CURRENT_MEETING_REPORT_ Reported by Jennifer Sellers/NASA NREN Minutes of the Internet School Networking Working Group (ISN) Introductions The meeting opened with a sharing of experiences as the participants introduced themselves and told of projects in school networking of which they are aware. Projects mentioned were: o Merit Network's efforts in K-12 education headed by Dana Sitzler (not present); o Elementary and secondary school telecommunications in Germany, coordinated by educator Klaus Fuller; o European Schools Project using ``teletrips,'' curriculum-based projects including the AquaData project, reported by Aad Nienhuis; o The Internet Society's K-12 Committee, which is chaired by Bruce Nelson; o California initiatives for training teachers to educate using the Internet reported by Joyce Reynolds of Information Sciences Institute, who has been working with Carol Teach in the California Department of Education, and Joan Gargano of the University of California at Davis; o Pandora Systems's World Classroom Project, and the Pacific Bell (California, US) system now under development reported by Mitra of Pandora Systems; o AT&T Learning Network (US) reported by Paul Lustgarten of AT&T; o Rutgers University's efforts in the elementary and secondary school arena providing accounts to teachers in the area local to Rutgers, reported by Mel Pleasant; o The (US) National School Network Testbed Project developed by Bolt Beranek and Newman, reported by Cindy Mills of BBN; a University of Hawaii pilot project with 25 school teachers to produce curriculum-based lesson plans using networks, reported by Jody Chu of the university; o A number of schools are connected to SURFnet (Netherlands), reported Maria Heijne of SURFnet; and o (US) NASA NREN's project which has a pilot project with several schools across the US and is developing a set of tutorial videos for informing/motivating schools about the Internet and also for training educators and students to use Internet tools, reported by Jennifer Sellers, NASA National Research and Education Network. A number of other group members introduced themselves and gave their affiliations. Educator Presentation Klaus Fueller, a German educator, gave a presentation on his perspectives in school networking. He mentioned that some of the pedigogical potential of networks is that using them in instruction can encourage students to read, write, follow discourse and discussion, and practice foreign language as a means of communication rather than as a classroom exercise. For teachers, the use of networks can allow for collaboration. In teaching students about networks, they learn a new means of information retrieval, how to make (local and international) contacts, and how to use network resources. Klaus emphasized the use of e-mail and suggested that e-mail-only, rather than full Internet access, may serve many schools very well. He suggested that non-technical teacher training materials, developed by teachers on the net, are sorely needed. He will be giving a teacher training course on 20 September and is looking for teacher volunteers around the world to coordinate with him. If interested, please contact him. Klaus then gave an overview of the domain naming of schools in Germany, which follows the scheme of school_name.county_name.state_name.schule.de. Finally, Klaus mentioned the technical issues and barriers to elementary and secondary school networking, some of which are that there are no technical people at the local level, materials for technical training are scarce, software is needed to simplify use of the network, and schools without LANs and only stand-alone machines need to be considered. For further information, send mail to postmaster@schule.de. Review of FAQ Document The FAQ document, which is now an Internet-Draft, draft-ietf-isn-faq-01.txt, will be an RFC FYI document by the time of the Houston IETF in November. There will be information added on ``low-low'' level connectivity, that is, mail and news only. The document is currently extremely US-centric, and those outside the US are encouraged to give input that will help broaden it, both in choice of vocabulary and in scope. It is hoped that all members of the working group will not only review the document themselves but also disseminate it to the educators with whom they work, for review and comment. A number of comments for improvement were made during the meeting. Thanks to all who gave feedback, and please follow up by posting the feedback electronically to this list or directly to Jennifer Sellers by 6 August if possible. Connectivity Models Document The group discussed Gene Hastings' (hastings@psc.edu) document, ``Connectivity Models for Internet Access'' (available via anonymous FTP as models.mar93/a.psc.edu). Ellen Hoffman, co-Chair of the USERDOC2 Working Group, will coordinate with Gene and Jennifer to add to the beginning of the connectivity models document some general issues covered in the ``How to Connect'' document of the USERDOC2 Working Group. The ISN Working Group hopes to release the document, at a minimum, as an Internet-Draft, and possibly an FYI RFC, by the Houston IETF in November. Review and Revise Charter The milestone stating that the group will release a directory (X.500) of people involved in networks in elementary and secondary education was revised. It had been expected that Merit would receive funds to carry out much of this task, and those funds were not forthcoming. Additionally, it is outside the scope of a working group to maintain data, and in order to make this directory useful, data would need to be maintained. Some discussion of directory services offered by the InterNIC ensued, and April Marine will coordinate with InterNIC staff to discover what precisely is available and if it might serve the original intent of the group's milestone. April will also talk to the players in RIPE who might be able to coordinate the service in Europe. The text of the charter was also discussed, and the group agreed that a few key concepts should be incorporated into the new charter: o The group should be international in focus. o The wording ``primary and secondary'' (education) should replace ``K-12.'' o The group could be most useful by identifying barriers and/or problems in the area of school networking around the world and proposing solutions. o The group will work to identify gaps where solutions are not readily available or don't seem to be on the horizon. Klaus Fueller, Bruce Nelson, and Aad Nienhuis volunteered to craft a draft charter and post it to the ISN mailing list for comments. The meeting lasted approximately two hours and was adjourned around 15:30 local time. Thanks to Ray Harder who took notes for the minutes during the meeting. Attendees Rich Bowen rkb@ralvm11.vnet.ibm.com Thomas Brisco brisco@pilot.njin.net J. Nevil Brownlee nevil@ccu1.aukuni.ac.nz Jodi-Ann Chu jodi@uhunix.uhcc.hawaii.edu Jill Foster Jill.Foster@newcastle.ac.uk Klaus Fueller klausf@osgo.ks.he.schule.de Raymond Harder rharder@eis.calstate.edu Maria Heijne maria.heijne@surfnet.nl Marco Hernandez marco@mh-slip.cren.edu Ellen Hoffman ellen@merit.edu Andrew Knutsen andrewk@sco.com John Larson jlarson@parc.xerox.com Thomas Lenggenhager lenggenhager@switch.ch Paul Lustgarten Paul.Lustgarten@att.com Paolo Malara malara@crs4.it April Marine april@atlas.arc.nasa.gov Cynthia Mills cmills@bbn.com Mitra mitra@pandora.sf.ca.us Bruce Nelson bnelson@novell.com David O'Leary doleary@cisco.com Mel Pleasant pleasant@hardees.rutgers.edu Joyce K. Reynolds jkrey@isi.edu Jennifer Sellers sellers@nsipo.nasa.gov Patricia Smith psmith@merit.edu Milan Sova sova@feld.cvut.cz Claudio Topolcic topolcic@cnri.reston.va.us Marc van der Noordaa noordaa@rare.nl Ruediger Volk rv@informatik.uni-dortmund.de Sam Wilson sam.wilson@ed.ac.uk