Internet Training for School Librarians and School Technologists

Evelyn H. Daniel, Professor, Project Director

Scott F. Barker, Director of Computing

The School of Information and Library Science

University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

CB #3360, 100 Manning Hall

Chapel Hill, NC 27599-3360

Phone: (919) 962-8366, Fax: (919) 962-8071

$82,000

January, 1998 - December 1998

This proposal requests funding for an institute designed to provide training in telecommunications and networking to thirty school librarians and school technologists whose schools have recently been connected to the Internet.

Project Description:

Schools in North Carolina have been moving rapidly to fund connections to the Internet. Responsibility for planning connections, configuring building level systems, and maintaining the link varies from one school district to another. Recently, loca l school systems have begun funding a school technologist position to help support this activity, as well as other information technology related activities. No formal position description exists for the school technologist -- many of them are former teac hers, more of them are former librarians, some are people with little education background but some knowledge of the technical aspects of computers. In schools where there is no school technologist, responsibility for overseeing the network often devolves on the school librarian who is formally educated at the master's level and licensed by the state. In schools where there is both a technologist and a school librarian, the two often form a team and work closely together to develop and maintain the networ k and to train teachers and students in its use.

Recent master's graduates with a school library media specialization have had the opportunity to learn a great deal about the technology and the theories behind its use and development. They have had opportunity to experiment with the creation of web p ages, learned to search the Internet, and studied the kinds of issues that Internet use in the school involves. Those school librarians who graduated earlier have not had these opportunities. Many of the technologists are very gifted in dealing with the t echnology in a practical way but often have little formal training in understanding the theoretical aspects of its use. Even for recent graduates, the pace of change in technology is such that it is difficult to keep abreast of newer possibilities.

The school librarians and the school technologists are responsible for training teachers and children in the use of the Internet. Working collaboratively with teachers, the school librarian develops lesson plans to insure that Internet use is coordinat ed with curriculum goals. A new initiative in North Carolina, called LEARN-NC, is developing mechanisms for school faculty from different school systems to work with one another in developing collaborative learning activities. The school librarian has a r esponsibility to be an active partner in these activities.

The proposed institute seeks funding to address these needs and new responsibilities for school librarians and school technologists. Specifically, the institute would:

2. Introduce participants to new capabilities on the Internet, specifically the exploration of multi-media technologies, particularly streaming audio and video. Participants would be encouraged to explore possibilities of using these new technologies in curriculum development and lesson plan designs.
3. Develop a model training program that a school librarian and technologist could use in training teachers how to use the Internet for educational purposes.
4. Develop some model lesson plans using the Internet that could be used in collaboration with classroom teachers in teaching the Internet to children.
5. Discuss issues surrounding Internet use in the public schools. Examine examples of Internet Use Policies developed by various schools and assist participants in developing draft policies for their individual school.

This institute is tailored to the needs of information people in the public schools where the knowledge requirements range from the how-to-do-it technical level to the more conceptual problem of exploiting the Internet for educational purposes. The ins titute will provide participants sufficient theory to understand this expanding technology and practical skills to become skilled in network navigation, retrieval and use of information resources. More importantly, participants will be equipped to become actively involved in the creation and development of new electronic information sources for use in classroom instruction. Participants will be prepared to teach others how to use these sources and will appreciate the collaborative possibilities inherent i n this medium.

The institute will take place in a laboratory environment so that all participants will have hands-on opportunity to experiment. Teaching will involve lectures -- sometimes from people not physically present, demonstrations, exercises - both individual and joint, and discussions.

The institute will be held at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill over three separate time periods. The first will take place in January 1998 and last five consecutive days; a second segment will take place in June 1998; the concluding segment will take place in November 1998. During the period between the three on-campus training activities, a listserv, discussion board, and/or a series of internet chat sessions will be mounted to enable project participants and project staff to commun icate with one another during the interim periods.

A tentative plan for the on-campus institute is as follows:

Day 1 - New Developments on the Internet. Basic background information and history, quick overview of tools available and how to connect. Detailed introduction to basic network tools, such as email, listservers, and readnews. Information res ources available through these tools will be explored and the possibility of school librarians and technologists creating their own specialized listservers and news groups will be discussed.

Day 2 - Basic Network Tools. Detailed introduction to basic network tools including Telnet and FTP (file transfer protocol). The session would provide a "tour" of Internet hosts available via Telnet and anonymous FTP including Internet libraries , campus information systems, commercial database providers, and bulletin board systems. Popular sites for downloading data using FTP and a discussion of various FTP clients will also be provided. Possibilities of schools establishing the own FTP sites wi ll also be discussed.

Day 3 - Network Navigation and Retrieval Tools. Detailed introduction to network navigation and retrieval tools such as Gopher, WAIS (Wide-Area Information Servers), Mosaic, and World-Wide Web. Brief discussion of what is required to establish t he school's own Gopher, WAIS, or Mosaic servers.

Day 4 - Policy issues discussion. Difficult policy questions relative to the use of the tools available on the Internet will be discussed. Questions such as confidentiality, privacy, security, intellectual property, and copyright are all potenti ally unresolved barriers to network based information provision. This session would address the specific issue of access to materials of potential harmfulness to minors. Various Internet Use Policies will be examined.

Day 5 - Exploration of Multimedia Technologies. Participants will learn about tecniques for streaming audio and video. Possibilities of using these new technologies in curriculum development and lesson plan designs will be explored.

In summary, Days 1-3 would provide an applications and resources oriented introduction to networking, Day 4 would follow with a discussion of policy issues, and Day 5 would conclude with information about the latest technology available on the Internet with discussions on its potential educational use.

Tentative schedule:

Day 1 - Training Program Development. Participants will use scanning and web technology and graphic software, like PhotoShop, to develop training materials for use in a teacher training program. Opportunities to discuss of what to include will b e provided. Participants will also develop hands-on exercise material.

Day 2 - Issue/Policy Discussion. Participants will exchange experiences in internet use in the past six months. Presentation by Francis Bradburn, Director of the Division of Media and Technology for the NC Dept. of Public Instruction on Internet Use Policies. Participants will develop draft policies.

Discussion of unresolved problems, answer questions, provide additional information based on feedback from participants. Work on developing new training materials and aids based on participant feedback.

Tentative schedule:

Day 1 - Internet Lesson Plans. Participants will develop some model lesson plans using the Internet for use in collaboration with classroom teachers in teaching the Internet to children. A representative from LEARN-NC will demonstrate the collab orative tools for cooperating across space and time.

Day 2 - Discussion of unresolved problems and problem-solving, feedback and evaluation of seminar sessions, work on additional development of teacher training materials and lesson plans.

The institute will have openings for (30) participants. Teams of school librarians and school technologists from North Carolina school will be recruited as participants. Each participant must agree to attend all three sessions and to participate ac tively.

Information about the institute and application forms will be distributed to all schools in the state of North Carolina. The participants of this institute will then be selected on the basis of the applications they submit with preference given to appl ications from teams of a school librarian and a technologist. Since it is anticipated that far more than thirty applications will be received, admission to the institute will be competitive. Several factors will be considered in choosing the participants:

1. The quality of the application. Applicants must:

Institute participants will not incur any charges for this training. In addition, the institute will fund a per diem hotel allowance for each participant, making his/her cost of attending the institute negligible.

An advisory group of 7 people will be appointed and meet prior to the first session to revise and elaborate the workshop plans. It will consider of representatives from the public schools, the North Carolina Department of Instruction, the Universit y of North Carolina's School of Education, and technology experts from the School of Information and Library Science and the campus community. Possible members of the advisory group include: Dr. David Thaden, Principal of East Chapel Hill High School, Dr. Neil Petersen, Superintendent of Schools for Chapel Hill-Carrboro School System, Francis Bradburn, Head of the Division of Media and Technology for the NC Department of Public Instruction, Dr. Bobby Kanoy, Professor of the School of Education and Acting Director of the LEARN-NC project, Dr. Doug Short, Senior Technology for the Institute of Academic Technology, Dr. Bert Dempsey, Professor of the School of Information and Library Science.

Scott Barker is Director of Computing for the School of Information and Library Science, and Assistant Director for Research and Evaluation for the Office of Information Technology/Networking Systems at UNC-CH. Mr. Barker hold s a B.S. in Computer Science and an M.S. in Information Resources Management from Syracuse University. As Co-Project Director, Mr. Barker will be responsible for work on design of the curriculum and for teaching a substantial portion of that curriculum. M r. Barker has taught many short courses on the Internet including the Introduction to Computer Networking continuing education course offered by the school, and the Network Applications and Resources course recently added to the school's cur riculum.

Replication of the best aspects of this institute is an important goal. With this in view, evaluation will be conducted from several perspectives.

The planning for the institute will be developed with the assistance of an advisory panel of experts who are familiar with the developments in the schools and with the Internet. The advisory groupl will also be useful in evaluating the success of the i nstitute by providing comments to the project directors of their perceptions of how it went based on an analysis of the participant evaluation, the reports of the project directors, and their own possible participation.

Since the institute will be held in three separate segments, the participants will also be asked to provide assessment data after each portion of the institute. As a result, participants will be able to mold the content of the second and third sessions to meet their needs. For instance, if after the first institute segment the participants feel that certain materials or tools were not covered sufficiently, they can inform the directors through the listserv/discussion board/Internet chat session and thu s enable the following sessions to be modified. In the initial planning, ample time is allowed for solving unresolved issues and answering questions and problems that the participants might be having.

In addition to evaluation from the participants and the advisory panel, the institute will also be evaluated by an outside evaluator who has expertise in assessing the effectiveness of school library-based technology initiatives. Dr. Michael Eisenberg from Syracuse University will be the outside evaluator. He will attend one of the planning meetings to ensure that appropriate evaluation techniques are built into the plans for the institute. He will also attend a few days of the first week segment and w ill design an instrument to measure how effective the institute was in meeting its objectives. Dr. Eisenberg will provide data tol show how useful the participants found the program in meeting their needs for training and will suggest modifications to imp rove the program.

On the basis of these combined evaluations, a report of the institute will be prepared and shared with any interested parties, with copies made available electronically through the School's UNIX workstation. The report will contain a examples of the te acher training materials and lesson plans developed by the participants.

The School of Information and Library Science at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill is nationally recognized for excellence in information and library science education. In national rankings of school's of information and library scien ce, the school is typically ranked among the top 5 in the country and is accredited by the American Library Association. Initially a traditional school of library science, in 1987 the school added a master's degree in information science to its curriculum and changed its name to the present form. The school now offers a master's degree in library science, a master's degree in information science, a certificate of advanced study, and a doctorate in information and library science.

In 1993, the school modified its information science curriculum and added a concentration in telecommunications and networking to the program. The concentration in telecommunications and networking brought with it the addition of courses such as Net work Resources and Applications, Network Protocols and Management, and Client/Server Applications to an existing course in Telecommunications to round-out the 12-credit concentration.

In addition to these courses, the school has taught an Introduction to Computer Networking course through the university's continuing education center on (3) separate occasions. That continuing education course has proven to be extremely popular and has been received well by practicing librarians.

The Information Highway Training Initiative we are proposing here would build on those existing courses. It would provide additional hands-on, specific information that cannot possibly be covered in a general purpose graduate level course. It wo uld be focused on providing training for practicing librarians who are being confronted with an immediate need to learn how to connect to the NCIH and how to use its services for both themselves and their patrons. The institute would also be carefully eva luated in terms of program content and materials produced to insure high quality and exportability to others connecting to not only the NCIH, but also to the Internet in general.

The School of Information and Library Science at UNC Chapel Hill practices what it preaches. A local area network has been installed in the school for more than 6 years and every one of the approximately 65 computers in the school is a direct Inter net node. From every desktop platform (DOS, Windows, Mac, Unix) we can access Internet resources, tools, and services without going through any larger intermediary (such as a central campus mainframe). The school has its own Internet domain (ils.unc.edu - 152.2.81.x), and has setup its own Gopher server, anonymous FTP site, listservers, news groups, and even a Mosaic server.

The school has a full-time Director of Computing dedicated to supporting the computer and networking infrastructure in the school, the school's student computer laboratory is staffed by graduate assistants who provide routine help and support for stude nt users, and the school funds a doctoral student to manage the daily operation of some of our Internet services and Unix workstations. In addition, our Director of Computing recently took on additional duties as Assistant Director for Research and Evalua tion in the UNC Networking Systems group. As a result, we have established firm contacts with many networking experts on the Chapel Hill campus and have been able to call on the expertise of individuals such as Jim Gogan, Director of Networking Systems fo r UNC-CH on many occasions. In fact, Mr. Gogan is a prominent figure on many of the NCIH working groups and he will be working with the school actively in this training initiative as a Co-Project Director.

The institute will be held at the William and Ida Friday Continuing education Center at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. The Friday Center, which opened in 1991, combines meeting facilities, program planning service, and food servic es under one roof. Located about three miles from the UNC-Chapel Hill campus, the Friday Center offers conference participants quiet and attractive surroundings. The Computer Classroom at the Friday Center will be the site for a majority of the institute' s instruction. This classroom includes 15 IBM and 15 Macintosh workstations connected to a 10BaseT ethernet Local Area Network, the UNC campus backbone network, and the world-wide Internet. In fact, each PC or Macintosh in the classroom is a direct Intern et node.

Participants in the institute would be housed in the Best Western University Inn, a facility immediately adjacent to the Friday Center.