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National School Network Testbed - Call for Stories
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Date: Tue, 26 Mar 1996 17:11:20 -0500
From: Melanie Goldman
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Announcing
NATIONAL SCHOOL NETWORK TESTBED CALL FOR STORIES on
SCHOOL- COMMUNITY INVOLVEMENT * *
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The National School Network Testbed invites stories from Testbed members about their school/community partnerships. The NSNTestbed is looking for ways schools are engaging their local communities in school efforts, particularly where these activities are making innovative use of telecommunications technology. Our goal is to help educators, community leaders, and policy makers gain insight into ways of making closer links between schools and local communities. A team of National School Testbed members will review the entries, selecting 15 winners who will each receive an honorarium of $500.
The deadline for submission is May 15, 1996.
This is an opportunity for Testbed members to highlight those projects where people in their communities and schools have been dedicated to working together to make something happen. It is an opportunity to share what is being learned.
The NSNTestbed will publish these stories both on the Web and on paper and distribute the collection widely to organizations like the Regional Educational Laboratories, state education agencies, the American Association of School Administrators, the Department of Education, and the National Science Foundation. Members can use this collection of stories to inform their local communities about school/community partnerships, and use them in support of local and state initiatives.
ABOUT THE NATIONAL SCHOOL NETWORK TESTBED: The National School Network Testbed's purpose, as a National Science Foundation Networking Infrastructure for Education program, is to further the use of telecommunications networks in support of education and to develop research that will inform policy and decision makers about the costs and benefits of investment in information infrastructure. The NSNTestbed has come to understand, that of all the issues and dimensions surrounding telecommunications networks and school restructuring, we can most productively focus on leveraging school and local community interactions. The use of telecommunications in successful school and community activities helps to build community support and investment in school restructuring and the technical infrastructure.
CONTENT OF STORIES: Please submit stories in electronic form and include your email address as well as related URLs. Your submission should address the areas listed below and not exceed a total of 1500 words:
1. Describe the project or program: What is involved in the project? Who is involved - students, teachers, community members and organizations and what are their roles? What is the project trying to accomplish? (Please make sure to include URLs and email addresses of participants.)
2. Describe the initial efforts to build support: How did the project get started? Who initiated the project? What strategies were used to gain support? What roles have community members played in terms of support? Where has leadership come from?
3. Describe the community partnerships: What is your community like? How did community organizations get involved? Who initiated the contact? Who maintains the contacts? Are students directly involved with adults in the community organizations?
4. Funding: What was the initial funding source? How was it obtained? Where are ongoing funds coming from?
5. Describe the impact on education: Has the project enriched the learning experience for students and how? What's different about the kind of work the students do in this program compared to what they do in more traditional school work? What's different about the way teachers work in this program? In what ways have you seen students change as a result of the use of software tools, telecommunications, and community resources in the program? In what ways have you seen teachers change as the result of the use of telecommunications in the program?
6. Describe computer networks, Internet use, databases, and knowledgebases: Tell us something about the computers, networks, and information services available to students, teachers, parents, and community members in the program. Are they networked? Do teachers have access to email? Do students? Are students involved with making web pages or building databases? Have there been any problems? What type of support and or training was required.?
6. Describe what the program has accomplished: Has the schools relationship with the community grown through the program and if so how? Have there been some critical points that have made a big difference in the success of the program so far? Has the community been more willing to invest in networking infrastructure having seen the benefits through this program?
7. Provide some advice: What would you suggest to other schools or communities
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EXAMPLES OF SCHOOL - COMMUNITY INVOLVEMENT:
1. Project-based learning with the Community as an Audience. Students produce a product, either individually or in groups, having academic content, often in a traditional field like government or environmental science, and which is done in order to change actual conditions or psychic well-being in the community.
Example: Students work with the Juvenile Justice System to develop information on the web about what the Justice system does and why. This can involve interviewing officials in the legal system as well as research on law. They apply technical skills in building home pages and learn the content that they communicate to the readers of their pages. The activity should result in a product that is be meant to be seen and used by community members.
2. School to Work-Experience. Students work for a community enterprise--a for-profit, non-profit, or governmental organization--either for pay or for credit, which, in addition to helping their employer, assists their own learning as well. This purpose is most clearly indicated when students participate in organized reflective and follow-up activities in the school setting related to their work experience.
Example: Students are paid to learn and to conduct network troubleshooting in regular work settings in the community.
3. Tutoring and Mentoring: Regular contact between students or classes and parents or community members who share their expertise, opinions, or information. Community members tutor (academic) or mentor (personal growth) individually or through organizations.
Example: An adult mentor periodically comments on a student's writing through electronic mail or through the web. Through this students learn to write for an audience besides the teacher, get insight into their ideas and their writing skills.
4. Community Service Learning. Students help government and non-profit organizations in their community in programs in which their own learning is a manifest purpose in addition to the growth fostered by the service performed. The work can be required or voluntary, credit or non-credit, or done through a school program or independently.
Example: Students work with their local town or city representatives to solve issues surrounding teenage drug and alcohol use, corresponding via electronic mail. Through online discussions and face to face workshops they establish priorities and design steps to address these priorities.
5. Community Volunteers. Parents and other community members regularly participate in volunteer activities in the school building, either during the school day or at other times, supporting or directly dealing with the education of students.
Example: A local Tech Corps helps install and maintain a school's LAN and WAN connections.
6. Schools take on a leadership role in building awareness about the value of technology in restructuring education and/or developing the necessary local network infrastructure.
Example: the school organization can influence the community in its understanding and use of network technology through presentations, activities, and town meeting discussion. Another case is when a school organization builds the local information infrastructure and/or becomes the Internet access provider.
7. Community Education. The use of the school building for adult education or the education of other non-enrolled individuals during evening and weekend hours. Scout organization use of school facilities is an example as well as formal local-government-organized programs.
Example: A school's LAN and Internet connection are used for classes for adults in Internet use.
8. School-based Enterprise. Students working under the direction of an educational professional in actual productive work, as a self-contained organization or organizational unit, either for credit or for pay, using school-owned facilities.
Example: Students develop Web-pages for local companies using school facilities, or they operate their community's Web-server.
9. School-Community Communication Links.
Example: Students learn about careers through formal matching with adults in their community in particular occupations and on-going e-mail-based discussion using their school's Internet mail server.
10. School-Parent Communication Links. Regular contact between teachers and parents via home log-in to school Internet server.
Example: Parents view student work and homework assignments on Web pages and communicate with their child's teacher via e-mail.
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INFORMATION ABOUT THE NATIONAL SCHOOL NETWORK TESTBED
The National School Network Testbed web site is located at:
http://copernicus.bbn.com/testbed2/
A document describing the research initiative is available at:
http://copernicus.bbn.com/testbed2/community/TBresearch.html
The announcement for this "Call for Stories" is posted at:
http://copernicus.bbn.com/testbed2/community/callstories.html
For further information contact:
Melanie Goldman Exchange Director, National School Network Testbed mgoldman@bbn.com
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OFFICIAL RULES
To Enter: ++++++++
To enter, participants must submit their stories in accordance with the guidelines stated above not later than May 15, 1996. Stories must be submitted in electronic form and include the participant's email address and related URLs. The submission must not exceed a total of 1500 words. Entries must be submitted to :
mgoldman@bbn.com
Please include:
your name organization name postal address phone number NSNTestbed affiliation.
Eligibility: +++++++++++
Participation is open to all National School Network Testbed members -- students, teachers, parents, community members, business representatives, and administrators. Some aspect of the project should involve the use of computer networking. Students in particular are encouraged to submit stories, and to interview community members who are working on school-related projects.
If you are not a National School Network Testbed member and wish to become one, please send email to:
bpeake@bbn.com
asking for the necessary membership application form. Please include:
your name organization name postal address phone number
The National School Network Testbed is looking for communities where telecommunications networks have been used to increase the interaction between school and community.
Selection of Winning Entries: ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
The BBN NSNTestbed team is sponsoring this call for stories and will select a panel from National School Network Testbed members to judge all stories actually received on or before May 15, 1996. Judging will be based on compliance with the described guidelines, originality, creativity, and content. The selection of the winners shall be within the sole discretion of the judges and their decision shall be final. Fifteen (15) winners will be selected, and each winner will receive a $500 honorarium. Winners will be notified by July 24, 1996 via email. Only winners will be notified, and the names of the winners will be posted on the National School Network Testbed site (URL http://copernicus.bbn.com/testbed2/). Each winner will be responsible for all taxes associated with the honorarium paid to such winner. Employees of the Sponsors and their immediate relatives are ineligible to participate. This competition is void where prohibited or restricted by law.
Legal Matters: +++++++++++++
The Sponsors are not responsible for lost or damaged stories. There will be no acknowledgment of receipt of stories by the Sponsors. Submission of a story by the participant constitutes the transfer to the Sponsors of the right to reproduce and publish, in electronic or printed form, all stories received, without attribution, royalty, or other consideration to the author.
Melanie Goldman BBN Systems and Technologies 70 Fawcett Street Cambridge, MA 02138
617 873 4653 mgoldman@bbn.com ```
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