projects have been developed to support "Writing Across the Curriculum," and special projects have been initiated for physics students as well as ESL, foreign language, Special Day Class, and social studies.
Goals/Vision
One very interesting aspect of the Davis networking project is that for very good reasons it began without a traditional statement of purpose. Meizel was approached by Pacific Bell at a time when very few people had begun exploring the pedagogical value of networking. It was a risk on the part of Meizel to pursue this project -- one that emanated from instinct, hope, and vision. The goal in this project was to discover the educational value of a tool that had been little used in schools but which clearly held great promise. As the project developed and the value of the network revealed itself, Meizel was able to experiment and identify with her colleagues ways in which the network supported and enhanced learning.
This project demonstrated one important aspect of integrating technology across the curriculum that is often overlooked: that is, that sometimes, given how new and rapidly changing much of the technology is, our efforts to develop its educational uses are pioneering efforts. Unlike many strategies and tools which are time-tested, much of technology requires that we take what we know about good education and experiment to find ways in which technology supports it.
Technical Solution
In 1990, Pacific Bell became a partner to the school, enabling Meizel and her colleagues to substantially upgrade their network. Under the auspices of a grant from Pacific Bell and with assistance from the Internet Federation, UC Davis, Apple Computer, and Kinetics Corporation, the high school was able to substantially upgrade its computer lab local area network and connect to the Internet. The computer lab now contains 20 Macintosh workstations and a Macintosh server on an AppleTalk network. This network is gatewayed to the local ethernet and the TCP/IP protocols with a FastPath. The ethernet connects an Apple server running Unix, 12 PS2 workstations and a Proteon router. The router is connected to a 56K line to a UC Davis router which provides access to the Internet.
Funding
In 1990, Pacific Bell awarded a grant to the school providing all of the equipment necessary to expand the DSHS network, connecting it to the Internet via the campus network at the UC Davis. UC Davis, a BARRNet member, then sponsored the high school as an affiliate; this sponsorship enabled DSHS to access the Internet at no cost. Costs incurred by the school included the installation fee for the 56K line and the recurring line cost of approximately $100 per month.
Initially, the school district did not fund the cost of the dedicated line for Internet connectivity. Meizel and her students raised external funds to pay for the line to UC Davis. One year of the ongoing expense was funded by a grant from Entotek, a local business. In addition, fund raising events were sponsored in the community to support ongoing costs. Beginning with the 1993-94 fiscal year, the school included the monthly line costs in its normal budgeting process.
Recognizing that technology changes rapidly, Meizel and her colleagues are continually looking for ways to upgrade their networking resources to optimize the benefits to the students. Meizel works towards timely equipment upgrades through district funding and the grant application process. From IBM, Meizel has received eight PS2s, a server, and a variety of software. Apple awarded the school a grant which provided a server and additional computers to be used in the lab, classrooms, and the library.
Training and Support
Initially, not everyone in the school shared Meizel's enthusiasm for internetworking. A few teachers expressed interest in the resource and Meizel provided training for them, but the majority of the faculty and administration both at the school and at the district level did not take advantage of the connection (in part, because teachers did not have access to the equipment which would make it convenient to include its use in the classroom).
Based upon the high school's success with the Internet, the district is now committed to further expansion of the network. The new principal of DSHS, Howard Cohen, who initiated networking efforts at Emerson Junior High School, is a strong supporter of networking and supports Meizel in her ongoing efforts to expand the resource and the training available to teachers within the district.
In addition, Gargano heads a consortium which has organized local institutions of higher education, as well as K-12 schools, into a cooperating unit which encourages and assists more K-12 participation in cross-grade, interdisciplinary projects. She has provided the expertise necessary to encourage the district to begin work on a districtwide network as well as plans for districtwide access to the Internet backbone. Meizel is participating in the design of the Davis districtwide plan and serves on the Yolo County Office of Education's Telecommunications Task Force. She is also working to encourage federal support of K-12 internetworking as a board member of the Consortium for School Networking. This visibility prompts others in the district to think about the use of data communications and to call upon Meizel to help them with local area network design.
DSHS Internet connectivity is an excellent example of an initiative spearheaded by one teacher which has resulted in a districtwide commitment to data communications.
Jan Meizel
916-753-4966
Email: jemeizel@ucdavis.edu
