ISDN links C-U schools to NCSA
by Sarah Thomas, Graduate Student,
UIUC School of Library and Information Science
NCSA's Education
Group is
training and encouraging local
elementary and high school teachers to use computers (including
supercomputers) in their teaching. Through the
ISDN (Integrated
Services Digital Network) connection project, teachers and
students can experiment with HPCC and obtain results in their
classrooms in seconds or minutes. Using a microcomputer alone
would take hours or days.
Eight schools in the Champaign-Urbana area were selected to
receive ISDN lines connected to the campus network at UIUC: Leal
Elementary, Urbana Middle, and Urbana High (Urbana); Centennial
High, Central High, Franklin Middle, Dr. Howard Elementary, and
Holy Cross (Champaign).
Ameritech donated the equipment necessary to install the ISDN
lines, with the agreement that a six-month trial would be run to
assess the benefits of the connection and to examine the
possibilities for enhanced education through the use of computers
by teachers and students.
Enabling "Real Science"
An objective of the Education Group is to encourage teachers and
students to do "real science in real classrooms on real
computers." Robert Panoff, senior research scientist at NCSA,
clarifies this concept by explaining that most science education
software only allows students to work with watered-down
simulations or animations, which often distort real conditions and
obscure the true nature of the objects being studied. By having
access to data from realistic simulations--which often require the
power of a supercomputer to run--and from direct observations, such
as satellites or online telescopes, students gain a more accurate
view of what real science is.
Providing Software
For example, the link with the campus network enables teachers and
students to access data often discussed in science and math
classes, such as the UIUC weather station. Satellite images that
are updated every hour can be viewed in the classroom. In addition
to weather data, the ISDN connection enables teachers and students
to experiment with interactive computing on a supercomputer.
access * Fall 1993 * NCSA
