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Abstract -- Building a Commercial Internet Service for Education: Learning from One Vendor's Experience
D1: New Partnerships for Educational Networking
Building a Commercial Internet Service for Education: Learning from One Vendor's Experience
- Perlman, Richard
( rdperlm@pacbell.com)
Abstract
As public funding and grants become increasingly harder to find more
and more people are looking at the "private" sector business model.
Even public agencies are looking to augment their income through sale
of certain services. This presentation will look at the experiences of
a telephone company in the Internet Education field in a way that will
help the reader/listener become better prepared to leap into the "net."
The audience is potential users/customers for Internet services, people
interested in getting into the Internet Education business and people
already in the business. The talk will provide those in education with
information to help them differentiate between the increasing number of
products on the market which present themselves as "Education focused."
Pacific Bell is in the third year of an authorized technology test to
bring the "Internet" into California K-14 classrooms. Over a five year
period this project has moved from conceptual planning, to a trial
server provided by CalState University to an in-house developed product
consisting of Information and Communications services, network
connections, proprietary information resources, contracted information
sources, desktop software, support (a help desk) and a comprehensive
training program.
Currently serving 16 individual schools, two complete school districts
and one county office of education, we have had a unique opportunity to
learn what is needed in the schools and how it needs to be delivered.
Our present base is over 25,000 users accessing the system - and the
Internet - over dedicated data lines and ISDN services using low cost,
mostly public domain, software.
This presentation will discuss these areas:
- What is the market?
- Who are the customers for this service. We will examine
the market by grade level (Kindergarten through Community
college) and by market segment, public and private.
- What is currently available. We will look at products
from the on-line services, school based server systems,
general Information systems and "roll-your-own" systems.
- What Product is needed?
- Major Product attributes. How should the service be
managed, are IDs required, what about safety, searching,
flat-rate or usage sensitive billing, putting up local
information, dial-in capability to the service, teachers
as users, etc.
- Content vs. Connection. Is the Internet connection a
commodity yet, what help do schools need today to get
hooked up? What about the information content - what is
missing from the Internet as it exists today, how do
collaborative projects and interaction fit into content.
Is the community itself the means or the end? How to
develop information sources in the schools, communities
and local institutions.
- Restraints to delivering the service. What difficulties
are there in delivering the Internet to the classroom; old
equipment, slow network links, fear of "objectionable
material", cost, integration with the existing curriculum,
parental issues, etc.
- As an educator what should you take away from this presentation?
- What kind of people and commitment does it take to "get on the
net?" What partnerships are needed for success? Should you look
for a turn-key solution or "do-it-yourself"? Where do you go
from here?