Interactive Technologies and the Social Studies : Emerging Issues and Applications [1 ed.] 9781438412146, 9780791431405

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Interactive Technologies and the Social Studies Page ii SUNY Series, Theory, Research, and Practice in Social Education Peter H. Martorella, editor

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Interactive Technologies and the Social Studies Emerging Issues and Applications Edited by PETER H. MARTORELLA STATE UNIVERSITY OF NEW YORK PRESS Page iv Published by State University of New York Press, Albany © 1997 State University of New York All rights reserved Printed in the United States of America No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission. No part of this book may be stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means including electronic, electrostatic, magnetic tape, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise without the prior permission in writing of the publisher. For information, address the State University of New York Press, State University Plaza, Albany, NY 12246 Production by Bernadine Dawes • Marketing by Dana Yanulavich Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Interactive technologies and the social studies : emerging issues and applications / edited by Peter H. Martorella.

p. cm. — (SUNY series, theory, research, and practice in social education) Includes index. ISBN 0-7914-3139-8 (hardcover : alk. paper). — ISBN 0-7914-3140-1 (pbk. : alk. paper) 1. Social sciences—Study and teaching. 2. Interactive multimedia. I. Martorella, Peter H. II. Series. H62.167 1997 300´.7—dc20 96-5024 CIP

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Contents Introduction

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Peter H. Martorella

1. Online Learning Communities: Implications for the Social Studies

1

Lynn A. Fontana

2. Bringing Preservice Teachers Online

27

Charles S. White

3. Multimedia in a Visual Society Peter H. Martorella

57

4. Technology and the Darkside: Hate Online

71

Milton Kleg

5. Information Technology and Civic Education

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Richard A. Diem

6. Knowledge-Based Learning Environments: A Vision for the Twenty-First Century

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Patrick J. FitzGerald and James C. Lester

List of Contributors

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Index

131 Page vii

Introduction PETER H. MARTORELLA The book, Interactive Technologies and the Social Studies: Emerging Issues and Applications (ITeSS), is an original analysis of the expanding and evolving role of technology in the social studies curriculum. As such, it fills a significant void in the existing literature relating to the social studies and technologies, especially those that are computer-based. ITeSS includes contributions from seven authors with diverse backgrounds, whose specializations embrace the areas of social studies education, software development, computer science, and visual design. A common fundamental interest binds them: the development and application of emerging technologies that can be used to enrich and enliven social studies instruction. Chapters within ITeSS address the creative applications of emerging interactive technologies that are computer-based, such as distance learning, the Internet, interactive multimedia, and intelligent tutors, as well as the social and practical issues they have spawned. At the same time, the authors nest their analyses within the context of the key question: How can technology contribute to the development of the effective citizen?

In the first two chapters, Lynn A. Fontana and Charles White, respectively, offer examples of how technotools can be used to enhance the quality of instruction for both K-12 students and preservice social studies teachers. Fontana urges the creation of what she characterizes as "on-line learning communities." She sees these as a way to bridge the gap between the artificial world of the school and the dynamic needs and interests of young citizens in a technological society. On-line learning communities, Fontana argues, require collaboration of teachers and students, use of resources and personnel beyond the school, and an emphasis on integrating learning.

Page viii How can we best prepare the next generation of social studies teachers? White responds to this question by offering numerous examples taken from his and others' preservice social studies education classes. He also includes specific step-by-step examples of how to perform such tasks as downloading files from ftp files. In chapter 3, Peter Martorella discusses the nature of existing interactive multimedia and related emerging technologies. He illustrates applications of technologies, such as laserdiscs, CD-ROM units, and distance learning, for the social studies classroom. Martorella also explores new developments related to the Internet: low-cost two-way video and audio conferencing systems (e.g., CUSeeMe), and the evolution of friendly graphical interfaces that can access sound with still and motion video (e.g., Netscape Navigator). Also, he includes selected lists of social studies resources for teachers and students. Milton Kleg explores what he describes as the "darkside" of cyberspace and the implications for social studies teachers, in chapter 4. He recounts in exacting detail the alarming evolution and particulars of the growing list of groups that spew out hate using telecommunications. He underscores with concrete illustrations that the same technotools used to further desirable instructional ends in the social studies can be used equally easily to advance the goals of racial and ethic hate groups. In chapter 5, Richard Diem examines the relationship between civic education and the technologies described in the preceding chapters. He observes that, despite the wide acceptance of technology throughout our society, we still lack a clear understanding of its impact on civic education. In his analysis, Diem skewers the crucial social issues that an ever-increasing array of sophisticated technotools have spawned. Further, he examines the roles that social studies teachers will play in a computer-intensive democratic society. In doing so, Diem also shares his vision of how computers can enhance the lives of all citizens. The concluding chapter, by Patrick Fitzgerald and James Lester, peers into the future. Extrapolating from informed analyses of current developments relating to cutting-edge technologies, Fitzgerald and Lester intrepidly speculate on what social studies instruction in the twenty-first century will be like. They project the emergence of technology-rich educational communities known as "immersive knowledge-base learning environments." More specifically, they hypothesize dominant roles for technologies based on advanced artificial intelligence (e.g., 3-D images, complex, human-like electronic mentors that pose and solve problems and offer advice). Hopefully, ITeSS will serve as a key resource for both social studies teachers and academicians exploring emerging issues and applications concerning technology and the social studies curriculum. Also, the book may

Page ix be used as a resource in selected graduate social studies education courses and workshops. Additionally, instructors involved with undergraduate elementary, middle grades, or secondary social studies education classes may find ITeSS

a useful supplement to class readings.

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1 Online Learning Communities Implications for the Social Studies LYNN A. FONTANA The technology that makes virtual communities possible has the potential to bring enormous leverage to ordinary citizens at relatively low cost—intellectual leverage, social leverage, commercial leverage, and most important political leverage. But the technology will not in itself fulfill that potential, this latent technical power must be used intelligently and deliberately by an informed population . — H. Rheingold, The Virtual Community For decades now social studies educators have struggled with how best to address the needs of citizenship education (Barr, Barth, and Shermis 1977). The recent Curriculum Standards for the Social Studies notes: "The primary purpose of the social studies is to help young people develop the ability to make informed and reasoned decisions for the public good as citizens of a culturally diverse, democratic society in an interdependent world." It follows that good social studies programs help students to locate themselves within the realm of ideas and events—political, social, economic, and cultural—and help to prepare them for what Thomas Jefferson called "the office of Citizen" (NCSS 1994). Constructivist trends in education have increased social studies educators' awareness of the effectiveness of curriculum that engages students in learning-by-doing, problem solving, and decision making. In these student-centered approaches to learning, students need stimulation, guidance, coaching, and tutoring from teachers, parents, peers, and others in the community in order to create cognitive structures that facilitate ongoing learning. It is thus vital that curricula, and in particular the social studies, be designed to help students develop the intellectual skills that lead to knowledge acquisition and its application to problem solving and decision making. As we approach the twenty-first century, the task of the social studies educator will become even more difficult. As the need for up-to-date knowledge

Page 2 and the skills necessary to apply, critique, and analyze ever-changing information becomes increasingly important, social studies educators must struggle with what it means to stay current and have a well-developed sense of what is relevant to their curriculum. At a time when new information is being created exponentially, the task of staying current and relevant is daunting. In addition, the twenty-first century will dawn with few clear economic, political, and social paradigms upon which to base approaches to teaching and learning. Instead, this post-Cold War period brings with it new possibilities and new challenges for economic, political, and social structures both domestically and globally. The shape of these emerging structures is vague at best and is obviously being molded by events of the day and the decisions of citizens and policy-makers alike. As John Naisbitt (1990) notes: ''Before us stands the most important decade in the history of civilization, a period of stunning technological innovation, unprecendented economic opportunity, surprising political reform, and great cultural rebirth."

This kind of overarching change in literally every aspect of life breeds intellectual uncertainty and apprehension. This new age, happily, also brings with it some new tools that can be applied to address these intellectual challenges and create the platforms from which to experiment with new and effective strategies for teaching and learning. The emerging tools of the information age have at their core computers, online networks, distributed databases, and a raft of new hardware and software devices that allow individuals to search for, obtain, integrate, analyze, evaluate, experience, and create new information with greater ease and timeliness than at any time in the past. The challenge for citizenship education in the twenty-first century is to prepare students to use these tools and to have the basic understanding necessary to integrate information into problem solving and decision making. Globally, we are experiencing the creation of an information infrastructure that within a few years will enable any citizen, student, or teacher to search thousands of distributed databases within seconds for vast amounts of information on a subject. The information will be text-based as well as graphic, aural, and in video formats. Commercial telecommunications interests (cable, telephone, computer companies, etc.) and governments worldwide are struggling to build a new global communications network. This network will integrate technological breakthroughs in both wired and wireless technology, making the current Internet and global satellite systems obsolete. The current systems give us only a glimpse at what is to come. Simultaneously, software companies are creating applications that can help us search these emerging networks and quickly find what is truly useful. An example of this kind of an intelligent agent can be found in an application on Prodigy called Homework Helper. After completing a personal profile, which is permanently stored, an individual can use Homework Helper to search for references to a topic in thousands of text-based materials. A list of only those

Page 3 references appropriate for the user's age and interest is generated. Other software tools permit us to disguise ourselves and experiemnt with different and sometimes hazardous scenarios in "virtual" or imagined worlds. Dozens of MUDs (Multi-User Dungeons) online, text-based fantasy games that are responsive to participant's choices, and MUSE's (Multi-User Simulation Environment), fantasy worlds that foster shared learning experiences, already exist in the Internet (Dede 1995). The emerging network and accompanying applications are powerful tools for teaching and learning, which place even greater responsibility on individuals. Citizens of the twenty-first century must command these new tools, be able to direct their knowledge agents, and effectively analyze and use the results of their own virtual experiences. There also will be a need for clear paradigms that help individuals identify and relate relevant information, and guide the integration of the information into problem-solving and decision-making activities. Yet the very paradigms needed to build an understanding of the world are themselves evolving and will likely do so for some time. This state of flux leaves many citizens feeling anxious and confused. This chapter proposes that one strategy for addressing the challenge of citizenship education in the twenty-first century is participation in online learning communities will simultaneously stimulate teaching and learning and help shape the emerging paradigms. Online learning communities also will be places that foster creativity and stimulate yetunanticipated approaches to teaching and learning, problem solving, and decision making. These online learning communities differ from traditional approaches to teaching and learning because they exist in the distributed world of computer networks; involve the participation of experts, novices, teachers, and students of all ages; support life-long learning; and are ongoing and dynamic rather than transitory and static. While these learning communities clearly will not replace schools, they will become major resources for traditional schooling at all levels, while simultaneously becoming a major component of life-long adult education. Online learning communities may also prove to be launching pads for political involvement and incubators for economic and social participation. The very existence of distributed communities that form and grow because of the new technologies will affect social and cultural institutions. The nature and implications of these communities will be the subject of much speculation and discussion in the next decade. While this chapter cannot cover the topic comprehensively, it does provide educators with insights into how online learning communities might help them prepare for the future. It proposes that online communities are vehicles for change, opportunities for professional

growth, and resources for classroom instruction. With a few exceptions, this chapter avoids the use of the term "virtual" in discussing online communities, since the term implies that the interactions and the learning are unreal. The interactions and learning that result from involvement

Page 4 in an online learning community are very real; hence, we will talk about distributed or online communities instead. The chapter will discuss Diplomats Online in-depth as a concrete example of an emerging online learning community aimed at serving the needs of social studies educators. It will examine the challenges to making online learning communities resources for schools, and survey efforts to meet the challenges of financing, teacher preparation, and curriculum integration.

The Elements of a Learning Community Webster defines a "community" as a unified body of individuals. Traditionally, we have described a community in terms of its physical characteristics, using synonyms such as neighborhood, vicinity, district, or locale. The term community, however, also refers to the individuals or citizens that populate a geographic area and the fact that they actively share a common interest. "Learning communities" are being explored by institutions of higher education and refer to educational environments focused on common themes that help students integrate their learning from course to course, and the content of the shared courses reinforce each other. Learning communities are built upon the collaboration of students and teachers, and require cooperative, student-focused activities (Goodsell, et al. 1992; Smith 1988). An online learning community may then be defined as a body of individuals who use computer networks to share ideas, information, and insights about a given theme or topic to support the ongoing learning experiences of all the members. Learning communities are populated by experts, novices, teachers, and students of all ages. All of the members of these communities benefit from the ability of the group to analyze and synthesize information. As Rheingold (1993) discusses, there is a kind of collective intelligence in these communities that stimulates both participation and loyalty. Online learning communities also serve as platforms from which to launch expeditions into distributed databases, newsgroups, and other online resources. They are places to bring new information for analysis, to test new ideas for validity and reliability, and to develop new applications of knowledge. Because they are places to test and share ideas as a group, online learning communities are likely places to spawn the development of the social, political, and economic paradigms of the twenty-first century. Perhaps more importantly, online learning communities will become important vehicles for individuals of all ages as they seek to develop "new literacy skills," those skills associated with using technology and media to communicate effectively. Online learning communities will help prepare individuals for the changes taking place in the society around them, and will assist them in integrating these changes into their lives. Thus, for social studies educators who are committed to the goals of citizenship education, involvement in online learning communities is a must.

Page 5 Of utmost importance to all of the virtual, distributed, or online communities that currently exist on the Internet is the ability to communicate with others and share ideas, information, and emotions, etc. (Rheingold 1993). Many of these communities function twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week, and there is almost always someone there to "hear" you, to respond to your question, and to offer help. Online learning communities incorporate other critical elements, including libraries of text and graphic information that can be easily accessed and shared by the group, bibliographies, and pointers to relevant resources on the Internet. They are also places for newcomers to learn about the community, its goals and its origins, and ways to participate. The online learning communities also need places for synchronous or "real time" communications or ''chats." With these elements in place, an online learning community can fulfill its

mission of helping participants learn about and explore the everchanging world. Perhaps one of the most important responsibilities of online learning communities is the role they play in preparing their members to navigate the world of online information, sometimes referred to as the Information Superhighway or Infobahn. Without this first critical step, it would be difficult to learn how to use the Infobahn as a set of tools for constructing knowledge and engaging in ongoing teaching and learning.

Learning to Drive on the Infobahn The concept of an Infobahn (which essentially compares the emerging global information infrastructure to a superhighway) is an apt analogy that helps us grasp developments in communications technology and the impact of these developments on our lives. While the analogy may fall short of helping us see all of the potential of emerging structures, it is a notion that allows us to examine the elements of the future with language and concepts that are already familiar. Whether the "information superhighway" is the best analogy, or whether it will be the most enduring, is not what is important for this discussion. What is important, is that the analogy helps us visualize some emerging trends and issues with which educators must come to grips. By definition, an autobahn or superhighway allows speedy access to places that are geographically separate and incorporates many on-ramps and off-ramps that do not interfere with the flow of traffic. Autobahns stimulate economic development in the communities they serve, resulting in more traffic on local roads. Superhighways are accessible to anyone who has the proper equipment (an automobile that drives at a minimum speed) and is properly certified (drivers' licenses). They facilitate trade and commerce and personal and social meetings, as well as make cultural and educational institutions more convenient. Building a superhighway is expensive, and it is costly to maintain and expand. If you get too many people on a superhighway, it becomes congested. It is also important to limit access to the superhighway to those people with automobiles

Page 6 that are in good working order, since pedestrians, bikers, and other inappropriate vehicles can cause problems and stop traffic flow. It is easy to see the comparisons. Clearly, the Infobahn will allow speedy access to information located almost anywhere in the world with literally no interference from traditional barriers of time or space. However, the Infobahn does not yet exist. While some existing roadways are being paved (the expansion of the Internet with the addition of commercial services like Compuserv, Prodigy, and America Online) to provide better access to information, the ultimate information superhighway (fiber optic lines to every home, school, and business) will not be completed for some time. Most of the on- and off-ramps have not been created, appropriate equipment or standards for hardware and software that will access the highway have not been defined, the rules of the road have not been fully codified, the current roads (the Internet) are not well marked, nor have we developed a system for certifying drivers. As the Infobahn is being constructed, it has already stimulated economic development in some sectors (i.e., the computer and telecommunications industries), while other sectors such as education are only beginning to experience the impact of these new roadways. It is clear that many of the users are not well trained, nor do they know where they are going or why. For the most part, current users are pioneers who will play key roles in determining the final rules of the road before they are codified and defining the key components of information highway "literacy." They are an adventuresome lot who do not mind running into dead ends or sharing what they have learned with others who are new to the Infobahn. The current pioneers are helping to design the Infobahn, and to create the road maps that will dictate its use in the future. Many who read this chapter may be tempted to say: "Let's not bother with all of this 'techy stuff." When the Infobahn is completed, there will be time enough to learn how to navigate it and use the resources." This might be a dangerous conclusion. If too many social studies educators wait and do not become involved, then others who know nothing of the

discipline will shape these important networking tools without the needs of the social studies in mind. Waiting is also dangerous because current curriculum trends that place great emphasis on reading, writing, and mathematics in the elementary grades and upon math, science, and technology in the secondary schools, have led to reduced time, attention, and resources for teaching the social studies. If social studies educators fail to be on the forefront of technology, they risk having parents and policy makers conclude that the social studies are not relevant in the information age. As long as the social studies curriculum fails to embrace online technologies as pedagogical tools, teachers are simply reinforcing erroneous ideas that the social studies are not as important as math and science. What social studies professionals need to do is to demonstrate that they are in command of the technology, even as it is evolving, and know how to apply the tech-

Page 7 nology in reaching their goals. They also need to demonstrate that their discipline has much to offer the designers of the information infrastructure as the technologies continue to evolve. Because social studies educators focus much of their instruction on the development of decision-making and problem-solving skills, they could be helpful in facilitating the problem solving and decision making that is taking place today as the network is being built. And of course, joining an online learning community and helping to develop it is one way that social studies professionals can stake their claims to legitimacy in the information age. By participating in these communities, teachers will develop their own skills in using online learning communities as an integral part of their life-long learning. They will also come to understand how to help students learn to use the emerging network technologies as they prepare for the office of Citizen. Navigating the Infobahn in the 1990s presents many technical and financial challenges for educators. Currently, the typical school lacks access to dedicated telephone lines, computers, modems, and the financial resources necessary to obtain the underlying hardware and software. In addition, schools face multiple challenges. How to address the need for professional development for faculty and staff? How to organize learning experiences for students that incorporate an ever-growing information base and the need for individual learners to construct their own knowledge? Slowly, these challenges are being faced, and later in this chapter there will be a discussion of how these efforts are evolving. At this point in the discussion, let us focus on online learning communities as resources for educators who need to become more familiar with information technology. Online learning communities are ideal places to begin to cope with uncertainty about the future, become familiar with the technology and its application, stay abreast of technological and content developments, and participate in the creation of new paradigms of teaching and learning. Like more traditional communities, online learning communities are made up of people of all ages, with different levels of understanding and various levels of activities. There are shared resources and there is a commitment to mutual growth and learning. Currently, most online communities are text-based with limited graphic, audio, or video capabilities. Communication is mostly asynchronous (not simultaneous) and involves message boards and electronic mail. Synchronous conferences or simultaneous "chat" areas do exist, but can be "noisy" and confusing. Online learning communities are also developing libraries of materials that include text-based references, graphics, lesson plans, and pointers to resources that reside throughout the Internet and relate to the goals and interests of the members of the community. There are many examples of these kinds of resources evolving, ranging from CNN Newsroom Online, National Museum of American History Online, to Scholastic Magazine Online. For the most part, these communities are open to anyone

Page 8 with a telephone, a computer, and a modem, and they provide information on specific topics, text-based and graphic resources, and frequently will include lesson plans for teachers. Because many of them exist on commercially available networks, they are simple and easy to access and have good road maps. Some of these services are also structured specifically to help teachers. They use the technology to deliver the most current information in forms that can be readily integrated into the classroom. Many of these services, like CNN Newsroom Online, have built-in opportunities

for cost-effective professional development in the form of ongoing computer conferences on topics like student writing and research skills while providing resource materials like maps or bibliographies of related video and text-based resources. Particularly pertinent to the social studies and the need to stay current with changes in international affairs is Diplomats Online (DOL). DOL is an online learning community that has been developed under the auspices of the American Foreign Service Association (AFSA) and is now presented in cooperation with CNN Newsroom Online.

Diplomats Online DOL is a "classroom friendly" service for teachers and students of geography, history, and related subjects, in upper elementary schools through college, who want to use current international events as springboards for learning activities. It is designed to help teachers promote student understanding of the U.S. role in a rapidly changing, information-rich world. DOL seeks to facilitate student-centered and inquiry-based learning. By drawing on events of the day, DOL provides authentic decision-making and problem-solving activities guided by the expertise of Foreign Service officers, both retired and active. Because DOL is also available at home, it can serve as a vehicle for involving parents and preparing students as life-long learners.

History of DOL In the spring of 1993, a feasibility study funded by the Una Chapman Cox Foundation was launched by Foutain Communications, Inc., in association with AFSA and the National Geographic Society's Instructional Leadership Institute. The purpose of the project was to explore how the emerging online technologies might be used to link schools with retired Foreign Service officers. The Foreign Service officers would serve as tutors or guides for teachers and students looking for up-to-date information to support curricula in history, geography, international affairs, world cultures, or global studies. DOL was designed to address the growing need for teachers and students alike to understand the U.S. position in an ever-changing world. This task is becoming increasingly difficult in the post-Cold War period as the political and eco-

Page 9 nomic circumstances of nations around the globe fluctuate rapidly. While news media are replete with informational tidbits on international events, they fail to provide the background information necessary to explore these events in depth and to understand their historical underpinnings and their implications for daily life in the U.S.. The emerging information infrastructure can now provide in-depth data on these issues in a timely and cost-effective manner. DOL attempts to explore these capabilities and their implications for schools. In September 1995, DOL became part of CNN Newsroom Online, a service on American Online. Although a rich source of in-depth information, the Internet currently provides a flood of information in forms that are often difficult to use. Teachers tend to view the Internet as unfriendly, cumbersome, and lacking quality control. As a result, typical classroom teachers are unlikely to find the Internet worthy of their time and trouble. New "gateways" to the Internet, like Netscape, which use icons and "point and click" techniques to help users locate information on specific topics, are much more user-friendly and address some of the problems associated with finding information. These tools alone, however, will not address all of the needs of classroom teachers. An issue of increasing importance on the Internet is the ability to establish the reliability and validity of information. In the past, we have all relied heavily on the publishing industry to validate information before it is bound in print. Today, when it is very easy to put unedited materials on servers that are universally available via the Internet, it is clearly the responsibility of the users of the information to validate what they find. For teachers, this is a critical issue in their willingness to integrate networkbased information into their courses. Teachers need computer networks that not only make it simple to find the information they need, but that also provide efficient and effective ways to validate that information while supporting their own ongoing learning process. An online learning community like DOL can help meet these needs in an area such

as international affairs. America Online was selected as the initial host network for DOL for several reasons. Because America Online is a commercial network, it is available to anyone who wishes to pay the fee, and does not rely on schools', or the diplomats', finding direct access to the Internet. With its easy-to-use icon-driven interface, America Online also offers a rich environment, which provides teachers, students, and parents with information and tools that can broadly support both formal and informal education. Resources like National Geographic Online, the Library of Congress Online, the Teacher Information Network, Homework Helpline, and the National Museum of American History Online—all within America Online—support DOL users. The collaboration with CNN Newsroom Online further expands the resources available to DOL users by adding the dimension of a daily cable broadcast that is offered to schools free of charge by Turner Broadcasting.

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How DOL Works DOL can be found on America Online by choosing EDUCATION on the main menu screen and then clicking on CNN NEWSROOM ONLINE, or by simply "going to" the keyword "CNN." Once in the DOL area (see figure 1.1), teachers can find out more about DOL by clicking on the "about folder." By selecting "profiles" in the Diplomats-in-Residence folder, they can read the profiles of diplomats who have volunteered to act as expert guides to the world of international affairs. Teachers or students can review the profiles of other classrooms that are participating, or read and download a copy of the ''teachers' guide" or the "diplomats' guide." The teachers' guide gives suggestions on how to locate a diplomat and how teachers might rethink lesson plans when they have an expert on foreign affairs who is just a few keystrokes away. Not only do the diplomats bring a rich background of experience to help students understand current events, but they also demonstrate the use of important higher-order thinking skills that they have developed as a part of their job responsibilities. To support the teachers and diplomats as they create relationships, DOL includes the following features:1 Message Boards (Talk About the World) are online bulletin boards housing ongoing discussions of events around the world. Organized by areas of the world, and containing topics that have been posted by the participants, the message boards are continuing conversations about world events. As global events emerge, DOL participants can go to the message boards and post questions and comments, test ideas, list resources, and communicate with others who are also testing ideas. The message boards are also places for teachers to share their ideas with one another about how to integrate new information into the existing curriculum. The discussions on the message boards have ranged from the problem of racism around the world to how to find an international pen pal (see figure 1.2). Meeting Room (Embassy Meeting Room) is a space where members of the community can meet for simultaneous "chats." Diplomats can hold briefings on current topics and take questions from the audience. Teachers can use this room or related private rooms to schedule diplomats as "guest speakers" on specific topics. In the future, DOL plans to use the meeting room for ongoing professional development activities for teachers. Rather than driving to a local college or university or staying late at school, they will be able to use the meeting room to take courses that will help them stay current in their academic field or become familiar with new pedagogy. The room will also facilitate forums in which teachers can share ideas, discuss the results of new approaches, and share their mutual concerns.

1. At the time of this writing, DOL is moving to a site on the World Wide Web http://afsa.org. Page 11

Fig.1.1 Page 12

Fig.1.2 Page 13 The Library is evolving as a critical element in DOL. Teachers, students, and foreign affairs experts alike are being deluged with massive amounts of information about what is going on around the world. The DOL library is evolving as a place where a number of different needs can be met. It is a place where information can be uploaded and made readily available to the entire community. For example, speeches, press releases, and position papers or reprints of articles that might not otherwise be accessible can be uploaded and stored for easy access. The library also contains historical materials that can help shed light on current activities and will house classroom-tested lesson plans that teachers want to share with one another. In addition, the library also takes advantage of America Online's Internet gateway and lists relevant databases and newgroups that users can access with a click of the mouse. Materials in the library, whether text-based or graphic, can be downloaded to a user's computer and printed out. For example, one member of DOL's community is the president of the World Affairs Council of Northern California. In the fall of 1994, David Gergen spoke to this council about international affairs. The speech was quickly transcribed and uploaded to the library to be shared with all DOL users, most of whom might never hear Gergen speak. In addition, the text of the speech prompted the development of a message board where members of the community shared their reactions to Gergen's ideas. As another case in point, an important resource for international affairs that is readily available over the Internet is the CIA Fact Book . The library provides a pointer to the fact book, which users can search. Finding the information on a specific country or region of the world, users can then quickly download it to their own computer and print it out. Another pointer in DOL takes users to National Geographic Online, where a set of maps can also be downloaded and printed out in full color.

Electronic Mail permits one-to-one, or one-to-many asynchronous communications. E-mail is used by the participants to organize activities and to exchange personal viewpoints not meant for group discussion. E-mail, with its uploading and downloading capabilities, also allows users to exchange a vast array of information with one individual or a small group. For example, a group of teachers may be working collaboratively on curriculum materials they wish to publish. They can use E-mail to write collaboratively by uploading and downloading drafts of their materials to one another. Teachers can also use E-mail to contact a diplomat and plan a unit, or to contact a colleague to discuss issues of implementation. Diplomats can use it to contact one another and exchange ideas or plan activities. Students can use Email to contact diplomats or teachers in other schools, or to develop collaborative projects with other students. It is a flexible and convenient communication tool. Using America Online E-mail, participants can contact anyone on America Online or anyone with an Internet address, anywhere in the world.

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What DOL Means for the Social Studies DOL is an online learning community for social studies educators and students, as well as for those in the adult community who are interested in expanding their understanding of international issues. For social studies educators, it is a tool for communication and information management and for exploring the Internet. It offers access to experts and unique resources for the social studies curriculum. For students, DOL is a service that engages them directly and stimulates them to formulate questions and seek and analyze information. For all the participants, it provides an opportunity to develop and hone life-long learning skills through interactions with experts and colleagues.

Experts Online Teachers face the ever-growing challenge of helping students comprehend an expanding amount of information about the world, but they cannot do this alone. Teachers themselves need collaborators, tutors, and coaches who support their professional development. One support mechanism that DOL provides is that of expert assistance from retired and active American diplomats and others knowledgeable about world affairs. The diplomats who are online represent a wealth of experience and knowledge about different parts of the world and bring with them well-honed skills in managing and processing information. As Terrell Arnold, one of the diplomats online, pointed out:

What diplomats do on a regular basis is to retrieve and process information, and by using an information-rich system like DOL, Foreign Service officers can help students develop these skills. In many ways the Foreign Service officers are expert models of professionals who apply their knowledge of geography and history and their critical thinking skills in making decisions and solving problems. Diplomats also act as models for applying vital learning in culturally-sensitive ways that can be applied domestically as well as in the international community. One of the diplomats online wrote recently in response to a student's questions about how diplomats prepare for their jobs:

diplomats need above all, a talent for learning and understanding in an unbiased way how people in other cultures see themselves and the world. An American diplomat both has to maintain and represent American values and also to appreciate how people of other cultures feel about their values which may conflict with ours. I know of no way to educate or test for this talent, except experience and trial and error. This talent is vital to accurate interpretation of foreign leaders' statements and actions. Without it, we fall into the trap of asPage 15

suming their reactions will be like ours in similar circumstances. Our biggest errors in foreign policy grow out of cultural and ideological misunderstanding and ignorance of intentions and beliefs of foreign leaders and nations. (Doug Harwood, diplomat online)

Links to Standards in Geography, History, and the Social Studies Daily headlines and persistent international problems are natural springboards for the teaching of geography, history, and the social studies. These are realworld issues that have an impact on the nation, the economy, and ultimately on our daily lives. As international issues are pursued by teachers and students who draw on a wide variety of maps, photographs, and documents in DOL, as well as the assistance of the diplomats, students are prompted to explore the underlying concepts from the viewpoints of history, geography, and social studies. The geography standards call for the development of geographically informed persons "who understand that geography is the study of people, places, and environments from a spatial perspective, and who appreciate the interdependent worlds in which we all live" (Geography for Life 1994, 29). The history standards refer to opening for students "opportunities to develop a comprehensive understanding of the world and of the many cultures and ways of life different from their own" (National Center for History Education 1994, 2). The social studies standards call for social studies programs that "provide for the study of global connections and interdependence" (NCSS 1994, 29).

Student Engagement DOL affords a rich environment for students to explore on their own, not just a resource to be mediated by teachers. The environment presents students with opportunities to access databases, query experts, and set up their own interactions with students or even teachers in other schools. Working in groups, with the help of a classroom teacher or a librarian as a coach, students will be able to construct their own understanding of world events directly from knowledge of geography and history and the application of inquiry and critical thinking skills. In a dialogue with a diplomat on the events in Rwanda, a student in the pilot study asked:

Why do they kill innocent people in Rwanda who do not like to fight? Why are they fighting and killing each other after their president died? The diplomat, who had substantial experience in Africa, replied:

Most of the violence in Rwanda is caused by members of the Hutu tribe killing members of Tutsi tribe, and vice versa. Members of the Tutsi tribe used Page 16 to rule the country, but in recent years, the Hutus took over the government because Hutus are a majority of the population. The President who was killed was trying to arrange for the sharing of government power between members of both tribes, but whoever downed his airplane did not want this to happen. But your basic question remains: how can people kill other innocent people? This is very hard to understand. I think it is because the killers don't think of the members of the other tribe as real human beings, so they don't feel bad about killing them. Those who believed that slavery was OK must have had the same attitude about slaves. They thought that slaves were not fully human, so it didn't matter that they were slaves.

The reform literature is ripe with discussions of the need for inquiry-based, authentic learning that helps students construct their own knowledge. The above dialogue between a diplomat online and a fourth-grade student from a poor, mostly minority classroom clearly demonstrates the potential of this service to provide a context for student-centered learning. As the service grows, it will provide the maps, photographs, and other related primary source materials that will help students and teachers probe further. By examining the geographic and historical context of conflicts, students will come to possess the skills and knowledge called for in the geography, history, and social studies standards.

National History Day Forum In 1994–95, DOL hosted a National History Day forum on Conflict and Compromise. National History Day has a network of more than 40,000 teachers and 450,000 students who develop research projects that are submitted and judged on a local, state, and national level throughout the year. The History Day/DOL Forum was designed to explore ways in which a successful nationwide program that promotes student historical research can use online technologies to support teacher professional development; provide student access to new resources; and promote closer ties between the schools, the program, and the parents of the students. The History Day/DOL project enables teachers and students to draw readily upon the experience of Foreign Service officers who as professionals demonstrate the application of the very skills they are trying to help students develop. Clearly, diplomats must know and use both geographic and historical information in building their understanding of other cultures. They use their well-developed higher-order thinking skills daily to make decisions and solve problems. The diplomats on DOL helped guide both students and teachers through an analysis of international issues. In doing so, they helped teachers integrate DOL's primary sources. These experiences promoted critical-thinking, problem-solving, and decision-making skills.

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DOL in Use in the Social Studies Classroom: A Scenario The following scenario is a fictionalized account that reflects the promise of DOL. It is the kind of vision that the developers hope will be realized in the very near future. It is clear, however, that if this vision is to be realized, there are challenges to meet. Ms. Chen is preparing to begin a unit on the history of voting rights, in her American history class. While the focus of the unit will be upon voting rights in the United States, she wants her students to understand that the right to vote is also a global issue. One step in her planning is to sign on to America Online. At the keyword prompt she goes to CNN Newsroom Online and then DOL (see figure 1.1). She discovers a first-hand account of the 1994 elections in South Africa in DOL's resource library, in an article from the Foreign Service Journal . The article was written by a retired Foreign Service officer who had been stationed in South Africa with the foreign service and had returned as a member of the United Nation's observer team during the 1994 elections. Ms. Chen downloads the article and makes copies for her students. She checks the diplomat's folder and discovers that Mr. Kulick, the author of the article, is a Diplomat-inResidence. In an E-mail message, she outlines her objectives for the lesson and seeks his consultation. Mr. Kulick responds that he would be happy to take students' questions via E-mail or to begin a message board on South Africa and voting rights. He also suggests books the students might look for in their local library and points out that the U.S. Department of State's Internet server (DOSFAN) can be easily accessed and is a good source of additional information on South Africa. Ms. Chen responds by suggesting that the students use a message board on South Africa to open up the discussion to teachers and students in other schools. Mr. Kulick acknowledges that this would be a good idea, and he agrees to be a "guest speaker" in the Embassy Meeting Room. They use the online communications tools to plan activities and finalize schedules.

Mr. Kulick goes to the "Africa" message board and initiates a discussion on "Voting Rights in South Africa." Ms. Chen opens the folder the next day and announces her intent to begin a unit on American voting rights with an activity on the 1994 elections in South Africa and Mr. Kulick's article from the DOL library. She shares an outline of the plans she and Mr. Kulick have discussed and announces their interest in getting ideas from other teachers, diplomats, and students. Ms. Chen also consults the DOL curriculum library to see if anyone else has done a similar activity. She finds a lesson on African geography in which the teacher has identified an Internet site where she could download maps and photographs from South Africa and a time line of South African history. On the first day of the lesson, she introduces the concept of voting rights and talks about what it means to experience a denial of basic rights like voting.

Page 18 American students tend to take voting for granted, but after having read Mr. Kulick's article for homework, they begin to realize that the right to vote is something that many people cherish and for which some have sacrificed their lives. Before they begin to discuss the article in class, she hands out copies of world and South African maps to her students and quickly reviews the geographic features of the region. In small groups, students review the maps and try to locate places that are mentioned in the article. In addition, the groups study photographs of South Africans going to the polls and a time line of South African history that Ms. Chen downloaded from the DOL library. Students are now ready to discuss Mr. Kulick's article and the importance of the right to vote. Much of their discussion focuses on why blacks in South Africa were willing to stand in long lines for days just to vote in an election when Americans frequently fail to go to the polls, even in major national elections. Ms. Chen then moves the discussion to a focus on African Americans' experiences in getting and preserving that right to vote. The students begin to organize their follow-up questions and prepare for Thursday's "guest speaker," Mr. Kulick. As a class, they decide who will be at the keyboard and which questions they will ask Mr. Kulick. Shana has AOL at home and agrees to forward the questions to Mr. Kulick. On Thursday, Ms. Chen dials into AOL. Mr. Kulick begins by making a few opening remarks based on the questions he received earlier that week, and by calling the students' attention to a brief bibliography he has uploaded to the DOL library. Mark is poised at the keyboard with the first question, which he poses after he welcomes Mr. Kulick and thanks him for joining them online. Mr. Kulick takes the students' questions, one by one. The question and answer session goes well. Answers to one set of questions give rise to others. Small groups of students formulate new questions. Throughout the class, students take turns at the keyboard, while others are participating in small-group discussions of responses and formulating follow-up questions. On two occasions, Mr. Kulick refers the students to relevant maps in the DOL library which the students call up and save for reference later. At the end of the "chat" session, Ms. Chen saves the log of the session on her hard drive and prints it out. She now has a permanent record of the exchange for the students. It will be particularly helpful for Walid, who was absent that day. The students come away with a sense of the importance of the right to vote and of the depth of the struggle for voting rights in South Africa. They are ready to look at the American experience in a different light. Ms. Chen then asks students to break into small groups to work on research projects that they will present to the class at the end of the month. Jose, Mary, and Rajesh decide that they want to compare the struggle of African Americans for voting rights in the United States with the experience of blacks in South Africa. They have the bibliography that Mr. Kulick uploaded to Ms. Chen, and they consult the school librarian and then DOL to see what is happening in the

Page 19 discussion of "South African Voting Rights." They post their own ideas on the message board in hopes that they might find other students who are interested in the same topic and with whom they can exchange information. As they begin to read about voting rights in both South Africa and the United States, they realize it would make a good topic for their

History Day Project. They consult with Ms. Chen, who agrees that it fits well into the History Day theme of "Conflict and Compromise." The students are eager for more information on South Africa and go to the library to determine what they can find locally. There are many resources on voting rights in the United States, but very few on South Africa. The students send an E-mail to Mr. Kulick to see if he will help them with their History Day project. He is excited about the prospect and looks further for sources of information. Among the things that Mr. Kulick finds in his search of the Internet is a speech by Nelson Mandela that he thinks will help students understand the universality of the concern for voting rights. By the end of the month, Jose, Mary, and Walid have completed the written paper for Ms. Chen. In it they have begun to compare and contrast the experiences of African Americans and black South Africans in seeking the right to vote. In the course of their research, they have uncovered primary-source materials in the form of photographs, letters, audio tapes, and even some video that they can use to create a multimedia presentation for their History Day Project. Ms. Chen agrees that they have enough material to do an excellent project for History Day. Over the next few months, they send outlines and scripts to Mr. Kulick via E-mail for his reactions. They forward copies of some of the photographs and letters for him to review. His comments and suggestions are designed to make them more analytic thinkers about the topic. He helps them decide what is relevant and what is reliable information, and how they can make these determinations. He also helps them see problems in their conclusions and in their interpretations of the information. In addition, the students have discovered another online resource person for their project. A historian who specializes in African-American history has discovered the South African message board on DOL and sent the students suggestions and helped them identify resources in an online database. In March, the students present their project at the local History Day contest and win first prize. They qualify for the state competition and are very excited about the prospect. They continue to work with their coaches online to find other resources and expand their knowledge of voting rights as an important factor in both American and South African history. In the meantime, the DOL South African election message board has become a springboard for a rich dialogue on issues as wide-ranging as South Africa's history, its culture, its economic and political future, and its evolving relationship with the United States. Teachers and diplomats alike have been

Page 20 sharing information on related Internet sites that have been added to the DOL Internet library. Several teachers, including Ms. Chen, have submitted lesson plans to the curriculum library, and several students in her class are now working with a class of fourth graders to help them understand the importance of voting rights. All of this exploration, consideration, and sharing of resources is facilitated by the availability of online communications. Theoretically, a similar scenario might take place in any school with traditional technology, but from a practical perspective it would be unlikely. Teachers generally lack the time and resources to make the connections that are now afforded by online technologies.

Meeting the Challenges Presented by Emerging Technologies During the DOL pilot study in the spring of 1994, the developers found four interrelated challenges that face educators as they approach the use of online learning communities to address the needs for educational reform: (1) the lack of access to the underlying technologies; (2) teachers' lack of knowledge of both the technology and how to apply it to the curriculum; (3) the dearth of high-quality, curriculum-related resources for teachers; and (4) the lack of financial resources to support the creation of school-based technological infrastructures that would enable the reform (Fontana and Berner 1994). What is required, and seems to be emerging, is a rethinking of school reform and the role of

information technology, and a focus on: the acquisition of new hardware and software; innovative approaches to the professional development of teachers; imaginative plans for acquiring and paying for curriculum materials; and innovative strategies for financing it all. A careful examination of these trends reveals that these innovations are not the responsibility of any one individual, institution, organization, or governmental body. As other institutions in the information age have already experienced, education needs to be reinvented to be more effective and relevant to the twenty-first century. Meaningful change in education, which will enable the integration of information technology as a tool for teaching and learning, is the shared responsibility of teachers, administrators, professional organizations, state and federal agencies, and private industry.

Information Technology and Schools Online services will not be used by schools until schools have access to the underlying technologies that support online communications: computers with modems, dedicated telephone lines, and networks that permit the efficient distribution of the resources school-wide. Technology in Public Schools (1994) reported that ninety-eight percent (up from sixtyseven percent in 1983–1984) of all schools had computers, and that the student-computer ratio was fourteen to

Page 21 one (down from 125 to one in 1983–1984). While only twenty-nine percent of schools nationwide have modems, this represents a sharp increase from the fourteen percent that had modems in 1990–1991. The problem of access to online services by schools is compounded by the fact that online services also require telephone lines, which are in short supply in traditional school buildings. New schools and those that are rewiring or being retrofitted for new technologies are at the forefront in the use of online services. In most schools, the computers with modems currently reside in the library or media center and are monitored by the librarian. The pilot study for DOL (Fontana and Berner 1991) underscored the fact that teachers can find ways to use a single computer/modem in the library or use their computer and modem at home. While firm figures are difficult to gather, some sources estimate that more than ten thousand teachers already have access to America Online, with dozens obtaining access each week either in their schools or at home. The use of online technologies in schools may follow a pattern similar to the use of the VCR in the 1980s. As the home penetration rate grew, so did the penetration rate in schools. As teachers came to view the VCR as a tool for their own knowledge expansion, they were more likely to use it to expand the horizons of their students. Current trends in computers and online networks seem to indicate much greater access at home. America Online now boasts of having more than 3.5 million subscribers.

Professional Development of Teachers Assuming that penetration trends continue, the central factor in the successful use of services like DOL in education is the readiness of teachers. As long as the teaching profession views the technologies as add-ons and not as integral aspects of the curriculum, these services will go underutilized. Critical to teacher readiness is professional development. The DOL pilot study (Fontana and Berner 1994) found that the majority of teachers in schools do not have a working knowledge of the new technologies. While schools of education are beginning to introduce the use of technology in their curricula, it will be necessary for school districts, publishers, and the developers of online services to address the needs of teachers for workshops, how-to manuals, and opportunities to exchange ideas with colleagues. A report from the U.S. Office of Education (Means et al. 1993) suggests that the technologies themselves have real promise for helping to address the need for ongoing professional development. Once teachers have greater access to the technology and some basic awareness of how to use it, online learning communities can begin to address this need by providing forums in which teachers have assistance in finding current information on a subject, get help from their peers on how it might be integrated into curricula, and receive suggestions and examples of how to use emerging technologies as a means for accomplishing curriculum objectives.

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As school districts find ways to access the online world through local or statewide programs, thousands of teachers will come online. To take advantage of this new ''networked" community of teachers, it will be important to demonstrate first how these resources can help teachers further their own professional growth and, second, how they can then use these same resources to support the curriculum. Online learning communities thus must consciously develop activities and programs that are explicitly aimed at classroom teachers and that promote teachers teaching teachers. Currently, there are some pioneering teachers who are exploring the potential of these online communities, but ultimately we will need to see a general acceptance by teachers that these communities are valid factors in their own learning, and legitimate resources for promoting student learning. Professional associations can play a role in helping teachers develop these skills by offering workshops and publications that help teachers see the links between their curriculum and the resources offered through the information technologies. For example, the National Council for the Social Studies has offered summer workshops in the past for social studies teachers, dealing with applications of new technologies for the social studies.

Curriculum Models That Employ New Technologies Textbook publishers have been conscious for some time that as schools look to the future, the desire for new information technologies will likely deplete budgets for traditional resources like textbooks. As a result, publishers are looking to use emerging technologies to deliver twenty-first century versions of their products. Major publishers like Harcourt Brace and Simon and Schuster are exploring ways to use online services to make their materials more readily available to both students and teachers. In some cases, these services permit consumers to "preview" materials that can then be ordered online or by telephone. In other cases, students or teachers can actually download materials, for which they are charged. Simultaneously, electronic publishers like University Online, Inc. are offering colleges and universities tools with which to develop and distribute an entire catalogue of courses over the Internet. Students can register for these courses and complete most, if not all, of the requirements online. Using University Online tools, an instructor can create libraries of text-based and graphic materials for students to access online, as well as track the shipment of other hard-copy resources. An online course may require that students participate in ongoing discussions that use computer bulletin boards and conferencing. In some cases they even attend live sessions online, where a professor gives a lecture on an electronic chalkboard and takes text-based questions. Teachers and students maintain a one-on-one relationship through E-mail. While many of these network-based instructional activities are just evolving, federally sponsored projects like Star Schools and state

Page 23 initiatives like those in Kentucky and North Carolina are already established, and provide models for using information technology to support teaching and learning. If true change is to occur, it is imperative that more models be created and integrated. As local schools subscribe to and use online services and it becomes clear that providing these services to schools is as much a business as selling textbooks, there will be more attention from the private sector. Either more activity on the part of traditional publishers, who will create electronic versions of existing products, or new businesses that offer whole new lines of educational products, is likely soon. Services like DOL also may play a role in helping to shape a vision of the future. For example, DOL plans to develop curriculum materials that integrate DOL activities into existing social studies curriculum and accompanying professional development materials. DOL hopes these activities will be the first in a series of projects that will assist teachers to make the important links between the curriculum and the use of online resources.

Financing, Professional Development, and Curriculum Reform As with many changes, the successful development of online communities as resources for schools will depend, at least in part, upon the availability of funds for the acquisition of hardward and software, professional development programs

for teachers, and the development and marketing of information-age curriculum materials. Educators can be cautiously optimistic about the future with regard to resources to support the integration of technology into the schools. At the federal level, Title III, Technology for Education, of the Improving America's School Act authorizes (not appropriated) almost $800 million for educational technology programs in 1995. Within this provision are funds to support state and local planning and development, professional development, and product creation. In addition, the FCC is currently considering a plan in which some portion of the $12.6 billion that is expected from the auctioning of licenses for advanced telecommunications services over the next five years will be designated to providing schools access to the Infobahn. Numerous states are developing their own plans and budgets for linking all of their schools to the information highway. Most of the Regional Bell Operating Companies (RBOCs) and large cable franchisers have pledged their commitment to linking schools in their jurisdictions to the information highway as they move forward with expansions of their new services. Another idea being considered, as a way to fund schools' acquisition of needed hardware and software for linking to the Infobahn, is a new "trust fund" created with revenues generated by the differential between what local telephone companies receive from long-distance carriers (like AT&T, MCI, and Sprint) for providing an interconnect to the longdistance carrier, and the ceiling on these receipts set by the FCC. These funds would then be available to

Page 24 schools for the purchase of equipment, rewiring services, software, etc., and could total millions each year. In essence, this would be a tax on long-distance telephone services that could finance schools' entry into the information age. Schools would benefit because they would have new money to spend; the telecommunications companies would benefit because they would gain new customers in those schools needing increased telephone capacity and rewiring; and in the long term, society would benefit because schools would have the tools necessary to do a better job preparing citizens of the twenty-first century. While federal and state programs, foundations, professional organizations, and private-sector companies all have roles to play in bringing schools into the twenty-first century, it is upon the local school districts that the ultimate responsibility will rest. School districts must ensure that their budgets reflect the integration of information technology into the schools. Districts must plan for the acquisition of hardward and software, ensure the maintenance of the hardware, guarantee the upgrading of software, and provide for the professional development of teachers and support staff while facilitating the integration of these tools into the curriculum. And finally, the efforts of teachers to try new ways of teaching that effectively integrate technology will need to be rewarded by administrators and applauded by parents—or there will be no real progress.

Summary The rapidity with which the world is changing and information is expanding had made it clear that teachers, especially social studies teachers, must be life-long learners. In many ways, the social studies curriculum is an important nexus for students who are preparing for the office of citizen in the twenty-first century. It is the most natural place for students to learn about information technologies as they use them to explore the world they are soon to enter. This realization underscores the need for professional development activities for social studies educators, who themselves need to find ways to stay current in their field, in touch with experts, in continuous dialogue with their colleagues, and knowledgeable about the integration of information technology into the classroom. The social studies curriculum of the twenty-first century will clearly need to incorporate ways to access and manage the ever-increasing amount of knowledge in numerous fields, address the potential uses of information technologies as tools in reforming curriculum, and promote the ongoing learning of teachers, students, and even parents. As social studies teachers in the twenty-first century become more like tutors and facilitators of learning, they too will need their own tutors as they become colearners with their students, masters of technology, and ultimately pedagogues with a strong influence on how national standards will be implemented. Online learning communities like DOL will likely play a major role in helping teachers face the challenge of citizenship education in the twenty-first century.

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References Barr, R. D., Barth, J. L., and Shermis S. S. (1977). Defining the social studies (Bulletin 51). Arlington, Va.: National Council for the Social Studies. Dede, C. (1995). "The evolution of constructivist learning environments: Immersion in distributed, virtual worlds." Educational technology , forthcoming. Geography for life: National Geographic Standards (1994). Washington, D.C.: National Geographic Research and Exploration. Goodsell, A., Maher, M., Tinto, V., Smith, B. L., MacGregor, J. (1992). Collaborative learning: A sourcebook for higher education . University Park, Pa.: National Center on Postsecondary Teaching, Learning, and Assessment. Fontana, L. and Berner, E. (1994). Diplomats online pilot project: Final report (Unpublished). Means, B., Blando, J., Olson, K., Middleton, T., Morocco, C. C., Remz, A., and Zorfass, J. (1993). Using technology to support education reform . Washington, D.C.: U.S. Department of Education. Naisbitt, J. and Aburdene, P. (1990). Megatrends 2000: Ten new directions for the 1990s . New York: Avon Books. National Center for History and the Schools (1994). National standard for United States history: Exploring the American experience . Los Angeles: Author. National Council for the Social Studies (1994). Curriculum standards for the social studies: Expectations of excellence, Bulletin 89, Washington, D.C.: Author. Rheingold, H. (1993). The virtual community: Homesteading on the electronic frontier . New York: Addison-Wesley. Smith, B. L., Hunter, M. R. (1988). "Learning communities: A paradigm for educational revitalization." Community college review 15, No. 4: pp. 45–51. Technology in public schools . (1994). Denver: Quality Educational Data, Inc. Page 27

2 Bringing Preservice Teachers Online CHARLES S. WHITE Telecommunications technology promises to give school children a doorway to an electronic learning community that extends well beyond the walls of their classrooms. For some students, the technology will help deliver instruction from a teacher who is located miles away and whose students are in classrooms across the school district, the state, or the country—a typical model of distance education. For others, collaborative problem solving with faraway peers using distant databases will constitute their use of telecommunications technology. Such collaborations can serve as models for information gathering, deliberation, and decision making required for meaningful and effective civic participation in the twenty-first century. Connecting to a larger community of learners, teachers, mentors, and a vast array of information sources, our students have the possibility of enjoying a broader, deeper, and more powerful and empowering education than previous generations could imagine. Whether these possibilities are realized depends in no small measure on teachers who have enjoyed an equally broad, deep, powerful, and empowering teacher education experience, supported by telecommunications technology.1 That is the focus of this chapter—how telecommunications can support this kind of education for beginning teachers, particularly with respect to social studies education.

1. Unfortunately, telecommunications use in current beginning teacher education programs is rare. According to a recent report, for example, only one in ten recent graduates of preservice teacher education programs felt they could use telecommunications for the kind of collaborative learning activities discussed in this chapter (U.S. Congress 1995, 185). Page 28

Beginning Teachers and Telecommunications Projects that introduce beginning teachers to telecommunications cite some combination of five purposes. One prominent purpose is to increase the quantity and quality of interaction between university faculty and methods students/student teachers. TeacherNet, a project established in 1989 at California State University, is one of many such efforts, reporting that the student teachers involved with the project felt a greater sense of rapport and support from university supervisors and other university personnel. That support often takes the form of moral support, rather than technical support for lesson and curriculum development. This has been the experience of participants in the Beginning Teacher Computer Network (BTCN) at Harvard University, a network established exclusively for first-year teachers (Merseth 1991). Nonetheless, most telecomputing efforts provide support for preservice teachers to access outside experts and/or archived resources for lesson planning support. At the State University College at Buffalo [SUCB], elementary methods students participating in Learner-Link communicate with students and faculty at other universities around the country by subscribing to one of several education-related electronic mailing lists (Stevens 1994). A portion of methods class sessions is devoted to sharing questions students have posed to invisible colleagues and experts, and the responses they have subsequently received. According to Stevens, feedback on lesson plan ideas is particularly valued by the methods students, who averaged about twenty E-mail messages per day from the mailing lists during the 1992–93 pilot

project. At the University of Virginia (UVA), what began as TeacherLINK in 1984 to support the preservice teaching internship has grown into an "electronic academical village" (Bull, Harris, Lloyd, and Short 1989).2 Novice and experienced teachers at local schools, and at schools around the world, join with university educators to support preservice education and professional development. Online communication is carried through person-to-person E-mail, electronic bulletin boards, and a conferencing system called Caucus, which supports the development of conversational threads centered around topics. Programs that use E-mail, listservers, and other conferencing-type software also hope to foster greater reflection on the part of preservice teachers by providing an electronic arena for discussing issues raised in the course of the methods class, field experience, student teaching, and/or first year (Casey 1994;

2. A more detailed summary of UVA's use of telecommunications in preservice teacher education is available in Teachers and Technology: Making the Connection, a report issued by the Office of Technology Assessment of the U.S. Congress (April 1995), pp. 192–96. Page 29 McIntyre and Tlusty 1993). Helen Harrington, at the University of Michigan, has engaged her teacher education students in a computer conferencing activity called the Dialogical Community Exercise (DCE), which facilitates discussion about political and ethical dilemmas faced by educators. The topics of discussion revolve around the five major sections of Harrington's Teaching in the Elementary School course. The sections include schools and society, teaching, learning, curriculum, and ethics. For each section, students grapple with multiple perspectives on a current policy or instructional issue. For example, one recent dialogue targeted national goals, as part of the section on curriculum. Other issues include the political nature of curriculum decisions and school choice. Students are expected to log into the conference several times a week to participate in the discussion. Unlike real-time, face-to-face discussions, the computer-conferencing environment of DCEs provides time for reflection, as well as relief from the inhibiting constraints of rank and of dominating voices, according to Harrington (1992). Other teacher education programs use such computer-managed communication (CMC) as an alternative to maintaining journals, which is a typical assignment throughout preservice education. At Northern Michigan University, for example, volunteers from among student teachers used the university's mainframe computer to exchange electronic reflections about their experiences in the field, via E-mail and a bulletin board (Clarken 1993). Greater reflection often coincides with the goal to contribute generally to education reform. Use of technology in preservice education prepares cadres of reform-ready novice teachers who are able to harness technology's potential to transform education and schooling. Moreover, as more K-12 schools adopt the new technologies as part of the reform movement, teacher preparation programs must do the same or risk widening the gap between university teacher education and the new realities of schooling. LeBaron and Bragg (1994) summarized this line of reasoning as follows:

By infusing distance education strategies into the whole fabric of pre-service instruction, teacher educators can design constructivist pedagogical models for students to emulate in their own subsequent teaching. Using a judicious combination of interactive technologies, faculty members can develop and direct student-centered, problem-oriented activities for students at remote sites. The failure of teacher preparation institutions to reform their curricula in response to and in anticipation of changes occurring in schools may render them irrelevant to the educational transformations predicted for the coming decade. (5) Finally, telecomputing in methods courses can increase preservice teachers' contact with K-12 students both within and beyond the formal field experience. For example, elementary education students at the University of the

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Pacific interact with local elementary children by portraying characters from books the children are currently reading (Eskridge 1993). Children receive electronic greetings from such characters as Winnie The Pooh or Bilbo Baggins, who invite questions and chat. Children pose such questions as "How old are you, Winnie The Pooh?" and "Bilbo, how did you get to Middle Earth?" The teacher education students respond in character, exploring with the children ideas ranging from story details to the rich fantasy life that hides between the lines of the story. These contacts often become the basis for establishing formal electronic penpals (or "key-pals''), as is the case with Learner-Link at SUCB (Stevens 1994).

Opportunities for Online Technology in Social Studies Methods What has been described about preservice teacher education generally can be applied to social studies teacher education in particular. A simple example, based on the University of the Pacific project, would allow K-12 students to interact with historical characters or political ideologies portrayed by social studies methods students. Instead of portraying characters from literature, methods students might assume the identities of Thomas Jefferson, Marian Anderson, Galileo, Samuel Adams, Susan B. Anthony, or Socrates, each responding to queries from students in the local schools or across the country. "Mr. Jefferson, why did you have so much faith in everyday people? Is that faith justified today?" "Couldn't you have compromised just a little to avoid the death sentence, Socrates?" "Have women achieved all that you hoped for, Ms. Anthony, or is the work you did still unfinished?" Similarly, school children could "interrogate" fascism, republicanism, liberalism, conservatism, and democracy. In a curriculum area where enthusiasm among young learners has been shown to be seriously lacking, opening a dialogue between students and future teachers might generate opportunities to reflect on the issues relating to the content, methods, and purposes of the social studies. Social studies is a fertile field for controversy and contention, as evidenced in the debates over the place of history in the curriculum and whose version of history that should be—multiculturalists or Western European culturalists; traditionalists or revisionists? Engaging leaders and peers in discussion about teaching controversial issues, or grappling with moral dilemmas, or balancing content and process, can deepen and enrich the experience of preservice teacher education in social studies. Moreover, there has long been a gap between the content of social studies methods courses and the reality of social studies as taught in the schools. The ability to maintain a discussion about social studies teaching and learning via telecommunications can give moral support to novice teachers who must straddle the gap. An ongoing dialogue can support innova-

Page 31 tion and reform throughout the weeks of student teaching, the induction years of teaching, and over the long term. Moral support for and thoughtful dialogue in social studies education are particularly critical for elementary teachers, given the stiff competition from other elementary subject areas for time and resources. Finally, in a teaching field that places a premium on primary sources and inquiry, future social studies teachers ought to explore the range of resources available for their students and their own further education that telecommunications technology makes possible. Access to experts and information archives extends the reach of teachers and their students into the world they study in social studies. The potential benefits in reaching out to a wider world of resources makes experience in using telecommunications technology in preservice education particularly imperative for social studies teachers. A project developed by the author and colleagues in Illinois examined how the extended reach of telecommunications technology might be applied to the preservice social studies methods course. In the spring of 1994, elementary methods classes taught by Robert Lombard and Robert Brady at Western Illinois University joined with the author's course at George Mason University in Virginia to investigate how local and distant places can serve as primary documents in studying history. At the same time, our students explored the nature and usefulness of electronic collaboration and dialogue with their professional peers.

A Case Study: "Doing History" Via Virtual Field Studies During the 1994 spring semester, two classes of preservice social studies methods students at distant university sites collaborated on the development of teaching units based on a comparative historical study of places in each site. Using electronic mail and other communication technologies, teams of middle education methods students (grades 4–8) at George Mason University (GMU), in Fairfax, Virginia, worked with teams of elementary methods students (grades 1–6) at Western Illinois University (WIU), in Macomb, Illinois, to identify social studies concepts and generalizations relevant to both historic places, to exchange ideas on social studies teaching strategies, and to explore the range of local, state, and national resources available to support teaching history with places. At the conclusion of the course, students exchanged teaching units that integrated places at both sites throughout the lesson sequence.

Project Goals Three major goals motivated the GMU/WIU collaboration. The first focused on education reform; specifically, we aimed to strengthen the inquiry

Page 32 component of our methods course (as a tool of constructivist teaching), and to do so with history content. The second goal was related to the first: we wanted to have methods students engage in historical inquiry themselves, to experience the dual challenges of (1) constructing historical understandings using information from diverse sources, and (2) collaborating in the inquiry process. It was our thesis that future teachers who have "done history" are more likely to succeed in helping children to do the same. Third, we wanted our preservice teachers to explore how telecomputing can be used as a tool to support collaborative problem solving and effective lesson planning and curriculum development.

Using "Place" to Teach History Telecomputing was central to the goals of the methods courses because of the particular approach we had adopted with respect to the teaching of history. Our students explored history through "place"; that is, by investigating the changing landscape, street patterns, and architectural styles of communities near both universities. This approach was based on Teaching with Historic Places: A Curriculum Framework , developed as part of a project of the National Register of Historic Places and the National Trust for Historic Preservation (White and Hunter 1995). The purpose of the Teaching with Historic Places project is to bring the rich historical resources of communities into the schools. To support the history curriculum in schools, however, local community resources need to be studied within a larger historical context. The big ideas of history are often obscured, though, when the focus is on a single, local building, or on Main Street. The bigger picture becomes more apparent when local places are compared to more distant places that share common historical elements. Linking students to peers across the country facilitates the kind of comparisons that illuminate the historical trends on which school curricula must focus.

Choosing Sites to Study Two pairs of sites, in the northern Virginia area and in western Illinois, served as the basis for assigning unit-planning teams and conducting research. The Georgetown section of Washington, D.C., was paired with Quincy, Illinois—two communities whose histories were intimately tied to rivers. Several "River" teams were formed to develop units that integrated the two sites. The Clarendon section of Arlington County, Virginia, was paired with Macomb, Illinois (the home of Western Illinois University)—two downtowns that reveal the ebb and flow of history in the diverse building styles and street patterns that define them. "Town" teams developed units that compared and contrasted these two

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Fig. 2.1. Initial Team Meetings communities over time. As a starting point, teams at each site met to inventory their current knowledge about both their local site and the distant site (see figure 2.1).

Facilitating Conversation Students at both universities obtained computer accounts that gave them electronic access to each other and to the Internet. Relatively little of the distance work was carried out through individual E-mail, however. Most was carried out through listservers. A listserver is a program that manages lists of E-mail addresses. Once a group of individuals has subscribed to a common listserver, an E-mail message sent by one person to the listserver is automatically mailed to everyone else on the mailing list; that is, all the other subscribers. The ability to communicate with entire groups of people simultaneously greatly enhances collaborative problem solving. Faculty at WIU established two such listservers, named "River-L" and "Town-L," to which members of the respective teams subscribed. Teams paired up and the work began. Students posted messages on their listserver, identifying themselves by team name.

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Planned Communication To be successful, all teams had to rely heavily on their distant counterparts for basic historical information and primary source material for lessons. Moreover, the teams' first challenge was to form an understanding of the historical forces and trends that affected each site, so that reasonable comparisons and contrasts could be built into the unit. The listservers provided the environment for these discussions. To establish a mentoring or coaching relationship with the teams, faculty for the course at both sites subscribed to both listservers, and offered suggestions and fielded questions as needed. Consistent with many telecomputing projects for

preservice teachers, we also arranged for "outside experts" to subscribe to the listservers. These included Beth Boland, a historian at the National Register of Historic Places in Washington, D.C., who was able to provide information on any of the historic buildings or districts under study that were contained in NRHP files. She also helped students clarify their information needs, in light of important historical trends relevant to the sites. Two individuals from Illinois also joined the network, helping uncover local documents and photographs for use by teams at both sites. A considerable amount of E-mail circulated within each site. The mail software we used (Pine) supported the construction of an address book, so each student could easily send a message to all team members (and other teams) simultaneously. This was also the case for faculty, who could send general announcements to an entire team (or all teams) and respond to an individual's E-mail message either directly to that individual student or to teams. The content of this communication fell into several categories: requests for assignment clarification, announcements of site visits and the attendant logistics, and planning and scheduling team meetings. Sample communications are presented in figures 2.2a and 2.2b. In the latter, the text preceded by ">" is the original message, interspersed with the reply text. During the semester, teams employed a variety of means to collect and transmit information to their peers. Traditional snail-mail (a term of endearment for the U.S. Postal Service) brought photographs, videos, and maps; electronic documents were "attached" to E-mail messages sent to the listservers and to individuals; and a telephone conference call for each set of teams (River and Town) served to tie up loose ends, clarify information requests, and test conclusions drawn from information already received and analyzed.

Unplanned communication As the semester unfolded, the network supported a broad range of communication, both among individual students at both sites and between students and

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Figure 2.2a. Sample Team E-mail

faculty. The former became strikingly clear at the telephone conference call, where the relaxed tone and the content of the conversation reflected a high volume of person-to-person E-mail dialogue outside of the listservers. Faculty were not privy to those communications, but the common tasks confronting the pre-service teachers may have led them to seek the kind of moral support and mutual encouragement that Merseth (1991) described. Faculty found that interpersonal strife within and between teams at their respective sites became part of the electronic correspondence between students and faculty. Our methods students had relatively little experience (especially positive experience) in collaborative planning and problem solving and group projects, and we had to address the inevitable issues of fair distribution of workload and sharing information nuggets with other teams from time to time. When these conversations were conducted on E-mail, most were private messages between individual students and a faculty member. These prompted an occasional pep talk and encouraging messages to the teams at large. As others have pointed out, however, dialogues among invisible communicators have their limitations, most especially the absence of visual information that conveys much of the intent behind the words. Ultimately, some

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Figure 2.2b. Sample Team E-mail

of the problems attendant to a pilot project, group projects, and collaboration required face-to-face meetings.

The Unit Plan Each team at both sites produced a seven-lesson unit plan. The guidelines for units at the Virginia site appear in figure 2.3. The elements of the unit

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Figure 2.3.

Unit Plan Guidelines Page 38 are fairly typical, with some exceptions. For example, the range of topics was deliberately constrained, in order to guide the methods students toward productive areas of research, based on discussions among WIU and GMU faculty. Also, it happened that a quarter of the students in the GMU methods class were special education majors; they were distributed equally across the teams and served as consultants in designing and modifying lesson activities to accommodate special needs students. Finally, each team produced a videotape for their distant peers that provided a visual overview of the local site as well as visual evidence referenced within individual lesson plans. Copies of the units and videotapes were exchanged at the conclusion of the course.

Problems and Challenges Descriptions of distance education projects always include discussions of problems that have attended the use of telecommunications technology, in part because most of the projects are piloting a new approach to teaching and learning (Broholm and Aust 1994). The problems and challenges we faced in the methods course are typical of many such projects.

Equipment Access Early in the planning stages, we had hoped to include compressed video via a codec as one of the communication tools available to our students, in part because some of the historical inferences the teams were discussing were based on visual evidence.3 Western Illinois University had some experience with the technology and worked with staff at George Mason University to make the link. Unfortunately, the technology was only just arriving at GMU, and the time needed to carry out the logistics made it impossible to implement digital video-conferencing for this project. More typical of telecomputing projects in preservice education are problems of access to the less exotic technologies related to E-mail and the Internet. In the ideal setting, all participants in the project would own computers and modems and could access the university mainframes day or night from their homes. For only a handful of students was this the case. Others had to make their way to one of the university computer labs and wait for a terminal. For students at GMU, primarily a commuter campus, the requirement to work in the university labs constituted an added burden and so diminished the reputation of computing as a labor- and time-saving productivity tool. The frustration experienced by non-computer owners was magnified by the obvious advantages

3. For a description of this technology, see Jeremy Galbreath's overview in the January/February 1995 issue of Education Technology . Page 39 enjoyed by their computer-owning peers. The "haves and have-nots" dynamic strained students' work within and across teams.

Time In the methods course, we were asking students to engage in several new experiences simultaneously: to grapple with new technology, to conduct historical research with primary sources, and to use that research as the basis for lesson planning and unit development. Each of these tasks is demanding of students' time; the combined tasks were

extraordinarily time consuming. This resulted in some testy correspondence, represented by the dialogue reproduced in figure 2.4. In the message, I am replying to a message sent by one team member, who had copied the original message to her teammates. Fortunately, Margie and her teammates were able to work things out after a face-to-face meeting with the professor. What is interesting in the message, though, is the focus on the historical research rather than the technology. Margie was one of the "haves," so the time strain for her was not from lack of equipment access. The suggestion that the course should carry history credit makes an interesting point for future consideration.

Routine Getting to a lab, tracking down resources at a site, corresponding with distant peers were activities outside the normal routine of methods students. Telecomputing is almost universally contrary to the routines of preservice and inservice teachers. This explains the very typical report from distance education projects, that some percentage of participants give up and stop logging on. This was true in the GMU/WIU methods course, with the result that original expectations for telecomputing capabilities for individual students were revised, requiring only that teams acquire the needed telecomputing capabilities. Preservice teachers in the GMU/WIU methods courses learned how telecomputing could put them in touch with distant resources, including human resources (their peers and invited experts) and documents (local, state, and national archives of historical material). Their experience only hints at the range of possibilities for teachers to join with their peers for professional development and curriculum planning, a topic worthy of greater attention in preservice teacher education.

Joining the Global Community on the Internet The Internet provides a powerful environment within which to draw preservice teachers into a global database and community of peers, while also exploring

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Figure 2.4. Sample E-mail Dialogue Page 41 ways for their future students to do the same.4 The two are often intertwined, as is evident from some typical projects.

Listservers and Newsgroups for Teachers and Students While the GMU/WIU project facilitated collaboration among preservice teachers, the Global SchoolNet Foundation

helps school children to share their field trips with distant peers. The California-based network formerly known as FrEDMail has established a listserver called Fieldtrips-L. It is designed not for discussion but as a vehicle for helping teachers easily exchange information about their field trips and excursions to local resources. The process of establishing links between field trips and interested teachers is typical of many projects. About a month before the planned trip, the teacher posts a brief announcement to the Fieldtrips-L list to let other subscribers know about the visit. From responses to the posting, the teacher can select a few ''partner" classes who are interested in sharing in the trip. Students then go on the field trip armed with questions from the partner classes. Following the trip, students share their answers and experiences with the partner classes. At the conclusion, teachers can have the class write a brief group summary of the field trip and post it to the listserver, for other subscribers to read. The field trips listserver is only one example of the projects carried out over the Internet. School partners around the world have played Geogame, a project developed by Tom Clauset of Winston-Salem, North Carolina. Each participating class completes a questionnaire about the geography of their own location. The coordinator collects responses from all the participating sites, scrambles the information, and returns the data to participants as puzzles for the classes to solve. Other students have compiled an oral history of World War II (via FrEDMail) and studied the Middle Ages and civil rights with the help of distant subject-matter experts (the Electronic Emissary Project).5 Listservers like Fieldtrips-L serve to support collaborate projects among students (as was the case with River-L and Town-L). Other listservers also support discussion among teachers. The listservers in figure 2.5 are a representative sample of areas preservice teachers might explore to see both

4. Interested readers can find a general taxonomy of K-12 educational telecommunications applications in Judi Harris's "Mining the Internet" column of The Computing Teacher (February through May 1995). See also Harris, J. (1994). Way of the ferret: Finding educational resources on the Internet . Eugene, Ore.: International Society for Technology in Education. 5. The Electronic Emissary Project, first piloted in the spring of 1993, is supported by the Texas Center for Educational Technology. The Emissary Project pairs subject matter expert (SME) volunteers with teachers and their students who are studying in the fields of the SMEs' expertise. Page 42

Figure 2.5. Education-related Listservers functions at work. Subscribing to and participating in one or more of these listservers involves only a few steps and can be illustrated by the following instructions needed to subscribe to the National Council for the Social Studies listserver (NCSS-L). Sharing the mail from NCSS-L first requires a subscription, obtained by sending an E-mail message to the listserver address. In this case, you type "[email protected]" (without the quotation marks) on the "TO:" line of the message. All other lines in the header are left empty. In the body of the message, type "SUBSCRIBE NCSS-L YourEmail Address" (again, without the quotation marks), typing your Internet E-mail address in place of "YourEmail Address." If using lowercase, be sure to type the letter "l'' rather than the number "1" after "ncss-." No other text should appear in the body of the message (including "signature" lines you have created). Send the message as you would any other, and

Page 43 you will eventually receive a reply that acknowledges your subscription and provides additional information about how to mail messages to the listserver (print out this message and save it for future reference). At this point, mail posted by any other subscriber is forwarded to your mailbox automatically; you can post messages to share with other subscribers by sending your message to: "[email protected]" (without quotes). In addition to listservers, some 2,000 newsgroups in the USENET system support discussion groups germane to preservice teachers. For example, the K12Net network uses the USENET system, along with FidoNet, to bring teachers and students together. Methods students can regularly monitor and post messages to such newsgroups as "k12.ed.soc-

studies" (social studies education) and k12.chat.teacher (as the name suggests). Special "Channel" newsgroups are also reserved for short-term projects, activities, and discussions by K12Net users. Teachers reserve channels in advance through the K12Net coordinator. Unlike listservers, USENET newsgroups act more like bulletin board systems (BBS) where messages are posted but are not mailed directly to users' E-mail addresses. Those messages are organized under topics (like the k12.ed.soc-studies newsgroup mentioned above) that can be browsed in a leisurely manner without worrying about having your electronic mailbox cluttered with hundreds of messages mixed in with regular E-mail correspondence. Access to USENET newsgroups varies slightly among computer systems, largely because each system runs one of several different newsreading programs. Once logged into your system, you might type "news" or "rn" or "nn" to execute the newsreader program at your site. The next message might read: "219 unread articles in alt—read now? [ynq],'' indicating that the first newsgroup to which you have access through your system contains messages you have not yet read. Newsreaders allow you to skip groups and go directly to the newsgroup in which you are interested; the specific commands will vary. On UNIX systems using the older "rn" newsreader, for example, you type "/k12.ed.soc-studies" to jump to that newsgroup, which might display this message: "34 unread articles in k12.ed.soc-studies—read now? [ynq]." Typing "y" will allow you to begin browsing and posting messages.

Gophers Finding what is available for teachers on the Internet has been greatly simplified with the appearance of gophers, software developed at the University of Minnesota to provide flexible access to resources such as databases (see Krol 1994, for detailed background on gophers). Teachers using a public gopher server (like gopher.micro.umn.edu) can track down available gopher sites by descending through various menu levels until they find a resource of interest.

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Figure 2.6. AskERIC menu options

If the computer systems they log on to have their own gopher, they can bypass multiple menus by "pointing" their local gopher to another specific gopher site by typing "gopher {name of gopher site}." For example, educators interested in searching for ERIC resources can connect to AskERIC through a public gopher, selecting the following menu items in sequence: "Other Gopher and Information Servers," "North America," "USA,'' "General," "AskERIC. . ." Alternatively, from a local gopher, users can type "gopher ericir.syr.edu" to take them directly to AskERIC. Figure 2.6 displays a recent AskERIC menu screen listing a considerable range of resources. Users can download full-text copies of ERIC Digests and search a large collection of lesson plans in all subject areas and grade levels (including social studies). AskERIC is one of many resources in a frequently-changing collection of K-12 gopher sites listed in figure 2.7. Exploring "gopherspace" has been simplified further with the help of "Veronica" and other programs that allow users to search gophers by keyword. For teacher education, a gopher site established at the University of Virginia called the Teacher Education Information Server (TEIS) merits examination among preservice teachers (see figure 2.8). Co-sponsored by the Society

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Figure 2.7. Gopher Sites, K-12 Page 46

Figure 2.8. TEIS Resources for Information Technology in Education (SITE) of the Association for the Advancement of Computing in Education (AACE), TEIS supports curriculum-specific discussion groups (social studies, language arts, math education, and the like), as well as general instructional technology information for teacher education. The TEIS gopher (type: gopher teach.virginia.edu) also provides information on additional interactive resources, including the Preservice Teachers Online (PreSTO) mailing list. Among the more recent gopher sites to be established are those for the United States Senate and House of Representatives. The House gopher (type gopher gopher.house.gov) is an electronic archive established by the Speaker of the House and the librarian of Congress. Teachers and students can access the text of pending bills and proceedings, following menu items like "Amendment status," "Bill Status Today," "Bill Text," "House Rules 104th Congress," and "1995 House Calendar.'' Information is provided for accessible members of the House via E-mail. On the other side of the Capitol, relatively few senators have E-mail addresses, but a Senate gopher (type: gopher gopher.senate.gov) allows access to various documents posted by members' staffs and by committees. Documents can be downloaded via E-mail or anonymous FTP (type: ftp ftp.senate.gov).

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Anonymous FTP Many gophers allow users to send copies of documents read at remote sites to their home computer accounts via Email. The text arrives as a standard E-mail message. In the case of large collections of files accessible to the public, especially non-text files that contain graphic images or executable programs, a different mechanism is required for transferring files. FTP (File Transfer Protocol) is the standard tool used to send and receive many different kinds of files over the Internet. To use FTP, one must have an account and a password on the remote computer site where files of interest reside. Anonymous FTP is a special utility that allows Internet users to transfer files to6 and from computers for which they do not have accounts and passwords. Files available to the public from anonymous FTP sites are frequently stored in directories labeled "public," or "pub" for short. Employing standard directory navigation and file-listing commands, users can seek out and download resources to their local Internet computer systems. Most teachers and students will also want to download these resources to their desktop computers using dial-up communications software and a filetransfer protocol such as ZMODEM or Kermit. An example of an anonymous FTP session will make this a bit more clear. Figure 2.9 represents an FTP session to access and download historical documents of the United States from the Mississippi State History Archives (ftp.msstate.edu). All user input is in boldface. After logging into the local computer system, typing "ftp ftp.msstate.edu" after the system prompt connects the user to the site. At the "Name" prompt, the word "anonymous" is typed, followed by a dummy password (the user's E-mail address). As a guest in the system, the user now has access to public files, including documents stored in a subdirectory called "docs/history/USA." The ''docs" directory appears among others listed using the "Is" command. Thanks to information supplied in the Whole Internet User's Guide & Catalog (Krol 1994, 417), however, the user can change directories ("cd") to move directly to the collections of U.S. historical documents. Moving to the "Revolutions" directory, the user decides to download a copy of the Virginia Declaration of Rights , using the "get" command. A copy of the document now resides on the user's local computer for later downloading to a desktop computer, if necessary. Had the file been a photograph of George Mason, author of the document, the user would have typed "binary" at an ftp> prompt prior to the get command, since photographs are stored in binary form and must be transferred in that format.

6. Most anonymous FTP sites limit users to downloading ("getting") files only. Page 48

Figure 2.9. Sample FTP Session Page 49

Beyond Text-Based Interaction on the Internet In October 1994, the White House opened a service called "Welcome to the White House: An Interactive Citizens' Handbook," on the World Wide Web. WWW is a hypertext-based system that links the scattered resources of the Internet through a web of interconnections that users can traverse by clicking on "hotlink" buttons on the computer screen. Hotlinks appear as highlighted words within a WWW text; when selected, these hotlinks automate the process

of moving through Internet paths and directories to a related resource referenced by the hotlink text. The White House web site (http://www.whitehouse.gov/) offers interactive access to its own set of resources organized and connected by hotlinks, drawing together information from the Cabinet and Independent Agencies, as well as more than 3,000 White House press releases, speeches, and public documents. From the White House node of the WWW, however, users can use the highlighted hotlinks to jump to related sites in the U.S. government. Most of the interaction on the Internet is text-based; the World Wide Web provides access to graphics, pictures, and a few limited digitized audio and video resources. However, the Global Schoolhouse project is pushing the current limits of multimedia on the Internet by using real-time videoconferencing to link students and teachers. Moreover, the project represents the kind of productive use of technology with which preservice teachers should become acquainted.

The Global Schoolhouse Project The Global Schoolhouse is a project that was piloted during the 1992–93 school year, receiving funds from the National Science Foundation and local and national businesses to continue to the present. The project consists of connecting schools and students nationally and internationally, using the Internet, and modelling classroom applications of a variety of Internet tools and resources. Global Schoolhouse classroom activities are coordinated by Global SchoolNet/FrEd-Mail Foundation, mentioned above. The original Global Schoolhouse Project involved children in California, Virginia, Tennessee, and London. Currently, the project includes seventeen schools from eleven states and several international schools. Children in participating classrooms do collaborative research over the Internet, using it to communicate with each other and with national and international leaders. According to Yvonne Marie Andres, Director of Curriculum for the Global Schoolhouse (GSH), located in Carlsbad, Calif., some of the main objectives of the project are: (1) to demonstrate how people and information resources on the Internet can be used as a classroom tool for research and as a medium for interactive collaborative learning; (2) to teach students how to become active learners and information managers; and (3) to develop an online system

Page 50 of training and support for teachers so that they can use technology in an effective and appropriate manner in their classrooms. Beginning in 1993, the Global Schoolhouse has been capitalizing on an Internet-based videoconferencing tool called CU-SeeMe developed at Cornell University to bring participating teachers and students face to face. Internet-based videoconferencing is not without its limitations. The volume of data being transmitted during real-time conferences, especially digitized video, places a considerable strain on site networks and on the Internet itself. As a result, what is displayed in the video window of CU-SeeMe computers is more akin to a sequence of slides than a fullmotion video picture. Nonetheless, the Global Schoolhouse/CU-SeeMe projects serve as an important "proof of concept" test, and provide a vision of telecommunications applications that will become increasingly commonplace during the careers of our current preservice teachers. The sample projects and resources described above should suggest a wide range of possibilities for social studies preservice teacher educators who explore the Internet. The projects represent opportunities to enrich our methods students' understanding of the field and the intellectual challenges social studies presents to both teachers and schoolchildren. But the Internet was not established to serve the needs of teacher education, and it is still a chore to glean from this network of networks the kinds of user-friendly telecomputing services teachers and children need.

Examining Online Services as Global Gateways for Teachers and Students Unlike the Internet, with its web of interconnected computers that serve as nodes, an online service relies on a central computer through which messages, files, graphics, and all other data are transferred and transmitted. Users subscribe to

an online service, typically paying an initial set-up fee, a monthly subscription charge that includes several hours of online time, and a per-minute fee beyond what is covered by the monthly fee. Like telephone calls, the cost of online time varies by time of day. Most online services provide gateways to the Internet, so that subscribers can enjoy the resources described above. Subscriptions to these services, many of which offer databases and communication tools specifically for K-12 teachers and students, have grown enormously over the past several years. In 1994 alone, subscriptions grew 38 percent over the previous year, to a total of 6.32 million users (see figure 2.10). The 1995 introduction of the Microsoft Network (MSN), integrated into the Windows 95 operating system, will generate further growth. A look at America Online's Scholastic Network will illustrate the range of professional development and K-12 applications with which preservice teachers should be familiar.

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Figure 2.10. Online Services

Scholastic Network America Online (AOL) provides a broad array of services to some million and a half home and school users. The number of new services and commercial entities that join with AOL grows each year. One such addition to AOL is the

Figure 2.11. Sample Menu Items, Social Studies, Scholastic Network 7. Reflecting the rapid shifts in the marketplace, Apple Computer, Inc., developers of eWorld, discontinued the service on March 31, 1996. Page 52 Scholastic Network (SN), designed specifically for teachers and students in grades 3–12. It is available for an additional monthly fee, beyond that charged by AOL, and is managed by key people in each subject area. Typing SNSocial Studies at the main AOL menu takes users to the social studies area. As is evident from the SNSocial Studies menu (figure 2.11), teachers and students can access a broad range of discussion groups, forums, projects, and information. Typical among the discussion groups are requests for penpals and opportunities to collaborate on such curriculum topics as the states, deserts, volcanoes, public policy, World War II, and stories of new immigrants. Students can also participate in games, like "Map Man's Geography Game" and the History Mystery Game (grades 3–7) or History Mystery Challenge (grades 8–12). Periodically, SNSocial Studies sponsors special activities like "L.I.F.E. in USA." In this project, students share information about their home towns, including lore and legends (L), interesting information (I), "famous and fabulous foods" (F), and "extras" (E) that make their town unique or distinctive. The final product contains information from various regions around the country which students can use to make comparisons and draw conclusions. Students are occasionally invited to join in explorations of distant places, at least vicariously. A 1996 expedition followed a teacher's trip to Antarctica and New Zealand. Sandy Markle, a former elementary teacher, spent nine weeks exploring these regions, sending daily written reports and digitized photographs to her AOL "journal" for students to view. Students who wished to communicate with Sandy could leave messages for her, some of which would be answered each week by E-mail. While much of the information she shared related to science topics, her commentary about New Zealand included its people and history.

For Teachers

The Scholastic Network supports effective classroom use of its projects by providing a variety of supplementary materials. For example, project developers frequently provide teacher's guides to link projects to the curriculum. For the New Zealand expedition, teachers could download a guide with learning objectives, background information on the country, teaching strategies for various grade levels (K-2, 3–4, 5–6, 7–8), and a bibliography of professional books, student books, and worldwide web sites. To help teachers keep track of new expeditions and other special projects and events in the network, SN subscribers receive announcements in their mailboxes. A typical message appears in figure 2.12. In addition to classroom instruction opportunities, the Scholastic Network offers a "Professional Development" section that serves as an information clearinghouse and an electronic meeting place for teachers. Teachers can click on subsection icons ("Grants," "Technology Kitchen," "Instructor Teacher Cen-

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Figure 12.12. Scholastic Network E-mail Announcement ter," "Professional Development Library," "Library/Media Specialist," and "Professional Development Discussions") or they can go directly to one of a score of topics (figure 2.13). Of particular interest to new teachers is the "New Teachers Forum," where topics like classroom management and avoiding workload burnout are discussed. Finally, the Scholastic Network hosts monthly online, real-time workshops. The sessions are scheduled for after school or weekends. Past SN courses have included "Reporting Student Progress to Parents" and "The Student Teacher/New Teacher/Experienced Teacher Relationship." The course announcement described the latter as an opportunity for new teachers and teachers-in-training to get together and learn from the wealth of professional experience among SN members. In preparation for these and all online workshops, a discussion board is established for teachers to meet and post ideas and questions they would like to discuss during the real-time sessions. Participants can read articles relevant to the workshops prior to the session, and a transcript of the real-time conference is typically saved for teachers to

download at a later time.

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Figure 2.13. Professional Development on the Scholastic Network

Social Studies Methods in Cyberspace Although this chapter describes a considerable number of telecommunications opportunities for social studies preservice teacher education, it is too risky to leave the subject without driving home the purpose of engaging methods students in telecommunications. Exposure and exploration would fail to make maximum use of the experience in a methods course. The real potential comes from cementing the experience of telecommunications and the purposes, content, and methods of social studies education. We need to use excursions into the global network as an opportunity to reflect on the potential of local, regional, and global learning communities to advance the goals of social studies education. The GMU/WIU project was an example of this idea, where the technology (a) supported the work of historical inquiry and (b) gave students the opportunity to reflect on the nature and process of inquiry, peer collaboration, and the usefulness of the technology as a social studies tool. How might participation in online discussion provide practice in crafting effective questions? How might group decision-making be best carried out electronically? How do information-processing skills need to be reshaped and refined as they are applied to work in cyberspace? Earlier research pursued this question in the context of electronic databases (Ehman, Glenn, Johnson, and White 1992; White 1987). How best can one define information needs, based on a given problem or task? How does one determine how to find the information residing somewhere along the "infobahn?" How can one frame information queries so that distant and unseen peers can assist? Our preservice teachers must find answers to these questions for their own work, and they will have to learn how to teach their students how to be skilled information seekers as well. It's not that this is a whole new ball game—just a new, very large stadium.

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Conclusion A handful of projects have been summarized in discussing the Internet and online services. The number of discussion groups, archives, forums, projects, list-servers, and online workshops grows and changes from week to week, and a comprehensive description would be impossible and, in a book chapter, futile. Moreover, many of the resources

cataloged above are "migrating" from online services or Internet gopher servers to the World Wide Web. This is transforming both the nature of the resources and the manner in which teachers and student interact with them. Nonetheless, the activities described here represent significant opportunities to break the molds of both traditional preservice education and the traditional K-12 classroom. If children are to be enriched by linking to the information superhighway, they will require teachers who are expert cyberdrivers—who know where they're going, how to get there, and how to teach others to do the same. For beginning social studies teachers, we ought to do some "driver training."

References Bull, G., Harris, J., Lloyd, J., and Short, J. (1989). The electronic academical village. Journal of Teacher Education 40(4): 27–31. Broholm, J. R., and Aust, R. (1994). Teachers and electronic mail: Networking on the network. Journal of Technology and Teacher Education 2(2): 167–82. Casey, J. (1994). TeacherNet: Student teachers travel the information highway. Journal of Computing in Teacher Education 11(1): 8–11. Clarken, R. H. (1993, April). Computer mediated support for student teaching and first year teaching . Paper presented at meeting of the American Educational Research Association, Atlanta, Ga. Ehman, L., Glenn, A., Johnson, V., and White, C. S. (1992). Using computer databases in student problem solving: A study of eight social studies teachers' classrooms." Theory and Research in Social Education 20(2): 179–206. Eskridge, S. W. (1993). KIDLINE: Electronic fieldwork in teacher preparation classes. Technology and Teacher Education Annual . Charlottesville, Va.: Association for the Advancement of Computing in Education. Galbreath, J. (1995). Compressed digital videoconferencing: An overview. Educational Technology 35(1) (January/February): 31–38. Harrington, H. (1992). Fostering critical reflection through technology: Preparing prospective teachers for a changing society. Journal of Information Technology for Teacher Education 1(1): 67–82. Harris, J. (1994). Way of the ferret: Finding educational resources on the Internet . Eugene, Ore.: International Society for Technology in Education. Krol, E. (1994). The whole Internet user's guide and catalog (2nd ed.). Sebastopol, Calif.: O'Reilly and Associates.

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LeBaron, J. F. and Bragg, C. A. (1994). Practicing what we preach: Creating distance education models to prepare teachers for the twenty-first century. The American Journal of Distance Education 8(1): 5–19. McIntyre, S., and Tlusty, R. (1993, April). Electronic dialogue journaling and its effect on reflective practice with preservice teachers . Paper presented at meeting of the American Educational Research Association, Atlanta, Ga. Merseth, K. K. (1991). Supporting beginning teachers with computer networks. Journal of Teacher Education 42(2): 140–47. Stevens, C. A. (1994). Learner-Link: Using communications technology to enhance methods courses. Journal of Technology and Teacher Education 2(3): 273–79. U.S. Congress, Office of Technology Assessment. (April 1995). Teachers and technology: Making the connection (OTA-EHR-616). Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office. White, C. S. (1987). Developing information-processing skills through structured activities with a computerized file-management program. Journal of Educational Computing Research 3(3): 355–75. White, C. S., and Hunter, K. A. (1995). Teaching with historic places: A curriculum framework . Washington, D.C.: National Trust for Historic Preservation. Page 57

3 Multimedia in a Visual Society PETER H. MARTORELLA During the Eisenhower presidency, the development of new military technology applications dramatically altered the course of policy making throughout the Cold War. Operating in secrecy over four floors atop a car dealership in a nondescript New York City building, a special CIA unit had taken up residence. Armed with technotools and sweeping expanses of data obtained from a new high-flying reconnaissance plane dubbed ''U-2," the agency began to unlock a storehouse of logistical military secrets. Ultimately, this form of visual spy information was to gain supremacy over traditional measures. Its emergence marked

the shift from reliance upon one form of data to another as the basis for key military policy decisions. In the future, when confronted with contradictory visual and aural data, policy makers would defer to evidence they could "see with their eyes." At about the same time as the appearance of the U-2, the end of the Korean War was marking the beginning of a new era for social studies instruction. In the war's wake came the rapid rise of an emerging visual technology, one destined to be an umbilical cord to the world and an ubiquitous source of social nutrients and pathogens. At the outset, its potential applications for the social studies curriculum appeared limitless. Unlike an earlier generation of film technologies, this new medium, television (or "TV," as it came to be known), could hurl images and sounds across huge expanses of space at breathtaking speed. Like film, this newer visual technology was at first a medium largely harnessed to a studio. Further, like film, initially it had a limited focus: It was placed primarily in the service of entertainment rather than education. Although this new medium broadened our vistas, in the age of TV the world also suddenly seemed a smaller place. In rural Iowa, the roads out of town might

Page 58 be impassible during January, but TV could transport its citizens around the globe, and instantly. Through the power of TV, an "electronic field trip" to virtually anywhere was a theoretical possibility.

A Visual Society TV—at first intermittently and then relentlessly over a half-century of evolution—paraded the nation and much of the world through our living rooms. Unlike the radio and telephone that had preceded it, this emergent medium had the capacity to display vivid, often raw and sobering, graphic swatches of reality. Actually seeing history unfold "with your own eyes," frequently in real time, lent stunning authenticity to the analysis of events and issues. It also reinforced the primacy of visual social data. Our newly shaped global community dished up a smorgasbord of possibilities. For example, even at the height of the Cold War, the world community electronically bonded and assembled to pay last respect to an assassinated American President. In a later era of satellites and portable dishes with around-the-clock news, TV provided the tools for another dramatic electronic world encounter. George Bush and Saddam Hussein, at distant points from each other, joined world viewers through CNN in vicariously experiencing the angry eruption and consummation of Desert Storm. The searing, exhaustive array of images of death and destruction, replete with pyrotechnics, were as accessible as the evening news or M.A.S.H. reruns. In macabre fashion, television in this instance arguably allowed us all to participate vicariously in the conflict as it progressed. Reactions from around the world to what unfolded before us helped shape the conduct of the war as leaders adjusted policies to fit shared perceptions. Our common visual database, provided in real time and enriched by expert commentaries, allowed us to be civilian participant observers.

Visual Technologies and the Social Studies Over the past half-century, television has nestled comfortably into the rooms throughout our homes and followed us to the workplace, the beach, and outer space. Surprisingly, however, the medium has been far less successful in winning a permanent place in our classrooms and exploiting its visual assets in social studies instruction. As a new century dawns, there are signs that this scenario may abruptly change. One reason is the rapid evolution during the 1990s of emerging cable-based technologies.

Television and other, related visual-oriented technologies, such as video-cassette recorders and videodisc players, arguably present an instructional treasure chest of opportunities for social studies educators. These technologies allow students to invest the abstractions that dominate their classes and text materi-

Page 59 als with rich visual imagery. For example, a series of still frames and motion episodes from a videodisc relating to different cultures can breathe life into the generalization: The family exists as a basic social unit within all societies. Emerging visual technologies also make it easier for teachers to offer alternative visual and auditory learning-style options for students, such as those advocated by Howard Gardner (1991) in his theory of multiple intelligences and McCarthy (1990) in her 4MAT System. These technotools also help to engage students in constructing knowledge, making them more active participants in the instructional process.

Cable Television and Social Studies Instruction Apart from conventional TV, one expanding source of visual data for social studies instruction is cable television . Approximately, two-thirds of all schools now receive some form of cable television for classroom instruction. Their number is rapidly increasing Within copyright restrictions, cable networks offer a vast store of contemporary television programming in flexible formats for instructional applications. Major cable networks, such as CNN, C-SPAN, The Discovery Channel, and The History Channel now have programmed offerings that blend with the social studies curricula at all grade levels. Permission to tape programs for educational use is frequently granted. Also, lesson plans and units related to the programs often are available. Assignment Discovery, produced by The Discovery Channel (1-800-321-1832), is an example. Social studies and contemporary issues programs are aired on Tuesday and Friday during the school year at 9 A.M. (ET). Examples of recent programs are: "Bill of Rights," "Power to the People," "How the West Was Lost," and "The New Immigrants." Since many of the Assignment Discovery programs extend over several hours and have broad themes, it is possible to build units around them. For example, a high school teacher developed a one-week unit relating to the Industrial Revolution around text assignments and four Assignment Discovery programs. The future appears bright for cable as an instructional medium (Watson 1990). The emerging generation of fiber optic cable technologies will permit two-way audio, video, and graphics communications, as well as expanded programming. It will also allow students and teachers to access a variety of visual databases on demand, twenty-four hours a day.

Distance Learning and Electronic Field Trips Imagine a small school in a poor rural area, and a high school class enrolled in a U.S. History course. The class and its electronic field trip guide, located in

Page 60 Williamsburg, Va., are approximately two hundred miles apart. Twenty other schools are also participating in the field trip without leaving their classrooms. In this case, a historical site is brought to the students, instead of the reverse. With electronic field trips, local experts can focus on special features or artifacts. They can also respond to questions, much as they would during a

conventional field trip. The students are "walking" through Williamsburg with their guide, using a video camera as their "eyes." They are able to pause, ask questions, and make comments throughout the tour. Also, the class and the guide are able to see and hear each other and can communicate via satellite transmission, telephone, and facsimile machines. These students are engaged in one form of distance learning, a technology and a process in which courses are transmitted in "real time" from locations remote to the classroom. A growing number of states (e.g., Massachusetts, Texas, and Virginia) have established distance learning projects to enrich and broaden classroom instruction. In other cases, distance learning has provided elective courses, such as Anthropology, to schools that lack the resources, teachers, or student population to justify such offerings. An example of an extensive, diversified distance learning program is Mass LearnPike, which reaches more than two hundred Massachusetts school systems, as well as those in many other states. Mass LearnPike beams programs taught by experts to these systems from its Cambridge studios. It offers programs on traditional social studies themes (e.g., Ancestors: A Multicultural Exploration ) to both.

Interactive Multimedia in the Classroom In recent years, multimedia, a new instructional ally in the battle to capitalize on the power of visual media, has captured educators' attention. Multimedia systems expand the potential of both computers and video technologies (Mecklenburger 1990; Vockell and Brown 1992). The term "multimedia" refers to the use of more than one source to provide computer-based applications, including text, audio, and video. Emerging multimedia systems can incorporate graphics, sounds, and still and motion images from a variety of sources, including CD-ROM and videodiscs (both discussed later in the chapter), video cameras, VCRs, and digital cameras. Also, software, such as QuickTime from Apple, allows teachers and students to create or capture and edit images and sounds as digital files that can be incorporated into stacks and displayed at a later time (See Barron and Varnadoe 1991). A typical minimal multimedia system used in schools includes videodiscs and CD-ROMs and related players in conjunction with text and graphics. As they navigate through the system, users can access still or motion frames from

Page 61 a videodisc. Alternative sound tracks also are available on the videodisc (e.g., instruction accompanying the video in either Spanish or English). By clicking on icons, users are able to easily move back and forth within the program and interact with it to obtain more in-depth information on a topic. Multimedia are said to be interactive when they allow users, as well as producers, some measure of control over electronic communications. In explaining the concept of interactivity, (Neuman 1995) noted: "The prototypical interactive process is a simple conversation between two people. It is a mutual reciprocal process. Either party can interrupt the other, change the subject, raise new ideas. Most mass media, electronic or other wise are not interactive. Communication is predominantly one way . . ." (52–53). He observed further that in an interactive environment "The computer allows the student to manipulate and actively experiment with fundamental concepts. Learning takes place not from mere exposure but from active experience" (53). Although multimedia systems are not yet commonly employed by social studies teachers, they are widely used by the military, industry, and public agencies for inservice training (Jerram 1994). Additionally, such systems are frequently used in commercial centers, such as shopping malls and museums, to provide information for visitors.

Interactive Multimedia and Videodiscs The video data in an interactive multimedia system can be accessed from a video tape or disc (laserdisc) player connected to a microcomputer and a monitor. However, videodiscs are used much more frequently than videotapes. Videodiscs are produced in two formats, each typically appearing on a mirror-like 12" plastic disc. Each also includes two special tracks, which can be used for sound. The information the videodiscs contain is read by a laser beam within the player. Under most circumstances, the information on them cannot be modified or augmented (see Semrau and Boyer 1994). Videodiscs that have the Constant Angular Velocity (CAV) 12" format hold up to 54,000 frames of information or thirty minutes of motion and sound per side. Those discs that have the Constant Linear Velocity (CLV) format cannot address individual frames but hold up to sixty minutes of motion video and sound per side. From an instructional perspective, two major advantages of videodiscs are their capability to present clear images and to easily locate and reorder segments of video data by frames. In general, the resolution of videodisc images is superior to the output of videotape. Further, individual frames are much crisper and free of movement. To date, several thousand videodisc titles have been produced, many of them in the social studies, and their number is increasing (Semrau and Boyer 1994). Some examples of available videodiscs are given in figure 3.1.

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Figure 3.1. List of selected videodiscs for social studies Although videodiscs often are a component of multimedia, they can be used as a stand-alone tool, not connected to a microcomputer. Because it is relatively easy to move quickly from frame to frame anywhere on the disc, in any sequence, and at any pace, teachers or students have considerable control over the medium. When individual frames are identified on the videodisc, it can function as a giant slide projector with up to 54,000 slides of text or images available. It also is possible for teachers to create or master an original instructional videodisc. The price of a single master ranges from approximately $300 to $2,000, depending upon the quality and quantity of discs desired. A number of commercial companies, including 3M, now provide mastering services.

Interactive Multimedia and CD-Rom Technology Because of their ease of access and large storage capacity, many multimedia systems now include CD-ROM s. CDROM discs are accessed by a computer connected to a special drive that plays the discs. A CD-ROM is five inches in diameter and can hold the equivalent of 1,500 floppy disks. This represents approximately 270,000 pages of information or a mix of text, images, and sounds. Consequently, entire libraries of print, pictures, and sound can be stored on a few CD-ROM discs. The newer generations of CD-ROMs will have even greater storage capacity, be smaller in size, and have faster access rates. Callison (1989) provides an illustration of CD-ROM technology used in social studies instruction:

Page 63 From one CD-ROM station, the student can compare statistics from hundreds of tables to show longevity trends or comparisons from one country to another. The student, working at the one computer terminal, will be able to move from a map of a given country to its capital, to a street map of the city, and then shift to maps that represent the historical development of that country relevant to world history during the past centuries. (85–86) Will CD-ROMs replace textbooks? While spending for textbooks has declined in recent years (Darlin 1995), expenditures for CD-ROMs have increased rapidly. Darlin (1995, 62) observed that "In the final chapter the two industries—educational software and textbook publishing—will probably converge rather than the one destroying the other." CD-ROM applications increasingly are finding their way into schools. For example, now available on CD-ROM discs are sound-and video-enhanced versions of encyclopedias: Compton's Multimedia Encyclopedia and Encarta Multimedia Encyclopedia . Also available in CD-ROM format are Books in Print and Reader's Guide to Periodic Literature . XIPHIAS has developed Time Table of History: Business, Politics, and media, a collection of key events in history related to wealth, power, and knowledge. Another disc, How the World Works, recounts a brief history of civilization. Also, the National Geographic Society has produced a program for the middle grades, The Presidents: It All Started with George, that includes motion-picture footage, period music, animated maps, and timelines. The Society also has created a disc entitled Picture Atlas of the World . The Voyager Company has developed Who Built America, which covers data from the period 1876–1914, taken from the American Social History Project. Additionally, the company has begun to produce full-feature motion films, as well as complete texts of books in the CD-ROM format. The Bureau of Electronic Publishing has produced two history disks: U.S. History on CD-ROM and World History on CD-ROM . Both include books, documents, photographs, and archive materials. Geopedia, by Britannica, is a world geography program on CD-ROM. It engages students in map-related activities. The Minnesota Educational Computing Corporation also has published its classic simulation in a CD-ROM version: Oregon Trail II. In addition to a growing list of titles, the number of new computers that include CD-ROM units as part of a basic computer system is growing, and each new generation of players is faster than its predecessors. At the same time, costs are declining.

Besides commercial products, educators also may create CD-ROMs, although the initial outlay for mastering discs makes small scale usage prohibitive. For example, for one social studies project a district spent $4,500 for a

Page 64 CD-ROM master and 1,500 copies (Stearns 1993). Although the technology is still evolving, creation of a master currently requires files to be organized on a removable hard drive one gigabyte in size or larger.

The Internet and Multimedia Many telecommunications are sent along the Internet, a giant electronic pathway that speeds messages and information from networks of linked computers along to their destinations. The Internet was created in 1969 by the Pentagon, to help researchers and the military expedite the sharing of information around the world. Increasingly, however, it is being used by teachers and students to access and share information and break down the barriers between school and real-world learning (Pawloski 1994). The Internet also serves to reduce the isolation that many classroom teachers feel, and increases the potential for colaborative activities. Those who have access to a gateway to the Internet can: send and receive messages, retrieve information and files from databases, and connect with thousands of other networks around the world. Access to the Internet typically is provided by commercial online services, schools, colleges and universities, and state and regional educational agencies. For example, the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, through the Mass LearnNet, gives an Internet connection to any school within the state that requests it. TENET in Texas and VaPAN in Virginia have statewide networks for K-12 teachers. Besides text messages and files, the Internet supports multimedia. It can carry still or animated video data and sounds, if they exist in digital form. The Global School House Project, for example, links students in different states and the United Kingdom. The Global School House involves students in exchanging video and audio data over the Internet using a video camera and special software and hardware. In an earlier chapter, White provides more details on the project.

Two-Way Video Conferencing Through the Internet Two-way video conferencing (sometimes known as desktop video conferencing) is an illustration of how the Internet can support multimedia. Picture four groups of students, ages sixteen to eighteen. Two are from rural communities in different areas of Latin America; another is from an urban school in the United States; and the other group is from a suburban area in South Korea. Each group is clustered around a computer station facing a camera about the size of a baseball that includes a built-in microphone and sits atop the monitor. Engaged in a conference over the Internet, the students are comparing the results of interviews they have conducted. Earlier, they asked selected individuals in their communities to answer the a series of questions related to the theme:

Page 65 "What role should the United States play in its relations with emerging nations?" On the monitor, in four windows each group can see and hear each other as they discuss what they have learned and the anomalies in their data. Apart from the costs related to the Internet telephone connection and the computer station, the cost for each group would be less than $100 for the camera\microphone. Software that can make the multiuser conference a reality exits as freeware called CU-SeeMe (Sattler 1995).

With CU-SeeMe, students from around the nation and the world, using their computers, telephone connections, and special software, can link to sites known as reflectors and exchange video images in real time (i.e., as they are created). It is also possible to include sound and written messages. Images can be provided by a digital camera, regular video cameras that are connected to a video capture board, or a special inexpensive miniature video camera (e.g., Quick-Cam, for less than $100). In 1995, Apple Computer announced the development of its own program for two-way video conferencing, called QuickTime Conferencing (QTC) (Crotty 1995). Connectix now offers software based on QTC for less than $50.

Locating Social Studies Multimedia Resources on the Internet As White has suggested in an earlier chapter, access to the Internet generally is arranged by a commercial service, university, or educational institution for a nominal charge. For example, the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, through the Mass LearnNet, gives an Internet connection to any school within the state that requests it. TENET in Texas and VaPAN in Virginia have statewide networks for K-12 teachers. Once you have access, how do you actually locate resources and display information presented on the Internet as text, sound, video, or graphics? Since the Internet is not owned or controlled by a singe source, searching for items and individuals can be complex and frustrating. In addition, movement from one document to another typically is cumbersome.

The World Wide Web and Netscape Most efforts to simplify access and movement have centered around development of protocols to easily link and access documents stored along the Internet. The World Wide Web (WWW) is such a system. In conjunction with the WWW, "friendly" software interfaces that incorporate color, sound, still and motion pictures, and text have been developed to display linked documents. One such interface is Netscape. Netscape allows a user to "browse" and "navigate" among documents by clicking upon a highlighted piece of text that contains hyperlinks to a related' document (Rivera, Singh, and McAlister 1994). For example, students using

Page 66 Netscape with the www might access the Library of Congress at the address: http://lcweb.loc.gov/homepage/lchp.html. Thereafter, using a mouse, they can click upon a highlighted word or button to obtain information on countries or browse through the Library's holdings, and then return to their starting place. Users thus can point and click their way to information, rather than having to use complex text commands. Marx (1995 1–2) has provided a list of resources accessible on the www. A sample of these, along with a description, are as follows:

•

http://www.ncsa.uiuc.edu.Edu/Classroom/classroom.html (Links to educational resources in all subjects)

•

http://history.cc.ukans.edu/history/WWW_history_main.html (History library)

•

http://wings buffalo.edu.world/vt2/ (World map)

•

http://akebono.stanford.edu/yahoo/ (Procedures for conducting a search on the WWW)

•

http://lcweb.loc.gov/homepage/lchp.html (Library of Congress home page)

(Source: S. Marx, 1994. Social Studies Resources on the World Wide Web . Las Cruces, N.M.: New Mexico State University, unpublished paper.

Multimedia Instructional Programs Picture a World Cultures class beginning a unit on the Middle East. It is using In the Holy Land, a commercial program designed for middle and secondary school students. The program contains videodiscs and software that can activate the videodiscs. Several students are huddled in front of a videodisc player, a computer, and a separate color monitor. In the player is one of the two discs that are part of the program. Each of the two discs contains one hour of video and audio data on various aspects of the Middle East, including still photographs, graphs, maps, and music. Students can access additional information on a range of topics, such as time lines and brief summaries of major events and historical figures. As students select a topic from the menu by clicking a mouse, clear, crisp videodisc images appear on the color monitor, providing visual data on the topic selected. After viewing the data, students may be queried on the computer screen concerning what they have seen. If they have questions, they have an opportunity to link to other, related information in the computer program. They also may return to the menu of topics and select a new, related sequence of videodisc images or "browse" through the data.

Page 67 Because the program has such an extensive database, it is suitable for individual and group student projects. Students, for example, can create multimedia ''term papers" that include slides, motion clips, sounds, maps, time lines, and text. They also may include information accessed from the Internet. Social studies teachers may employ interactive multimedia systems by accessing off-the-shelf commercially-produced kits, such as the one described above. These products include components such as videodiscs and CD-ROMs, and related teacher and student materials. Versions are available for both IBM and Macintosh computers. The number of existing commercial interactive multimedia programs for the social studies is growing. Further, the demand for them is likely to continue as states with textbook adoption policies become more flexible regarding how a "text" is defined in an era of high technology. As an alternative to commercial programs, social studies teachers can create their own multimedia units using existing software and videodiscs. This requires some planning "glue," some multimedia resources, and some authoring tools

(instructional software). Let us examine an interactive multimedia unit that two teachers (Bensen and Poole 1995), created for a middle grades class, entitled Philosophies of China . In addition to HyperCard, an authoring tool, Voyager VideoStack, was used to simplify commands to the videodisc player. (Software programs with capabilities similar to Voyager VideoStack's are: LinkWay, for the IBM, and HyperStudio, with Apple, Macintosh, and IBM versions). Bensen and Poole designed the interactive multimedia unit for use with a Macintosh computer and related software and peripherals. These systems require relatively little training for teachers and students familiar with point-and-click, videodisc, CD-ROM, and linked information applications. Sets of instructions (scripts), digital video and sound clips, and scanned drawings from one program can be easily borrowed and copied into another. This latter capability facilitates teacher sharing and thus saves considerable time. The interactive multimedia unit included a CD-ROM, China Home of the Dragon, that offered the opportunity for multiple linkages to an extensive database. Another multimedia component was a series of scanned images from textand tradebooks. An existing videodisc, The First Emperor of China, was another source of visual information that was linked to the text.

Conclusion Doubtless, traditional media such as textbooks will be mainstays of the social studies classroom into the twenty-first century. At the same time, a new generation of technotools spawned by the emergence and evolution of the microcomputer also will play an increasing role (Gates 1995). What the balance between the two—text and microchip—will be remains in doubt.

Page 68 Clearly, we will remain a visual society, heavily dependent upon television, in all its forms, and video. The same forces that are driving the rapid development of intelligent three-dimensional toys and games are likely to further blur the lines between education and entertainment. "Edutainment" software may well become the norm, particularly if education takes on the coloration that Fitzgerald and Lester (see chapter 6) envision. They foresee educational venues with clusters of intelligent tutors conjured up from exciting new advances in artificial intelligence. Multimedia systems, as we now conceive of them, should become more interactive and expand both their sources of visual data and their potential for addressing individual student needs. Two technologies that continue to advance at a rapid pace—massive low-cost storage devices and memory and fiber optic cable—also should enhance the capabilities of interactive multimedia. Perhaps most exciting will be the evolution, not of technologies, but constructivist instructional theories. Multimedia, designed to encourage interactivity, exploration, and creativity, may become the norm. Hopefully, too, authors and publishers will attempt to outdo each other in the marketplace by producing increasingly more friendly graphical interfaces that even children can easily activate to begin their explorations. From all these advances, the social studies curriculum of the future should benefit enormously. Is your money on the text or the microchip?

References Barron, A., and Varnadoe, S. (1991). It's a digital world. Journal of Interactive

Instruction Development 4: 3–8. Benson, L., and Poole, M. (1995). The philosophies of China . Raleigh: North Carolina State University, Department of Curriculum and Instruction. Callison, D. (1989). School media programs in the information age. In M. A. Laughlin, H. M. Hartoonian, and N. M. Sanders, eds., From information to decision making . Bulletin No. 83. Washington, D.C.: National Council for the Social Studies. Crotty, C. (1995). Reach out and see someone. MacWorld 12: 122. Darlin, D. (1995, July 17). Reprieve. Forbes, 62, 65, 67. Gardner, H. (1991). The unschooled mind: How children think and how schools should teach . New York: Basic Books. Gates, W. (1995). The road ahead . New York: Viking. Jeram, P. (1994 October). Who's using multimedia. NEWMEDIA: 48–58. Marx, S. (1994). Social studies resources on the World Wide Web . Las Cruces: New Mexico State University, unpublished paper. Mecklenburger, J. A. (1990). Educational technology is not enough. Phi Delta Kappan 72: 105–8. Neuman. W. R. (1995). The psychology of the new media. In C. M. Firestone, ed. Television for the 21st century: The next wave . Rockville, Md.: Aspen. Reprinted Neuman, W. R. (1995). The psychology of the new media. Educom Review 30: 48–54. Page 69

Pawloski, B. (1994). How I found out about the Internet. Educational Leadership 51: 69–73. Rivera, J. C., Singh, S. K.,sand McAlister, K. (1994). MOSAIC: An educator's best friend. T. H. E. Journal 22: 91–94. Sattler, M. (1995). Internet TV with CU-SeeMe . Indianapolis, Ind.: Sams.net. Semrau, P., and Boyer, B. A. (1994). Using interactive video in education . Boston: Allyn and Bacon.

Stearns, P. H. (1993, October). History comes alive. Electronic Learning: 8–10. Vockell, E. L., and Brown, W. (1992). The computer in the social studies curriculum . Watsonville, Calif.: Mitchell McGraw-Hill. Watson, B. (1990). The wired classroom: American education goes online. Phi Delta Kappan 72: 109–12. Page 71

4 Technology and the Darkside Hate Online MILTON KLEG As telecommunications technology thrusts people toward the twenty-first century with the excitement and anticipation of finding novel approaches to enhance learning, that same technology is being utilized by those on the darkside. The information highway can and is being used as the medium for those who embrace racial and ethnic separatism and hatred (Kleg 1993a, 185). Purveyors of racial ethnic hate rely on various forms of communication to achieve two basic sets of goals. One set of goals is designed to spread the word, enlighten the general public, influence opinions and beliefs, and recruit new adherents. Another set of goals is to aggravate, intimidate, denigrate, and express hostility toward targeted individuals, groups, and institutions. The means for disseminating hate literature and messages include the use of traditional forms of communication as well as those that employ telecommunications.

Conventional Dissemination of Hate Communication Conventional or traditional forms of hate communication include graffiti, fliers, letters, and symbols (e.g., cross burnings). Among these, the sending of hate messages by mail affords the greatest anonymity for the purveyor of hate literature. In the fall of 1990, as many as seventy universities throughout the United States received anti-Semitic letters by a group or individual using the name, Mosby's Rangers. The mission identified by this letter was "to attack and weaken the Jewish community's stranglehold on American Higher Education . . ." (Mosby, personal communication, October 7, 1990; see also Baird 1990) In the fall of 1994, hate flyers targeting Mexicans in the United States appeared in high schools and on university campuses throughout the country.

Page 72 In the San Diego area alone, an anti-Mexican hate flier was posted on, or slipped into, all of the student lockers in three high schools and two middle schools. This flier contained a cartoon of a malodorous Mexican and a poem that began: "Spic, spic, Brown and Slick," and ended with "A Trashy Race, A Tacky Culture, Save what you can, From this BeanEating Vulture" (Anonymous, personal communication, November 7, 1994). In Denver, Colorado, another flier was distributed on the Auraria Campus, which includes Metropolitan State College, the University of Colorado at Denver, and the Community College of Denver. This flier referred to Mexicans as "rodents'' and "smelly, dirty, little rats," who should be returned to Mexico in body bags (Anonymous, personal communication, December 13, 1994)

The Southern Poverty Law Center's Klanwatch division periodically reports incidents of the distribution of hate literature referred to as "Leaf letting." From January 1994 to October 1994, Klanwatch reported forty-three incidents of leafletting in Alabama, Arizona, California, Connecticut, Florida, Idaho, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Minnesota, Mississippi, Montana, New York, New Jersey, Ohio, Oregon, Tennessee, Texas, and Washington (Klanwatch 1994, October; Klanwatch 1994, June). The reports of leafletting do not include acts of vandalism (e.g., graffiti), private notices, or threats, which are classified under separate categories.

Telecommunications and Hate Messages The telephone, used either alone or in conjunction with other electronic devices, is a basic telecommunications provider. Used alone, the telephone offers a quick, Anonymous, and relatively safe means of striking at a target. With the use of an answering machine, some supremacist groups, such as White Aryan Resistance (W.A.R.), have established phone message lines for those interested in hearing hate messages or learning how to order hate literature. A message provided for school children by Tom Metzger of W.A.R., for example, suggests white students leave hate messages on the floor as they move from one class to another. In recent years, various hate groups and individuals have effectively used facsimile machines to achieve their missions. In 1993, a fax was sent to various shopping malls in the Denver area. The fax threatened to assassinate, of all persons, store Santa Clauses. While the perpetrator could not be sufficiently identified, it was suspected that the message was sent by a neo-Nazi employed as a security guard at one of the malls. As a result, a number of stores and malls canceled Santa stations or erected protective enclosures. The fax machine appears to be instrumental in communication among those associated with the white supremacist movement. A fax network of militant "Christian patriots" was uncovered during the murder investigation of an Alabama police officer. According to Klanwatch (1993), this network in-

Page 73 cluded "conspiracy junkies, revolutionary types, militant tax protesters, and white supremacists" (2). Combined with the telephone, the computer is fast becoming the most widely used means of communicating bigotry. Private bulletin boards and public newsreader groups (actually a misnomer for discussion groups) furnish a conduit through which the purveyors of hate can convey their concerns and beliefs. These hate bulletin boards and messages of bigotry constitute a sphere of telecommunications that we may refer to as the darkside. The darkside of the Internet consists of public access newsreader groups by such names as alt.skinheads, alt.revisionism, alt.politics.nationalism.white, as well as others (see chapter 2) . On any given day, anywhere from 300 to more than 1,000 messages related to racism, discrimination, and scapegoating may appear on these boards. In addition to hate boards, the darkside also encompasses messages of hate, prejudice, and racism that can be found on other boards or discussion groups not specifically dedicated to such rhetoric. For example, discussion groups such as alt.discrimination, alt.politics.correct, and alt.religion.christian have included similar messages. Finally, there are groups that provide information of a nature related to hate and its consequences such as soc.culture.jewish.holocaust and soc.culture.mexican. These and similar groups often provide perspectives and information related to acts of bigotry and violence. Accessing these public discussion groups (newsreader groups) is relatively simple. First, one must have a computer with a modern with communication software connected to a telephone line or jack. Secondly, the individual must find a host that will connect to the Internet. A local university is probably the easiest way to obtain access to the Internet. Private companies, such as Prodigy and America Online, also offer a means of entry into the newsreader groups. Instructions on using the Internet and accessing news reader groups are made available by the host agency. From this

point, it merely is a matter of selecting the desired discussion (newsreader) groups from an extensive list provided. Private bulletin boards such as Cyberspace Minutemen, Spotlight, CPU, Aryan Resistance Center, Stormfront, and White Resurgence do not require any special host. They are often set up by a private group or individual and may require a subscription fee for accessing some of the topics on their menu. Outfitted with a computer, modem, and phone line, an individual requires only the telephone number of a given board. Some of these numbers can be obtained from messages in the public newsreaders. The darkside has created concern among organizations such as the Simon Wisenthal Center. In July 1994, Abraham Cooper, dean of the Simon Wisenthal Center, requested that the FCC investigate the violence and hate espoused and encouraged by those using this form of telecommunications. Cooper asked if the time had come for the FCC to "place a cop on the Superhighway

Page 74 of Information" (Chesoff August 8, 1994, 52). In spite of these concerns, the fact is that freedom of expression for both opponents and proponents of ethnic and racial hatreds is protected by the First Amendment. There is little likelihood that hate mongering will be eliminated from the "Superhighway." For those of us concerned with teaching the problem of bigotry in our society, the question arises as to how the darkside should be addressed in an educational setting. To answer this question, it seems pertinent that we learn about those who use the darkside and the content of their messages.

Hate Groups Defining Hate Groups The term, hate group, is a somewhat foggy concept by virtue of the fact that many institutions and organizations have at one time or another been involved in conveying contempt for opposing groups and their individual members. This has included political factions, governments, activist groups, and religions. Most, if not all, ethnic groups have maintained some degree of ethnocentrism at one time or another throughout their history. In our treatment of hate groups, any of the following definitions may be regarded as acceptable. However, one should not generalize the beliefs of some members of a group to the entire group. The fact that some' individuals may espouse hate or bigotry is not sufficient cause to categorize the group as a hate group. In 1994, the Center for the Study of Ethnic and Racial Violence published five definitions of a hate group. All of these were in general agreement, as can be noted by the three presented here. One definition stipulates a hate group as "an association, formal or informal, that expresses systematic, prejudiced, and bigoted hostility toward people of a different race, religion, or nationality, denigrating their status, culture, and achievements, and which attempts to persuade or recruit others to share in their enmity" (Rice 1994, 64). Angela Lowry (1994) of Klanwatch defines a hate group as "any organization whose purposes include promoting animosity, hostility, and malice against people belonging to groups that differ from the organization . . ." (64). A third definition states that a hate group consists of "members who are consciously bound together by a common extreme and pervading aversion for selected individuals or groups, and who initiate and support acts of hostility, intimidation, or violence toward them" (Martorella 1994, 64). Not all contributors to the field of social studies education have agreed with these definitions. There have been those who have intimated that racism or racial hatreds exist solely among "Whites," (Gay 1973, 30). More recently, this train of thought was reflected in Janzen's (1994) "Five Paradigms of Ethnic Relations," published in Social Education . Even though we shall be dealing in this chapter with white supremacist groups that currently dominate the Internet high-

Page 75 way, it is absurd to suggest that racial and ethnic enmity and notions of supremacy are limited to "whites" (see AlMansour 1993, 47, 60–61; Muhammad 1993; Matthews 1991; Kleg, 1993a).

White Supremacist Groups Most white supremacist organizations and movements fall within one of five categories: Christian Identity, Ku Klux Klan, Nazis, Posse Comitatus, and Skinheads. In addition to these groups there are the historical revisionists who deny that the Holocaust took place. This revisionism is shared by various haters and hate groups. In this chapter, we shall examine those groups whose views have been most conspicuous on the telecommunications highway. These are the Christian Identity Church movement, Nazis, and Skinheads. Some mention also will be made of the revisionists whose newsreader group is one of the most active. Space does not permit the extensive treatment required for this latter topic.

Christian Identity Church Today, Christian Identity Churches may be found throughout the United States, with their most recent growth in the Northeast. The Christian Identity movement combines religion and racism. In some cases, an Identity Church will endorse Nazi thought. One of the most widely known churches within the Identity movement is the Church of Jesus Christ Christian Aryan Nations (CJCCAN), led by Reverend Richard Girnt Butler. The basic tenets of the Aryan Nations are not much different from other Identity Churches. These beliefs, both religious and political, consist of the following:

1. White Europeans are the true descendants of Adam and Eve and, therefore, the true Israelites of the Bible. 2. Those people who call themselves Jews are the offspring of Eve and the Devil when the latter raped Eve in the Garden of Eden. Therefore, they are the seed of Satan. 3. Blacks and other non-whites were created before Adam and Eve. They are akin to the beasts in the Bible. These people, including Jews, are referred to as the "mud races." 4. Race-mixing is an abomination and can only result in the pollution and degradation of the white race. 5. The United States is controlled by ZOG (Zionist Occupation Government), and the entertainment industry (Hollywood), the news media, Federal Reserve System, Internal Revenue System, banks, and other such institutions and agencies are controlled by a Jewish international cartel. (Kleg and Martorella 1994, 15–16) Page 76 These five points have found acceptance among some Klan groups, neo-Nazis, Posse Comitatus, Skinheads, and other white supremacists. However, there are groups that are, strictly speaking, Nazi-Odinist and reject the religious aspects of the Identity Church movement beliefs.

The message of Christian Identity continues to be broadcast over no fewer than ten radio stations, and, in recent years, it has found its way into computerized telecommunications. Their messages may be found in various newsreader groups. The following excerpts were taken from an Identity message posted in alt.discrimination, alt.revisionism, alt.religion.christian, alt.christnet.bible, alt.conspiracy, and alt.christnet.theology. The complete message was posted by one Rick Savage, who appears to be a supporter of Identity Church minister Pete Peters, who works out of LaPorte, Colorado. Savage often recommends that readers obtain publications by Peters. The following excerpts provide an indication of just what students can expect to glean from those espousing the Identity message online.

What is the Christian message of Israel's Identity in a nutshell? Why is it such a "minority" belief and so maligned by it's detractors? These are the core points of the Israel Identity message:

·

God has a New Covenant plan for physical (regenerate) Israel today.

·

The "Jews" today are not Israelites but are impostors and constitute (for the most part) true Christian Israel's greatest enemies.

·

The Celto-Saxon, Germanic and kindred (white) peoples are Israelites, the true descendants of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob/Israel.

·

The truth concerning the identity of modern-day Israel is not only important, but vital for the body of Christ, for true Israel, and for the rest of the world.

·

This understanding is neither "Anti-Semitic," "Racist," nor "White Supremacist"; but it is rather the correct teaching concerning Israel as found in the Scriptures.

·

It is important to know the Truth, because "the Truth shall make you free" (John 8:32).

Is the Israel Identity Christian message "racist" and "white supremacist?" What about 'non-white' races? Inferior? Superior? Equal? Every race was created by God (Col. 1:16) unique and different. God called His creation "good" (I Timothy 4:4). He established the order of "kind after kind." Every creature, beast and "race" of people were to reproduce after their own kind. Thus Christians should love and strive to keep each race in it's pure' form. . . . Man's belief in equality is a hatred of the unique traits of every "race" God created. Man hates what God called Page 77

good if he mixes the races through interracial marriage. . . . The Christian ("Identity") message is that of love for all races and a desire to preserve them as God created them. (R. Savage, personnel communication, October 4, 1994) Information provided on the darkside also may include advertisements. As a result of one such message, the Center for the Study of Ethnic and Racial Violence obtained six hours of videotapes covering the 1994 Aryan Nations Annual Conference. The production was of excellent quality and service in delivery was prompt. Ordering the tapes required very little effort. All one had to do was contact the person advertising the tapes by E-mail, find out the cost, send a money order, and wait approximately five days for delivery. Excerpts are used by Center personnel in workshops and presentations for teachers and students. The desired effect in using these tapes is to educate about hate groups. Used by advocates of racialist thought, the same tapes can be employed to instill enmity between groups. The tapes featured Skinhead and Nazi marriage ceremonies performed by Reverend Butler, the construction of crosses, a Cross Lighting ceremony, songs and hymns, music, a display of hate literature, and speeches. Most of the tapes included speeches by such noted supremacists as Butler, attorney Jesse Benjamin "J. B." Stoner, and Louis Ray Beam. Stoner, an avowed racist and anti-Semite, was convicted of conspiracy in the bombing of a black church in Alabama during the late fifties. Beam is a long-time Klan activist who targets blacks, Jews, and "foreigners." The messages provide excellent primary source material for those seeking information on white pride, racist thought, conspiracy theory, anti-Semitism, and anti-black racism.

Nazis and Skinheads Since the 1960s, Nazi groups have appeared in at least fifty cities across the United States (Klanwatch, February 1993). Information regarding a number of these groups, including advertisements for materials, postal addresses, and bulletin board addresses may appear on some of the various news reader groups mentioned above. Nazi organizations and movements tend to be primarily anti-Semitic and anti-black. Other non-white ethnics such as Japanese, Chinese, Native Americans, and Mexicans also are targeted as undesirable. Most Nazi groups are vehemently anti-homosexual, and some express disdain for Christianity, as in the cases of the Church of the Creator (COTC) and the White Aryan Resistance (W.A.R.). The founder of the White Aryan Resistance, Tom Metzger, continues to publish WAR, a hate tabloid. He also makes use of public access television by hosting the program Race and Reason, and maintains an information telephone

Page 78 hotline. Like other adult-led groups, W.A.R. focuses on appealing to young Skinheads, often regarded as the "street warriors" for the white race. The Skinhead movement is dominated by youths between the ages of fourteen and twenty-two. It is the Skinheads and Klan Squires that high school and middle school teachers are most likely to encounter from among organized white supremacists. Although some alleged Skinheads on the Internet will deny being racists, white pride and power, with slogans such as "Racial Purity is America's Security," is at the root of their cause. They also exhibit anti-Semitic and anti-homosexual attitudes. As a rule, these youths are prone toward violence and have committed crimes ranging from minor acts of vandalism to murder. Their code includes defending the white race against "mud races" (non-whites and Jews) and homosexuals. They oppose the use of drugs—a base habit among the "mud races." Beer, regarded as "Nordic ale," is another matter, and occasionally they will discuss its use in their telecommunications messages (Kleg 1993a, 209–11).

Once linked up to the newsreader groups menu, opening communication with Nazis and Skinheads is as simple as typing or selecting alt.Skinheads or alt.politics.nationalism.white. The range of messages is extensive, from minor comments and vulgarities to actual lessons in' the what, why, how, and who of National Socialism, Skinhead culture, and related topics. The following messages are examples of such items not readily available on library shelves or in bookstores. The first excerpt, about twenty pages in its printed, unedited form, was posted by Milton John Kleim, Jr. (personal communication, October 9, 1994) at St. Cloud State University. His message was entitled, "National Socialism Frequently Asked Questions (Updated)." His message begins with a catechism regarding National Socialism. Most of the twenty-six questions deal with the nature of National Socialism on a general plane. Other topics appear to deal with Kleim's own perspective of National Socialism or, more specifically, the American National Socialist Movement. Like some National Socialists, he is inclined to combine elements of Identity Church with National Socialism. Questions and answers of a general nature deal with the meaning of National Socialism, Aryan, the Swastika, and the "Hitler salute." There also are questions that invite a strong defense of Nazi Germany and its Führer. National Socialism is viewed as the "most sound means of assuring the biological and cultural rejuvenation and progression of the White, or Aryan, Race." The historical roots of Aryan are described, and an Aryan is defined as "the proper designation of for the White Peoples of Europe and their descendants across the globe." According to Kleim, "National Socialists recognize individuals as biologically Aryan if they are wholly of non-Jewish, non-Asiatic Euro-

Page 79 pean ancestry. . . . In every Aryan, there is an instinctive drive to rise above mediocrity and decadence. . . ." A second set of questions found in this Nazi catechism reflects traditional Nazi beliefs combined with revisionism. The world is threatened by the "World Manipulators." The "World Manipulators" are described as "an international network of highly resourceful fanatics who believe it their rightful destiny to be Lord of the Earth. . . . Jews comprise a majority of the World Manipulators." ZOG (Zionist Occupation Government, that, according to white supremacists and other bigots, controls the U.S. government) is explained as an "entity under the hegemony of the World Manipulators." It is the role of ZOG to undermine the United States leading to its "capitulation as a sovereign Nation.'' A third set of questions and answers is probably the most significant. These questions and answers are not found among the street Nazis or Skins often represented in the media. They reflect a growing sophistication as these youths move on to college campuses or pursue other adult professions. During his trial in connection with the Skinhead murder of Mulugeta Seraw, Tom Metzger told of individuals who were embedded in the mainstream of society. Metzger remarked to the judge:

We're embedded now. Don't you understand? We're in your colleges, we're in your army, we're in your police forces. We're in your technical areas, we're in your banks. . . . Skinheads . . . grew their hair out, went to college. They're going. They've got the program. We planted the seeds. (Kleg 1993b, 25) The questions and answers provided by Kleim address feminism, the environment, gun control, education and health coverage, and human rights. Not surprisingly, these topics are cast within the framework of a Nazi ideology. Nazis support universal health coverage, education, and human rights. Human rights? Just what is the question and the answer regarding this topic?

Why don't you believe in human rights?

National Socialists believe that a People's right to choose how they live with whom they choose to live—the right of self-determination—is the most fundamental, inalienable human right. . . . National Socialism's foremost goal is the liberation of the Aryan Race from these genocidal policies, and implementation of alternatives which will assure its perpetual survival and continued positive evolution. Part of this goal is to liberate the mind and soul of Americans from the unjustified guilt complex instilled by the Establishment's schools and churches and perpetuated by the Jewishcontrolled media. . . . National Socialists believe in genuine human rights for all Peoples. The well-being of the Aryan Race is always our first concern, but as feasible, we support and aid other Nations and Races in their effort to build a Page 80 society conducive to their happiness and prosperity and appropriate for their unique character. As for the Holocaust and that fact that Americans fought against Nazi Germany, the answers are rather simple. First, there was no Holocaust. It is a simple fabrication spawned by the "World Manipulators" and their white, Christian lemmings. Secondly, Americans were misled by the Jew-controlled Roosevelt and Churchill into attacking Hitler, who sought to develop peace with the Americans and British. In reference to the question, "Why do you hate non-Whites?" the answer reflects a typical response found among the more moderate white supremacist groups (e.g., Knights of the Ku Klux Klan under Thom Robb). The message is that the group, in this case National Socialism, is based upon love for one's own group (Aryans) and not hatred. National Socialists "strive to avoid conflict with individuals from different racial or ethnic groups. . . . National Socialists support and often work with racialists of other Races, such as Black Muslims, who wish to see their People thrive and progress, too." While this message is not applicable to a number of Nazi groups, even Tom Metzger, whose racism is among the most repugnant, donated $100 to the Nation of Islam (Brothers in Bigotry, October 14, 1985). Traditionally, the Nation of Islam has been a black racist organization that has endorsed racial separatism, disdain for whites, and antiSemitism. Metzger's donation in no way indicated a change in W.A.R.'s vitriolic anti-black racism. While Kleim's explanation may deviate somewhat from the views of other Nazis, it provides a good example of the key points of modern National Socialism, and it illustrates an increased maturity among those white supremacists attending college. Unlike many others who post messages, Kleim uses his own name and E-mail address. This affords students and teachers the opportunity to communicate directly with him. Nazis and other racists such as Kleim and Savage generally will be amenable to telecommunications interviews. Over a ten-week period from August to October 1994, a series of lessons by an Anonymous author was posted on the Skinhead newsreader group. In December, the same messages were posted on alt.politics.nationalism.white. Each lesson began:

"YGGDRASILL, 'The Germanic Tree of Life,' Presents this Week's Lesson in Securing the Survival of Western Civilization." Each week, YGGDRASILL discusses the forces and movements that bear on the fate of EuropeanAmericans as a people and as a culture. YGGDRASILL's students include many who are angry at the United States Government and at the

cost and disadvantages it imposes on European-Americans. The legal and economic burdens fall predominantly on the young Page 81 and politically weak; those seeking college admission, first time job seekers, and entrepreneurs starting up businesses. These weekly lessons are intended to illuminate those forces and patterns, so that the angry youth of our nation will understand that we have realistic opportunities to free ourselves. (Anonymous, personal communication, August 24, 1994) The lessons consist of three parts. First there is an introduction or anticipatory set designed to motivate and focus the reader on the general nature of the problem. This usually consists of a clear statement of the issue to be learned, with some additional commentary. Second, the author poses questions in a way similar to what Rothkopf (1975) identifies as a deductive technique in controlling mathemagenics. This is best illustrated in lessons that present lengthy essays. Third, the lessons consist of articles or excerpts from various journals and newspapers that address the weekly issue. From a pedagogical perspective, the lessons tend to be what Hunt and Metcalf (1955, 53–55) called the method of rationalization—an unbalanced presentation of facts or opinions that support the goals or beliefs of the teacher, or in this case, "Yggdrasill." An edited sample of one such lesson follows. While the following extract presents only two examples of cases of ethnic violence around the world, it should be noted that no fewer than ninety were presented in the lesson. There is no doubt that "Yggdrasill" is no shrinking violet when it comes to preparing lessons.

In last week's lesson, we reviewed an article written by an Economist from Harvard University arguing that when diverse ethnic or racial groups fall under a power of a single government, they tend to use the political process as a means of extracting advantages for their own group at the expense of others. To avoid conflict, it sometimes makes sense to split nations into smaller, more racially homogenous states. . . . The reading for this week consists of examples of racial strife from around the world collected from the pages of the Wall Street Journal and the Los Angeles Times. . . . As you review these examples you may wish to consider the following questions: . . . 3. Is it a bit hypocritical to criticize "white racism" in America when there are so many examples throughout the world? 4. Is "white racism" stronger or milder than the versions practiced in other parts of the world? Page 82 5. Could the combination of intense criticism of "white racism" plus the extensive legal privileges or "quotas" for "non-whites" amount to a program of anti-white racial aggression? 6. Is it always true that majorities dominate minorities? Jan 12, 1993 WSJ A-1

Thousands of Muslims jammed a railway station in Bombay waiting to flee the city, where six days of Hindu-Muslim riots have killed at least 137 people. Police said 15 areas have been placed under curfew, and about 2,800 people have been arrested amid widespread looting and arson. . . . April 2, 1993 WSJ A1 Two white South Africans were set afire and killed in a black township near Cape Town and a third was in serious condition after part of his tongue was cut off, police said. . . . Aside from lengthy, well-constructed messages, there are brief exchanges dealing with a variety of issues. In the Skinhead newsreader group, one will find topics related to Skinhead "culture" and current events: the bootlace colors used on Doc Marten boots, Skrewdriver and Ska music, race and intelligence, rock concerts, movies, race mixing, Jewish control of the economy, SHARPs, etc. Furthermore, there is no dearth of profanity. Even an innocent attempt to learn about Skinheads met with a tasteless yet informative response in the case of the Blue Eyed Devil. It appears that a user visiting the darkside sought to learn some of the demographics regarding Skinheads. He posted his request and included a number of questions. Within a short time Blue Eyed Devil at the University of Texas at Dallas responded to the message with: "Not that I give a fuck about you or what you want to know, I just feel like enlightening . . ." (personal communication, September, 12 1994). Blue Eyed Devil proceeded to answer the questions regarding himself. These included his age, gender, socio-economic background, and education. Referring to the latter, he noted that "I'm in my second year of a fun scholarship based on academic success, not financial aid." He then described his family of orientation as single child who was not abused but "disciplined." As for believing in racial segregation, Devil explained that he supported it,

because I see it as a means to further the interests unique to each given ethnic group. . . . The different groups are at odds for a limited amount of financial and social resources. Segregation into individual units allows for the resources of a given group to be put to use solely for the advantage of that group. Somewhat Darwinian in nature. Page 83 Signing off, the Blue Eyed Devil entered his final sentence: "You can still stick your chocolate froggie up your ass."

Rebuttals and Criticism Although there is concern that the influence of hate messages is reaching out from the darkside, one can find constant rebuttals and criticism from those who oppose the hate mongering. In fact, anti-bigots may constitute as much as 75 percent of the messages appearing on a given day in the revisionism group, and as much as 40 percent in the Skinhead group. For example, one message in alt. Skinhead attempted to discredit The Diary of Anne Frank as a fraud perpetrated by her father (Anonymous, personal communication, October 19, 1994). It immediately drew rebuttals. That the message entitled, "Annie [sic ] Frank Hoax!!!" was poorly written was not discounted by its critics. With horrid grammar and syntax, the sender charged that Anne was a "big lie that Ottis [sic ] Frank every [sic ] wrote." The sender claimed that Frank's diary was written with a ballpoint pen, but that there were no such pens at the time of World War II. Furthermore, it was claimed that "Ottis [sic ] Frank" was successfully sued for $50,000. The accuser added that Anne's father continued to make a profit, since the book is used in American schools as required reading. The conclusion of this denial message was: "The Jews want us to feel sorry for them so they can screw non-Jews behind the back. America must wake up to this hoax and stop believing in pseudo-history"

(Anonymous, personal communication, October 19, 1994). The next day, a respondent from Brown University (Anonymous, personal communication, October 20, 1994) sent the following message:

It's Otto Frank, shithead. Where did you learn English anyway, you retard? Watch out before Milton Kleim catches you, he said he wants to kill the mentally retarded and insane. . . . In 1981, the Netherlands State Institute for War Documentation submitted Anne Frank's handwritten diaries to the Dutch State Forensic Science Laboratory of the Ministry of Justice to determine their authenticity. The State Forensic Science Laboratory examined the materials used—the ink, paper, glue, etc.—and the handwriting and issued a report of some 270 pages. "The report of the State Forensic Science Laboratory has convincingly demonstrated that both versions of the diary of Anne Frank were written by her in the years 1942 to 1944. The allegations that the diary was the work of someone else (after the war or otherwise) are thus conclusively refuted." Furthermore, that "despite corrections and omissions . . . The Diary of Anne Frank [i.e., the published version of the diaries] does indeed contain 'the essence' of Anne's writings, and that there are no grounds on which the term 'forgery' can be applied to the work of the editors or publishers of the book." Page 84 1. Anne Frank, The Diary of Anne Frank: The Critical Edition, Prepared by the Netherlands State Institute for War Documentation, edited by David Barnouw and Gerrold Van Der Stroom, (New York, Doubleday 1989), p. 166. The newsreader group, alt.revisionism, is concerned with denying the Holocaust. Some of the same individuals who post messages on alt.Skinhead and alt.politics.nationalism.white also engage in commentary on this board. There is little doubt that revisionists' writings are a manifestation of anti-Semitism and to a lesser extent racialism. Nevertheless, this newsreader group also has contributors who provide strong rebuttals to Holocaust deniers. Ken McVay constantly exposes falsehoods of historical revisionists regarding the Holocaust. His work often consists of compiling information from renowned scholars in the field. On November 15, 1994, McVay posted a message entitled "Lest We Forget." He announced that he had compiled a Holocaust bibliography. This consisted of "well over" 2,500 references that can be downloaded by students, teachers, and researchers. Some of McVay's postings include detailed accounts of the Holocaust with impeccable citations. Other critics of anti-Semitic revisionists often post documentary evidence related to the genocide. Concerned more with documentation of events of the Holocaust and less with debating revisionists, teachers and students will have no problem finding excellent source material in this newsreader group. All of this no doubt will require the guidance of a teacher to assist students in analyzing the material. Incidentally, for those teachers and students who are engaged in the study of the Holocaust, an excellent source is the soc.culture.jewish.holocaust newsreader group. This brief trip through the darkside is merely the tip of the iceberg of what can be found in the area of hate, prejudice, and racism on the Internet. The questions that educators might consider are how telecommunications can provide an educational means to understanding ethnic and racial bigotry in America, and how this can be accomplished in a responsible manner.

Utilizing the Darkside The role of telecommunications in education will continue to grow, and the Internet will no doubt be a major source of information and communication for students and teachers. Each day more youths enter the telecommunications

network, and there is little doubt that they will find the various bulletin boards and newsreader groups that contain hate messages and rebuttals. The telecommunications highway provides students and teachers with the opportunity to question and respond to various positions presented in the discussion groups. However, accessing these groups and other bulletin boards is not a substitute for consulting library references and texts. Rather, these telecom-

Page 85 munication's sources should be viewed as an enhancement to inquiry, reflection, and learning. In some cases, information obtained via telecommunications may be unavailable in libraries. In other cases, such information may require validation through the use of other library references. What is more, the use of telecommunications permits such activities as interviewing, surveying, and poll taking to a limited extent. The advent of telecommunications has given us a valuable source for learning, even on the darkside. Finally, one should not be surprised to find scholarly articles by authors who wish to share their research, as in the case of R. J. Rummel, Professor of Political Science, University of Hawaii at Manoa, and President, Haiku Institute of Peace Research. Rummel posted a paper he had written entitled "The Holocaust in Comparative and Historical Perspective" on soc.culture.jewish.holocaust, "Because of the general interest in genocide and mass murder I have prepared an ASCII version and am disseminating it on the internet" (R. J. Rummel, personal communication, January 18, 1995). As noted earlier in the case of obtaining tapes of the Aryan Nations' conference, hate material can be used in a positive or negative manner. Used as a means for investigating the nature of hate and hate groups, it gives students an opportunity to critically examine such material and check out its validity with other sources. While we cannot guarantee that students will not be negatively influenced by exposure to hate material in a classroom setting, the probability should be far less than when students are left to themselves to explore the darkside. But this requires a sound instruction that takes into account the social and psychological dynamics of dealing with attitudes and communication. In the following section, we shall consider some principles to be used within such a structure.

Suggestions for Utilizing the Darkside Once the decision is made to introduce students to the darkside of ethnic and racial bigotry, there are some basic principles that require consideration. These include: 1) assumptions regarding attitudes and beliefs, 2) monitoring what is on line, 3) listening and communication skills, 4) integrating resources, and 5) teacher's repertoire of information and knowledge. First, the teacher should not assume that students are immune to bigoted attitudes. When students access hate literature, it can not be assumed that they will reject the messages as obvious examples of bigotry. Selznick and Steinberg (1969) noted that most people are opposed to prejudiced beliefs, but they also believe that their own prejudices and biases are accurate descriptions of reality and "do not see themselves as prejudiced" (xvii). The second principle, that of monitoring, calls upon the teacher to know what is online. During instruction that includes the use of the darkside, it is important to monitor what currently is available on the Internet.

Page 86 The darkside consists of hate and anti-hate communications. The latter is often a reaction to the hatemongering of the former. In 1995, a bulletin board on the World Wide Web called Net Hate (http: //www.vir.com/Shalom/hatred.html) provides links to both hate and anti-hate boards. After the teacher or student accesses Net Hate, he or she merely moves down the list of other boards. When a board is highlighted, merely providing a return command will move the user to that particular board. In turn, the second board may include links to still other boards. Returning to previous boards is

accomplished by following the instructions given on the screen. Net Hate provides links for such hate boards as: Cyberhate, Greg Raven's home page (Holocaust denial) , Resistance Records (White supremacist music especially popular with Skinheads), Milton Kliem's National Socialism, Rick Savage's Scriptures for America, and others. Links provided to non-racist or anti-hate broads include among others: Jamie's Holocaust Links, Ken McVay's anti-revisionist works, Germany Watch, and A Practical Guide to Defeating the Radical Right. In addition, Net Hate provides dial-in Board Systems such as Stormfront (pro-white, Nazi oriented), Cyberspace Minutemen, and Euro-Canadian Alliance. In Toronto, Ontario, the Canadian Patriots Network (C.P.N.) offers files from various hate groups. This board also includes games, music, and daily news from the Aryan News Service (ANS) This hate board must be accessed by through one of two independent phone numbers: (416) 462-3327 and (416) 465-4767. As of August 1995, the board claimed that it had 280 users and had received over 4,000 calls. The April 1995 domestic terrorist attack against the federal building in Oklahoma City spawned an interest in militia groups. These groups vary in their composition but many include white supremacists. Militia boards and newsreader groups also can be found on the internet. In addition, it should be stressed that new boards are constantly being created. Therefore, searching the web should be done periodically, at least once a month. Some suggested descriptors are: racism, hate, hate crimes, bigotry, anti-Semitism, militia, terrorism, white nationalism, white power, nazi(s), crime, patriot, multicultural, conspiracy, aryan, Ku Klux Klan, Skinhead, and names of various ethnic, racial, or religious groups. Monitoring these boards and newsreader groups is an essential step for the teacher who is interested in exploring and exposing the darkside. The teacher should be able to respond appropriately to information gathered by the student. Indeed, it would expedite the instruction if the teacher reviewed the boards prior to assigning students to carry out their searches. In this case, the teacher can direct students to salient articles and provide examples of how to collect, download, analyze, and evaluate sources of information. Monitoring also provides the teacher with the opportunity to obtain supplemental information from other sources, such as newspapers, texts, and literary works, to be shared with the class.

Page 87 The third principle is concerned with the use of listening and communication skills. Listening and communications skills are major components in any instructional act. These are exceedingly important in dealing with a critical societal issue, especially race and ethnic relations. Among such skills to be considered are paraphrasing ideas expressed, checking impressions, making clear statements, and feedback. Paraphrasing is the process in which the receiver of a message (e.g., teacher) uses her/his own words to restate what another (e.g., student) has said. According to Schmuck and Schmuck (1992), "The function of paraphrasing in the classroom is twofold: to check to see that the student understood the communication, and to communicate to the student that he or she has been understood" (258). Checking impressions is an attempt to determine the affective state of the sender (Schmuck and Schmuck 1992). For example, a teacher might ask: "From what you stated about Japanese, I get the feeling that you don't regard these people as trustworthy. Is that correct?" By checking impressions, the teacher can determine if information covered in the lesson needs clarification or if additional information is needed to explain a given topic or sub-topic. Other essential skills include active listening, describing feelings, and feedback. These and other related skills should be seriously considered when dealing with the topic of racial and ethnic relations. Such works as those by Schmuck and Schmuck's (1992) Group Processes in the Classroom and DeVito's (1988) Human Communication: The Basic Course can provide teachers with basic, yet essential, communication principles and illustrations on this topic. The fourth principle calls for the integration of information. Travelling through the darkside can only be of positive educational value if instruction includes an integrated framework—that is, employing a variety of sources of information. This encompasses the use of books, news articles, films, and resources persons, and other sources of information in addition to what is available online.

Fifth, teachers should acquire a reasonably strong knowledge base regarding intergroup relations and the nature of prejudice. This includes an understanding of basic concepts such as prejudice, ethnocentrism, discrimination, scapegoating, stereotyping, xenophobia, attitude, race, racism, and ethnos (ethné or ethnic group). In addition, the teacher will find it beneficial to have a knowledge of racist ideologies and of the history of intergroup relations in America. S. Dale McLemore's (1991) Racial and Ethnic Relations in America and Kleg's (1993a) Hate Prejudice and Racism provide a good beginning regarding the acquisition of this knowledge. Lack of information can have serious consequences. For example, in discussing Jews and white nationalism, Rick Savage (personal communication, 1994, November 16) refers to Judaism as white nationalism's "most vicious enemy." He continues by quoting George Washington as saying that "The Jews work more effectively against us than the enemy's army. They are a hundred

Page 88 times more dangerous to our liberties . . ." According to Savage, the quote can be found in Maxims of George Washington . While Washington did make a similar remark, he did not mention Jews, nor was he referring to them (George and Wilcox 1992). If a teacher did not know that this information was false, it might seem otherwise. The same can be said of the fabrication, also used by Savage and other racists, attributed to Benjamin Franklin. This falsehood claims that Franklin referred to Jews as a "great danger." Again, the George and Wilcox work provides an appendix of fake quotes and fabricated documents. Finally, it is not uncommon for dealers in hate to cite the works and statements of members of the group they target. One can usually find some self-hating member of a group, especially among minorities, to cite. These are the pitfalls of entering the darkside regardless of where it occurs, in books or in cyberspace. A teacher cannot be expected to have all the knowledge regarding every topic covered in hate messages, but the teacher should be aware of the necessity to check out suspect information and alleged facts.

Conclusions This chapter introduced racial and ethnic violence and hatred as being a part of the American landscape. The advent of telecommunications has produced a means by which the dissemination of this hatred can be broadened and intensified. But it has also given us the means by which we can face history and ourselves, to begin educating young people about racial and ethnic contempt, and to seek to ameliorate intergroup relations. Improving intergroup relations will not be done by imparting symbolic multiculturalism. It is a jaundiced notion that "celebrating diversity" is all that is needed to improve intergroup relations. While teaching about diverse cultures is an integral part of the Social Studies, it certainly is not novel. Teachers have been instructing their students about other cultures for generations. But this instruction often fails to address the intercultural sources of conflict and their resolution. Learning about interethnic hostility, from expressions of bigotry to acts of violence, and learning to resolve intercultural sources of conflict are benefits that visiting the darkside as part of a well-planned instructional unit may offer.

References Al-Mansour, K. A. T. (1993). Betrayal by any other name . San Francisco: The First African Arabian Press.

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Brothers of bigotry (1985, October 14). Time , 41. Chesoff, R. (1994, August 8). Hatemongering on the data highway. U.S. News & World Report , 52. DeVito, J. A. (1988). Human Communication: The Basic Course (4th ed.). New York: Harper & Row. Gay, G. (1973). Racism in America: Imperatives for teaching ethnic studies. In J. A. Banks, ed. Teaching ethnic studies: concepts and strategies (27–47). Washington, D.C.: National Council for the Social Studies. George, J., and Wilcox, L. (1992). Nazi, communists, klansmen, and others on the fringe . Buffalo: Prometheus Books. Hunt, M. P., and Metcalf, L. E. (1955). Teaching high school social studies: Problems in reflective thinking and social understanding . New York: Harper & Brothers Publishers. Janzen, P. (1994). Five paradigms of ethnic relations. Social Education 58(6): 349–53. Klanwatch Project. (1993, December). Patriot fax network links militant anti-government extremists nationwide. Klanwatch Intelligence Report , 1–4. Klanwatch Project. (1994, February). Active white supremacist groups in 1993. Klanwatch Intelligence Report , 15–16. Klanwatch Project. (1994, June). Leafletting. Klanwatch Intelligence Report , 12–13. Klanwatch Project. (1994, October). Leafletting. Klanwatch Intelligence Report , 14–15. Kleg, M. (1993a). Hate prejudice and racism . Albany: State University of New York Press. Kleg, M. (1993b). Fragmentation of Society: Racism and violence. CSERV Bulletin: Journal of the Center for the Study of Ethnic Violence 2(1): 22–26. Kleg, M. (1994). CSERV Bulletin: Journal of the Center for the Study of Ethnic and Racial Violence 3(1): 64.

Kleg, M., and Martorella, P. H. (1994). Hate group education: Confronting ethnoviolence. CSERV Bulletin: Journal of the Center for the Study of Ethnic and Racial Violence 3(1): 12–26. Lowry, A. (1994). Quoted in CSERV Bulletin: Journal of the Center for the Study of Ethnic and Racial Violence 3(1): 64. Martorella, P. H. (1994). Quoted in CSERV Bulletin: Journal of the Center for the Study of Ethnic and Racial Violence 3(1): 64. Matthews, M. (1991, February). Anti-semitic? Ridiculous-chill. NOMMO , 12. McLemore, S. D. (1991). Racial and ethnic relations in America . (3rd ed.). Boston: Allyn & Bacon. Muhammad, K. A. (Speaker). (1993, November 29). ''On the secret relationship between Blacks and Jews." Kean College, Kean, N.J. (Also quoted in CSERV Bulletin 3(1): 60–63.) Rice, M. J. (1994). Quoted in CSERV Bulletin: Journal of the Center for the Study of Ethnic and Racial Violence 3(1): 64. Rothkopf E. Z. (1975). Writing to teach and reading to learn. In N. L. Gage, ed. The Psychology of Teaching Methods: The Seventy-fifth Yearbook of the National Society for the Study of Education, Part I . (91–129). Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Schmuck, R. A., and Schmuck, P. A. (1992). Group processes in the classroom (6th ed.). Dubuque: Wm. C. Brown Publishers. Page 90

Selznick, G. J., and Steinberg, S. (1969). The tenacity of prejudice: Anti-Semitism in contemporary America . New York: Harper & Row. Suall, I., Halpern, T., Recanati, T., Shevitz, R., and Percell, J. (1990). Neo-Nazi Skinheads: A 1990 status report . New York: Anti-Defamation League of B'nai B'rith. Page 91

5

Information Technology and Civic Education RICHARD A. DIEM The United States is in the midst of a revolution as powerful as any movement in human history. This upheaval is being brought about by rapid changes in information and communication technologies. As the industrial revolution extended the physical energy and power of each person, the integrated circuit is now extending the mental energy and power of human kind. One of the byproducts of this upheaval has been the introduction of new forms of information technology within our nation's schools. The introduction of technology in educational venues is not a recent phenomenon. Indeed, technology has been hailed as a powerful agent for transforming schools at least since the heyday of radio (Means 1994). However, during the past fifteen years the marriage of microcomputer technology with educational environments has created new reason for hope among those who have looked to these new forms of communication as a means to improve the ways in which we educate ourselves. As part of this process, a multitude of different types of microtechnic technologies in the form of computers, laserdisc players, and CD-ROM, to name several of the most common, as well as innumerable software packages to drive them, have been sold to our school systems in an effort to better our educational systems. Despite the influx of microtechnic hardware and software in school settings, which now includes 5.8 million computers for use in instruction in schools in the United States (Office of Technology Assessment 1995), there is still a lack of understanding among professional educators, and the general public, of the social and cultural impact that technology has had on our educational institutions and on civic education in particular. As a result, efforts to integrate technology as part of overall civic education instructional processes have been largely unsuccessful. As Robert Snider (1992) points out, since the 1960s the difficulty in using technology as an integral part of instruction in

Page 92 public schools has proven to be almost insurmountable. During this time, both government and private agencies have tried mightily to improve instruction with various types of technologies in the classroom. The results have been spotty, the various iterations of computers have come and gone and there have been almost no changes in classroom practice. In its most recent report on computer use in public schools, the Office of Technology Assessment reports that despite technologies available in schools, a substantial number of teachers report little or no use of computers for instruction (Office of Technology Assessment 1995). If technology is to make a true difference within schools teachers need to understand how both hardware and software can alter both instruction and impact social systems in their classrooms. In an effort to introduce and discuss these ideas, this chapter has four basic objectives: a) to describe the information/communications/microtechnic revolution and its implications for schools and, in particular, for the civics classroom; b) to examine the ways that microtechnology might be used in teaching civics; c) to look at the instructional impacts of technology in preparing students for social and civic responsibility; and d) to examine educational scenarios that include the use of technology as part of a civics teacher's instructional schema. In addition, this chapter will provide an examination of some of the problems that arise from the use of technology. These include the social dilemmas that may occur through the use of technology, both in society and in schools, as well as the economic dislocations it may cause. The overall purpose of this chapter, then, is to present practicing teachers and students in training with alternative solutions for the decisions that they will have to make as educators in applying technology to instruction. In doing so, understanding that technology has the possibility to revolutionize instruction within our nation's schools, while at the same time recognizing that technology is only a tool in this struggle, will be constantly emphasized. To comprehend the

relationship between technology and civic education, we need only remember the intellectual struggle that Thoreau described in the nineteenth century, as the industrial revolution swept over the United States, as encapsulated in the following: We must learn how to behave so that we will not be the tools of our own tools.

The Information Revolution—The Schools/Civic Education and Change—A Synopsis Schools have not changed much in the last hundred years. We still have classrooms of some thirty students sitting in front of one teacher engaged in a mainly lockstep curriculum. We still have instructors controlling the rate and type of information pupils receive over a nine month time span. And, despite rhetoric to the contrary, we still have a reluctance to change these processes, as many,

Page 93 both in and outside the educational establishment, fear the process of change itself. Many schools, while spending vast amounts of time and money in trying to become part of new communication and information dyads, still use the same rudimentary forms of traditional technologies that they have used for more than a century as their primary focus of instruction. These implements, namely the book and chalkboard, can be traced back to the first time pictures were painted on cave walls. As James A. Mecklenburger (1990) notes, despite rhetoric to the contrary, the technologies in most of America's schools have not kept pace with the technologies used in the larger society. Indeed, in many instances today's schools are still reflective of their nineteenth-century technological roots rather than the near-twenty-first-century environment their students interact with on a daily basis outside the classroom. Using implements to record and store information requires that a process, or technology, to transfer thoughts, ideas, and words be developed so that others can understand and use them. Not only did devices to transmit these attributes have to be invented, but the methods of transmittal and style had to be planned. We still use variants of the first paint and brush strokes, albeit with different materials, to depict events and record information. So while the types of materials may have changed, the basic purpose of placing a technical device within an educational setting, that being to transmit, record, understand, and analyze information for the purpose of learning, has not. But the winds of change are blowing, and we now encounter a society and its schools different from those not only in nineteenth-century America, but, due to social and cultural shifts, altered from mid-twentieth-century America. With this notion in hand, let us look at what changes the information revolution has already brought civic educators and what new changes we might expect. These are changes in the schools where civic teachers work, changes in the curriculum that civic educators have to deliver, and changes in the role of the civics teacher.

Schools, Teachers, and the Information Society As the information revolution has encroached upon us, it has begun to bring about an upheaval in the ways we receive and analyze information. The Internet, television, movies, interactive media, and music bring more data to the average child on a daily basis than any educational institution could ever hope to deliver. As such, the school is no longer the primary agent for dispensing academic and social information to young people. The old triad of home, church, and school as the primary basis for educational and intellectual attainment has lost much of its influence. In peering toward the future, as our homes and offices become wired with fiber optics and downlink systems that integrate computers, televisions, and a vast and unknown variety of communications peripherals

Page 94 together, institutional acquisition of information will probably drop even further behind in dispensing knowledge, and

in doing so the place of schools in our society will again have shifted. Indeed, some, such as Nicholas Negroponte (1995), see future schools as nothing more than museums for displaying "how we used to learn." New forms of communication technologies have produced machines that are extremely effective tools for presenting information and data. The new telecommunications technologies can breach the walls of isolation that plague schools, and allow teachers and students to converse with others, outside the boundaries of the school (Office of Technology Assessment 1995). For example, civics teachers now have the ability to access ongoing events such as trials, governmental investigations, and wars on a global scale instantaneously with such tools as satellite downlinks and interactive television, and are only limited in their choice and scope by budget or training. As is the case with other instructional tools, using these forms of communication technologies can redirect the energy teachers and their students from the mundane tasks, such as collecting source materials, to the more exotic, such as analyzing newscasts in a foreign language and noting differences in the ways other cultures interpret news stories. The introduction of new forms of technocommunications also means that learning paradigms can now emphasize higher intellectual learning levels. Athand technology has the ability to combine interactive hardware with new forms of software that allow memorization of information and permit the evaluation of that process, formerly accomplished solely through student repetition, to be left to various modes of technological interaction. This now leaves the door open to free the teacher to work with students at higher intellectual levels of analysis, synthesis, and genuine judgment. What this all adds up to is the possibility of a genuine liberation of the teacher; a casting off, if you will, from a classroom focused on repetitive tasks of drill and practice routines and recitation of material to one in which intellectual and academic engagement that centers on discovery and inquiry becomes the norm. With the introduction of these new tools, teachers can now be freed to engage in genuinely interpersonal acts of instruction, and can begin to deal with their pupils individually.

Curricular Changes As with the reconstitution of the instructional environment, there are ongoing changes within the civics curriculum that relate to the world of information and communication technologies. These are exemplified in the new Social Studies Curriculum Standards developed by the National Council for the Social Studies (1994) that call for an examination of science, technology, and society as one of the ten themes that form the framework of citizenship education.

Page 95 Civitas (1992), which presents a framework for civic education, likewise points out the need to discuss science and technology issues as part of an overall citizenship education program. Civitas further notes the impact of technology on political campaigns, the scientific canvassing of attitudes, and the use of telecommunications as new means toward an old end—the election of one's candidate. Both of these documents reemphasize the notion that the civics curriculum is the logical place in the schools for an examination of the new society that is emerging as a result of the ongoing information revolution. The application of new forms of technology to the civic education curriculum can also fundamentally alter the way in which both the teacher and student interact within the classroom learning environment. Historically, schools, and especially civic educators, have emphasized to students and teachers the art of answering questions. Subject matter has been brought before students, they have been asked to learn it, and the determination of their mastery has been traditionally defined by how well they can answer questions about what they've, seemingly, learned. Now, with the ability to access a database, something anyone with a modem and telephone can do, instructors are entering a world where there is more data than any single teacher can dispense, more information than an individual textbook can cover, and more facts than any student might hope to memorize. In this new age students must be taught a new skill—asking the right question. High-achieving students will now be recognized as those who know how to find information for the questions that they have. These pupils will have to know

how to use information systems such as the Internet or America Online. Not only will this be important for scholastic reasons, but for employment and economic opportunities as well. Job vacancies and applications are already being posted online. Investments and currency transfers through computers are now a part of all financial dealings. Students will now have to learn to ask the proper questions rather than merely perform by answering questions, if they are to succeed in an era based on instantaneous communication.

Teacher Changes As the newly directed civics curriculum evolves, so will the traditional roles of the teacher. These have historically centered on three types of jobs. One of them has been the organizer of information, the second has been the presenter of information, and the third the evaluator of information. In the first role, as organizer, the teacher is a scholar; in the second, as a presenter, the teacher is dispensing and facilitating information flow; in the third role, as evaluator, the teacher is a measurement expert. With different origins of information available to students through new forms of technology, the first role of the teacher will have to be accented. Currently, a great deal of the organizational function of teaching has been provided

Page 96 by curriculum specialists and writers through teacher's editions of textbooks and various types of prepackaged lesson and unit plans. As new data sources that are available to teachers continue to expand, the ability to organize greater masses of information becomes a key component in successful instruction. This will be the challenge of teaching over the next decade—to organize the vast amounts of information available to students so that they can make sense out of it. For example, a high school government teacher can now download data relating to both presidential and congressional elections through the United States Census Bureau, as well as obtain pre-election voter preference and attitude surveys from various poll and news organizations for classroom use. The teacher's challenge is still the same as before, explaining to students how to collect, use, and analyze the data gathered from these sources, but is now intensified by a plenitude of information. How can this happen? Most good teachers are quite familiar with the pedagogical tactic that involves developing a balance between teaching material that is substantive, such as the different ways governments can be organized, and that which is illustrative, such as examing a specific constitutional framework. There is a high art to the process of finding the example that is just right, the example that illuminates the abstraction. It is at this point that a computer, for example, can be used to gather and sort a variety of governmental structures from a variety of databases on a global scale. Here, the use of the computer exemplifies one of the qualities of the communications revolution, namely information management. When the students learn how a computer and a relatively inexpensive software package, simply and elegantly, can change a mass of chaotic information such as voting patterns into an integrated data system, new scholarly insights can be opened to them. By using the hardware and software, the substantive idea of information management becomes real. There is enough classroom experience to hazard the hypothesis that working with the computer and other new communications devices does improve the skill of organizing information. Something happens to the students' insights into the structures of knowledge through exploring ideas while they are manipulating data while solving a series of problems. The ability to understand how to use information as a tool and facilitate its use is a recurring skill that will have to be part of a social studies teacher's pedagogical repertoire as the information highway makes its way through their classroom. While there is much more to the teaching of civics and social studies than developing information management skills, this is of extreme importance within a subject that bases so many of its conceptual underpinnings on understanding various types of information and data. Hence, this "new" skill takes on great importance.

In short, for the communications revolution to succeed, evidence of an information technology environment must be apparent to both teacher and stu-

Page 97 dent. This must come not only in terms of hardware and software but in attitude and mindset. But will, as some critics ask, the United States, with its love affair with technology, become a "technopoly," a system in which "technology of every kind is cheerfully granted sovereignty over social institutions and national life, and becomes self-justifying, selfperpetuating, and omnipresent" (Postman 1992)? As with any cultural variant, the introduction of massive new, and complex, information and technological systems has also brought criticism as to their possible effects on our society and its institutions. One of the most vocal critics has been Neil Postman. In his classic work, Technopoly, Postman discusses the intrusion of technology into our cultural, political, and esthetic traditions. He paints a bleak picture as he points out how technology has "tyrannized" almost every segment of our lives from medicine to politics. Perhaps his greatest objection to the rise of a technopoly is that he sees within it the perversion of freedom and the undermining of individuality. He cautions against the notion that we have come to rely on the use of what he calls "learning technologies" to improve our educational system. He warns that unless we, as a society, truly understand the purpose of education we will fall back on technopoly's answer, that being that it is merely a vocational function—nothing more, nothing less. Certainly this argument has a great deal of merit. Over the past twenty years millions of dollars have been spent on a variety of technologically oriented training systems whose major purpose has been to improve student performance—a vocational function. It is only lately that educators have recognized that while the tools of instruction may change, the problems of learning, ingesting, and applying information remain the same as they have been since schools began. Technology is not an educational panacea; it is only a tool to help solve a broadbased problem. The civics classroom offers a laboratory to counter Postman's fears. Where else can one learn the possibilities of increasing democratic participation through the use of interactive technologies? Where else can one see and use the latetwentieth-century form of town meeting—the Internet—to discuss and debate current political and social issues not only in one's own community but throughout the world? Where else is there to learn about the dangers of technological intrusion in one's life? Further, the civics classroom is one of the perfect settings where the use of technology in terms of human values can be discussed and debated. While other segments of the curriculum share this responsibility, the civics classes that all elementary and secondary students are required to take must include technological issues as part of their instructional dialogues. But do they? Are these ideals merely "add-ons" that are left for the end of a lesson? How can they form the central focus of instruction? In order to examine these issues we will next look at the types of teaching strategies, software, and instructional

Page 98 applications that are available for social studies and civics instructors who want to incorporate technology within their classrooms.

Current Use of Technology—Style and Format All of the learning strategies introduced over the past quarter-century that incorporate technology within classroom settings have their roots in computer assisted instruction (CAI) formats. These types of instructional encounters seek to use the computer and its various components as the central focus within the teaching-learning process. Their overarching goals are to make learning interactions easier to maintain, administer, and follow, as the technology generates ongoing records of scholastic progress. There are five basic instructional strategies that lend themselves to

CAI. Each has been used and continues to be at the heart of most technological applications within social studies and civics lessons. These are:

Drill and Practice The drill and practice teaching strategy usually consists of a rule, an example, and a question. Responses to the questions help indicate sources of error. The learning sequence in these programs consist of question—response—feedback. Most drill and practice programs provide feedback only in the form of correctness of response. This type of teaching strategy is most helpful if your objective is to help learners gather information and factual material. For example, if a government teacher wanted his students to remember how a bill becomes a law within the legislative process, a drill and practice program that introduced and reinforced these concepts might be appropriate. As Nicholas Negroponte (1995) points out, in the 1960s this approach was advocated as a means to teach using computers on a one-on-one basis in a self-paced manner to teach facts more effectively. It didn't work then and has little use today.

Tutorial The tutorial teaching strategy combines the simplicity of the drill and practice sequence with an interactive diagnostic sequence. This instructional design is a bit more complex and can offer the learner immediate access to advanced work, as well as providing a chance to relearn material that might have been overlooked or forgotten. In these programs, the computer-based technology acts not only as a purveyor of information but also as a tutor in preparing the student for learning activities. Using our legislative process example from above, a tutorial program that is presenting information on the way a bill becomes a law lets those students who did not understand concepts related to this lesson relearn them at their own pace. This usually occurs with the aid of a subpro-

Page 99 gram that provides additional information and explanation while allowing those capable of doing more advanced assignments with those ideas already attained to proceed.

Simulation One of the best classroom teaching tools is a simulation. Through the use of a scenario that can be displayed verbally and graphically on a computer screen or through sound and pictures via a CD-ROM or laserdisc player, the student is able to simulate, or recreate, lifelike activities in an interactive mode. Any type of decision matrix may be used in these sequences. Usually, however, a lifelike scenario is presented to the student. A decision must be made based on the given story, and then the consequences of the decisions unfold. The use of simulations encourages inductive learning by allowing the learner to look at a series of complex processes that go beyond mere memorization of factual information. Hypothesis formation and higher-level thinking strategies are developed through this type of teaching. There are many types of simulations available, ranging from simple role model exercises in which one becomes a leader of a country to more complex ideas that incorporate the interactive modes of various types of media in developing, for example, model economies or political systems.

Problem Solving Like simulation, problem solving is a combination of on-site learning, using available information, and the development of a learning strategy. Part of this strategy usually consists of accessing a database (state unemployment statistics for example) to retrieve adequate information to solve a problem, in this case related to government labor policy. The pattern for this type of inquiry learning includes a prompt or menu selection, a search for a selection on the

menu, an attempt to identify information more precisely, and a method of accessing a database to solve the problem at hand.

Evaluation In many commercially produced CAI materials an evaluation component is provided. Within an evaluation sequence that is incorporated as part of a CAI model, the learners are usually asked to respond to a series of prepared questions. For example, a series of questions and problems related to a lesson on Supreme Court cases may be integrated throughout an instructional sequence that is focusing on the development of the judiciary branch of government. In most of these sequences there are a predetermined number of questions for the learner responses. There may or may not be feedback to these answers, and a score is

Page 100 often provided. The test items are usually limited by the type of program, to true-false, multiple-choice, matching, and short essay items.

Software All of the aforementioned technologically oriented instructional strategies need software to drive them. While many civics teachers have learned to use hyper-text lessons and databases in incorporating technology in their classrooms, the vast majority still rely on commercially produced products. The selection and careful use of software therefore becomes a critical component in the application of technology. Historically, civics software was not high on the list of commercial vendors in terms of production and marketing for most major software producers. The emphasis in software development and design during the first mass introduction of microcomputers in schools was geared towards mathematics, English, language arts, and reading. As the use of technology spread to civics and social studies classrooms, so did the type and variety of software that was available for this segment of the curriculum. The first real ''breakthrough" in software for civics and social studies classrooms was the introduction of the "Oregon Trail" simulation by the Minnesota Educational Computing Consortium in the 1970s. Looking at it today, we can see why those educators who first used it saw the possibilities for increasing student interest and participation in social studies classrooms. A student could actually read about a historical event and then, vicariously, become a participant. Today, the latest iteration is available on an interactive CD-ROM disc. It is still premised on the original idea of placing students in a decision-making mode through a historical context. Along with programs like "Oregon Trail," civics teachers were inundated with an array of drill and practice and recognition and recall programs. Most focused on things like naming capitals of states, or on place-name geography. Others, such as "Hat In the Ring," sought to teach presidential politics by having students pretend they were candidates and letting them choose platforms and issues from single-source menus. Teachers became turned off to both the technology and software as they viewed these first forays into the civics curriculum via technology as nothing more than glorified electronic workbooks. This negativism towards technology began to change in the mid-1980s when software companies such as Tom Synder Productions and Scholastic started to market database programs to schools for classroom use. Now a teacher could incorporate real-life data, numbers, and information in a problem-solving mode while designing her own lessons to illustrate a variety of concepts. These first database programs, such as those produced by Scholastic that used studentgathered information in the development of a database, were a bit awk-

Page 101 ward and slow, but they again illustrated the possibilities of bringing together social science concepts through the use of a computer and interactive software program. As the database programs became increasingly sophisticated, word processing programs such as Word and Word Perfect became more manageable and easier to use. Teachers found it easier to use and incorporate technology in their classrooms just as a vast array of instructional applications for their subject became available. Over the past five years, the efforts to provide training, machinery, and software for teachers seem to have converged with the advent of authoring programs such as Hyper Card and Linkway, which allow anyone to construct stacks of information and resources that can be developed and used at different levels of creativity. This is done by creating nodes, cards or stacks, of information that are brought together electronically. The user then determines which information should be linked and interrelated. The texts are built on a structure using associative thinking patterns. These programs take full advantage of multimedia systems that are now tied to many computer systems, such as CDROM and the laserdisc player. Along with these new programs, devices such as scanners, video motion boards, audio and video capture boards, to name just a few, now allow even the most casual technology user to develop sophisticated interactive programs. Many social studies and civics teachers have taken full advantage of these opportunities to develop their own lessons and in doing so individualize lessons and programs for their classroom use. At the same time, commercial software for civics and social studies classrooms has also taken a giant leap forward. There are now literally thousands of products, ranging from interactive historical encyclopedias to simulations such as "Where In The World is Carmen San Diego?," available for social studies and civics classrooms. While the proliferation of social studies software and new authoring programs that allow for a personalization of instructional material is a major accomplishment in the application of technology in citizenship education, the study of civic and social issues as related to technology has also become an important component in understanding the information and mental revolutions.

Civic and Social Issues As a result of the steady increase in the use of technology in social studies and civics classrooms, many seemingly "new" social and civic issues have become an important component of a technologically oriented curriculum. Many of these ideas are extensions of basic social studies and civics concepts, while others are new iterations for this age. The first of these fall under the auspices of information accessibility and include questions such as:

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When should data or information about an individual be collected by government and private agencies.

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Once information is obtained what should be done with it?

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Who should have access to different modes of information?

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Should individuals be permitted to examine data collected about them by private companies and governments?

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If misinformation about an individual or group is obtained and used incorrectly, what type of redress should be available for the aggrieved party?

Many of the questions noted above are important because of the explosion both in the amount of information being collected in our society and the manner it which it can be obtained. Students need to understand that as various information systems increase, the possibilities for abuse and misuse also increase. Consider that every time we receive a paycheck, income tax, social security, and other employment data are recorded. Bank accounts, stock transactions, and telephone calls are all logged and saved. Every credit card transaction is fed into a computer with the amount of the transaction, site where the purchase was made, and type of article received. Added to these are hundreds of other bits of data about each of us, such as records of traffic violations, insurance information, and passport requests, to name just a few, that are in some disk or file. It's easy to see how, by collecting how and where one's money is spent, saved, and transferred, a history of one's financial dealings can be catalogued, stored, and retrieved without one's knowledge. At the heart of these types of lessons are issues that revolve around the individual's "right" to know who is collecting information, how it might be used, and who has access to the database where it is stored. This is the essence of the idea of open information within an open society. For example, when an application for a credit card calls for a bank reference, what type of material is passed on to the credit card company? Will it include a daily tally of checking account transactions, the amount of money in a savings account, or combination of both? Most credit card companies do not tell applicants the kind of data that they use as a basis for their decisions to grant credit; instead, they ask for access to credit histories and bank account numbers. The information generated in this example now has both a personal as well as an economic value, a concept that needs to be discussed, debated, understood, and included in civics classrooms.

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The Value of Information Be it personal or public, information has taken on a new social importance it did not have twenty-five or fifty years ago. Its value, in terms of social mores, has increased not only in terms of the need to know and be informed, but in terms of economic substance. Those who have information regarding a company's stock before the general public does might, for example, buy or sell for a vast profit before others have a chance. As the economic value of information has increased, societal rules and constraints regarding its use have come under increased scrutiny. For instance, the cost of collecting data, its storage and retrieval, is usually borne by the agency needing the information and, in some cases, passed on to the consumer. A central credit bureau, in any large city, does this for its

members and charges them a fee for the service. An individual wishing to examine his or her own file must also pay, even though the data was self-generated. Here, information has become a commodity and taken its place in the marketplace, to be bought and sold like cars and boats. The inconsistency in this process is that these records may be economically unobtainable for some, thereby limiting their right to know about themselves. Information as an economic commodity is not a new notion. For years, governments have paid large sums for information about other countries, and have collected data files on individuals. Within the past decade, vast public enterprises have evolved whose main objective is to profit through the collection, storage, and distribution of data. The economics of an information-oriented business are easy to contemplate. Data is gathered, costs for this process are figured, and prices established. The issues that students need to study relate to the personal, or intrinsic, value of the information. How is the data collected? Should there be government regulations regarding information-based businesses? Can a value be placed on one's privacy? Who pays the costs when information is mismanaged or misused? Even more difficult to determine than the economic value of information is the economic cost of technology itself. While many communities have benefitted because of newly formed businesses that have given birth to new forms of technology, others have suffered. Technological displacement can strike anyone in any city or town—even those who have taken the time to be retrained and retooled. Schools must provide students opportunities to understand the consequences of an information- and communications-oriented economy, and that the very nature of work due to the imposition of technology is continually evolving. Those willing to learn and change with technology will not only coexist with it, but will dominate it. Those ill prepared will find work difficult, low-paying, and often unobtainable. Economic understanding of information and technology is but one part of a teacher's responsibilities in preparing students for the future. Another is

Page 104 comprehending the legal issues raised through technology's inroads in many aspects of our lives.

Legal Responsibilities—The Right to Privacy As with other human interactions, the processes of information gathering and transference can be easily abused. Files can be altered and changed. Crimes have been, and will continue to be, committed with the new communications technologies. Like other societal endeavors, deviant behaviors, such as stealing, have become part of the technoinformation world. Social studies and civics teachers must examine these issues with their students in terms of the private and personal interactions they will experience in an information-oriented society, within a framework of legal and social responsibilities. Since 1974, there have been federal guidelines designed to protect the privacy of individuals by regulating, at first the Federal Government's and then private agencies', collection, maintenance, use, and dissemination of personal, identifiable information (5 U.S.C. 552). These laws have established the legal boundaries of privacy. However, in an age when information is considered a marketable product, and, in some cases, a means to control and manipulate others, it is important for both students and teachers to inquire into the broader realm of personal definitions of privacy, as well as the legal ones. This would allow students to establish a philosophical framework from which to judge whether or not privacy rights have been abridged. Since, conceptually, the definition of what is private and what might be considered shared or public information is amorphous at best, the use of a set of classroom experiences that allow for a self-examination of values related to privacy issues is of special import. The kinds of topics for a discussion of this type might include: (1) What kind of records are public and what kind are private? For instance, when one applies for a teaching position one must send college transcripts to the school district's personnel office for review. Upon acceptance of a post in the district, do these

records now become public information? (2) Can a private record ever become public? If one is running for political office is any, and all, information ever gathered about this individual now privy to public scrutiny?; (3) Who, if anyone, should be authorized to use private records in public situations?; and (4) What penalties, if any, should be invoked for the unauthorized entry into someone's private files? Should there be fines or jail terms for such offenses? As this is being written, the issues of privacy and control over access to information and entertainment via telecommunications and computer modems have already been debated by the United States Congress. In an effort to allow parents some control over their children's television viewing habits the 1996 Telecommunications Act, requires manufacturers to put a so-called "V" chip in each new TV set sold in the United States after 1996. This chip would allow

Page 105 the owner of the TV to block out selected channels or programs. Proponents feel that this will be a way for parents to control what their children might watch on TV and screen out "unacceptable" programming. Within the same bill, others in Congress placed restrictions on Internet access, as a reaction to adult chat talk and pornographic pictures that are now available for downloading. Although students engaged in a classroom presentation of the aforementioned may seem somewhat removed from highspeed information technology, they are in fact important participants in the information revolution. As such, they face the same socio-legal problems involving information transfer that our large institutions and bureaucracies deal with daily. As techno-data capabilities increase, the possibility that someone can obtain unauthorized information about them correspondingly increases. Likewise, their right to view and use information may be restricted, due to their age and legal status. Use of and ability to obtain information are only the tip of the iceberg in terms of the accessibility question. Broader social and civic issues have arisen as a result of the techno-information explosion.

Social and Civic Responsibility As with other forms of technology, information and communications technologies have within their spectrum the power to ease the burdens of tedious work, stimulate creativity, and aid in various areas of education. They also carry within them the power to destroy all of these. The ways in which society chooses to exercise its control over these forms of technology will determine whether our freedoms are extended or abrogated as a consequence of their existence. Social studies classrooms, have been, and will continue to be, the focal points for discussion and debate of these issues. Harnessing these new tools requires more than a knowledge of programming and hardware. Social responsibility, in its broadest sense, implies an interrelationship among all members of a society. This relationship may change and vary according to circumstances, but at its heart lies the notion that each member of the society is responsible for assisting every other member of that society. In times of natural or human-made disasters, seek to help those who have suffered. In an information-oriented society this social contract needs to be expanded to include assistance for those who might be disrupted not only physically but also through technological efforts. The computer "hackers" who set free a virus in a random manner not only hurt the system they've entered, but all the work of anyone who has stored data in that machine or interacted with the spoiled software. The new technology offers those of a certain ilk yet another and powerful tool for antisocial behaviors. Within this mindset it must be noted that the delicate balance between societal protection and information acquisition will continually evolve as more technological intrusions occur. One only need note how recent intrusions on private

Page 106 computer bulletin boards have led to the call for harsher criminal penalties. With the widespread use of alternative information systems, the concept of social responsibility may become even more difficult to maintain than it is

presently. Other serious legal and ethical issues have been raised, such as: How much does the public need to know? When does withholding information in the name of national security become censorship? The debate over these has already been joined by several differing philosophical viewpoints. One view maintains that there should be no censorship no matter what the question; the other indicates that the government sometimes has a duty to keep information from its citizens, especially for national security reasons. These issues only reinforce the opinion that a vigorous citizenship education program infused with concepts that include technology is of utmost importance.

Citizenship Education and Technology One of the traditional tasks society has given to its schools is the preparation of its children for the role and responsibilities of citizenship. As part of this effort, schools deal with the rules, regulations, and values of society. Schools have been given the primary responsibility for socializing children to this task. Although the type of social studies and civic instruction each young person receives in this effort varies throughout the country, there is a core of concepts that encompass most of these efforts. Decision making, social participation skills, attitudes relating to information acquisition, freedom and its concurrent responsibilities are all taught in elementary, middle, and high school classrooms. These provide what Thomas Jefferson called the "basic tools of intelligent citizenship "to students. Each of these takes on increasing importance as technology continues to expand and becomes an increasing part of our daily existence. Students need to understand that they do not live in a vacuum. What happens at one end of the planet affects all of us at the other end. We are tied to each other—even more so because of technology. The tools of citizenship now must be expanded to include the use, application, and awareness of the impact of technology in our lives and in our society. Understanding the nature, history, structures, and culture of the society one lives in forms the basis of each individual's role as the society continually regenerates itself. Failure to carry on a society's ideals can result in either change or the disintegration of that society. As long as we wish to maintain the precepts that our society uses as a basis for its existence, we must pass them on to new and emerging members of the society. The technological genie is out of the bottle. It has become ingrained as part of society and culture, from the time we microwave our coffee in the morning and turn on our computers at work and school until we listen to music via our laserdiscs at bed time. It is part of our electoral process, and intrudes when we choose to pay our taxes via elec-

Page 107 tronic means. How we master it will determine its effects on our democratic institutions. As such, it must be a part of the civics and social studies curriculum. One only need note the "darkside" of the information revolution, as discussed by Milton Kleg in a previous chapter, to understand why these ideas must be incorporated in the social studies curriculum. The social studies and civics segment of the school curriculum carries with it a heavy burden. Misunderstood at times, scorned politically and philosophically, often underfunded and understaffed by many schools, it is nevertheless responsible for preparing students to become good and effective citizens. This process becomes even more important as technology allows us instant access to each other's opinions and to our leaders, through such devices as electronic mail. Our students must learn to control and master the new technologies lest they become uncontrollable in the future.

Preparing Students with Technology—The Learning Environment If social studies and civics teachers are to fully utilize the products of the information revolution, not only must the way they teach and what they teach be altered, but the physical facilities where they teach also need to be redesigned to take

advantage of new types of technologies. The classrooms where most of us work do not even have telephone outlets. Even as we contemplate this idea, several different instructional modes that incorporate technology are already emerging. The first of these utilizes a fully networked classroom. Here, banks of computers, usually twenty-five or thirty, are linked to a central fileserver where lessons and programs are stored. In addition, there are usually printing, scanning, and multimedia hookups available in the classroom through the network and fileserver lines. A teaching station, at the head of the room, controls access to the server and is connected to an LCD overhead panel that can provide large group instruction. This model is perhaps the most widely used, as it provides instruction in a somewhat traditional manner—rows of chairs, rows of computers—and is cost-efficient. Another model calls for individual student multimedia stations. In this setup an individual computer incorporates a video port, modem, CD-ROM port, and laserdisc player. Teachers and students can use still and video cameras for sound and picture integration. This type of workstation allows for production of a variety of multimedia and interactive instructional sequences. Most often, a school or campus has only one or two of these "productivity stations," as they are expensive to build and maintain. This type of station is sometimes tied into a network for access to Internet and electronic mail. Yet a third design incorporates many of the features of the first two with an added extra, portability. Here laptop computers are the main source of

Page 108 computing. At the front of the classroom, a laptop is tied together with both display and multimedia equipment. Students have laptops in front of them that use network ports. Each of these stations can also have a modem for use outside the classroom. This type of package allows for transportability of teaching stations as well as allowing students the opportunity to bring home the technology, something that many of them may not be personally able to afford. The integration of computer and multimedia devices within a classroom is but one type of structural change that must come about if technological integration is truly to take hold. Another is the use of such communication devices as satellite downlinks and interactive television. Both of these offer teachers a tremendous opportunity to put their students in touch with other cultures, as well as to teach them how to communicate with others through an electronic and interactive mechanism. These systems allow for "real time" discussions across cultural and political boundaries. Costs for both of these systems have dropped dramatically in the past few years and will continue to fall as both the public and private sectors tie into one or more of these types of communication mechanisms.

Preparing Students with Technology—Instructional Paradigms Having the hardware, software, and technological acumen is not enough to make these new forms of learning tools succeed. Lessons developed in conjunction with technology need to incorporate several paradigms. The first of these relates to the notion of student participation. Technology calls for the instructor to move away from a teacher-centered classroom towards a student-centered classroom. As students interact with technology, the locus of control of both the lesson and the amount of student participation moves away from the teacher and toward the student. This learning style incorporates a totally different learning philosophy than most social studies and civics teachers now use. Here, the learner controls the rate and modality of both the curriculum and instructional patterns, instead of the instructor. In this paradigm, the teacher becomes an individual's instructional guide. No longer is there one rate of instruction, set by the teacher, but many, as set by the student learners. This will be hard for many teachers to understand, let alone incorporate as part of their classroom repertoire.

The second of these paradigms focuses on the types of lessons that social studies teachers will have to stress in order for the technology to be of utmost use to them. As previously noted, these types of assignments usually incorporate simulation and problem-solving activities. This, again, will require many teachers to rethink their teaching styles. While one might lecture and use technology as a backdrop, its most effective iterations involve hands-on experiences in collecting, interpreting, analyzing, and presenting information and data.

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Preparing Oneself for Change If someone had forecast fifty years ago that one day audio and visual information from throughout the world would be available in a home, school, or office through a machine, such as a laptop computer, that weighed less than five pounds, most would have called the predictor slightly off-center. Today, we can not only receive this type of information but interact with it in real time. What kinds of new communications and information systems will next appear are anyone's guess, but new inventions that change, even further, how we communicate and receive information will surely appear. As educators, we must prepare our students and ourselves for new and exciting forms of technology that take the best of what we have to offer as teachers and apply it to our subject matter. We can do this by being aware of new types of hardware and software that will assist us in our work. We can do this by taking the time to constantly reeducate ourselves by taking classes, attending seminars, or simply reading and studying about new breakthroughs in our subject fields. Finally, we can take the time to understand that our students are part of the communications and information revolution. They adapt, quite easily, to new forms of technology and, in most cases, learn how to use and apply it in an expeditious manner. If we are to master the revolution, we must do it together.

References Bahmueller, C. F. (Ed.) (1991). Civitas—A framework for civic education . Calabasas, Calif.: Center for Civic Education. Bork, A. (1988). Ethical issues associated with the use of interactive technology in learning environments. Journal of Research on Computing in Education 21, (2): 121–28. Harington, H. L. (1993). The essence of technology and the education of teachers. Journal of Teacher Education 44, (1): 5–15. King, N. (1992). Can the arts and humanities survive technology? Arts Education Policy Review 94, (1): 2–9. Kurshan, B. and Dawson, T. (1992). The global classroom: Reaching beyond the walls of the school building. Technology and Learning 12, (4): 48–51. Means, B. (Ed). (1994). Technology and educational reform . San Francisco: JosseyBass. Mecklenburger, J. A. (1990) Educational technology is not enough. Phi Delta Kappan

72, (2): 104–8. Negroponte, N. (1995). Being digital . New York: Alfred A. Knopf. National Council for the Social Studies. (1994). Expectations of excellence–curriculum standards for Social Studies . Washington, D.C.: National Council for the Social Studies. Postman, N. (1992). Technopoly—The surrender of culture to technology . New York: Alfred A. Knopf. Page 110

Sheingold, K. (1991). Restructuring for learning with technology: The potential for synergy. Phi Delta Kappan 73, (1): 17–27. Sheingold, K. and Hadley, M. (1990). Accomplished teachers: Integrating Computers into classroom practice . New York: Bank Street College of Education, Center for Technology in Education. Snider, R. C. (1992). The machine in the classroom. Phi Delta Kappan , 74, (4), 316–23. U.S. Congress, Office of Technology Assessment (1995). Teachers and technology: Making the connection . Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office. Yeaman, A. R. J. (1993) Whose technology is it anyway? The Educational Digest 58, (5): 19–23. Page 111

6 Knowledge-Based Learning Environments A Vision for the Twenty-First Century PATRICK J. FITZGERALD and JAMES C. LESTER Upon entering a school of the late twenty-first century, an American teacher, having been transported one hundred years into the future, is shocked at what she doesn't see. She searches for signs of blackboards, books, maps, and libraries but finds none. Aside from the cafeteria and gymnasium, our teacher recognizes the function of none of the rooms. Meandering down a colorfully decorated and brightly lit corridor, she peers into a room where the chatter of excited middle school children competes with the percussive sounds of African music. The children sitting on the floor surround a three-dimensional projection of tribal dancers in full regalia. The teacher converses with the children about the role of dance in the history of African culture.

In the next room our visitor observes a quieter setting in which children are seated in comfortable partitioned carrels. Every child is absorbed in thought as he or she manipulates small luminous devices floating freely before them. Flanking each student are two-dimensional display panels filled with ever-changing text and graphics. Periodically the students pose questions and point at the floating object and panels. It seems they are engaged in very different activities from one another. Surprisingly, no teacher is to be found. The visitor ambles down the hall and enters a larger room, where groups of students congregate around strange-looking consoles. The students speak to each other and to teachers and other students who appear on the consoles. It is evident from their negotiations that they are holding some sort of diplomatic talks. As the teacher moves from station to station giving advice, she is surprised to see the students receiving suggestions from a spectacled, wizened, 3-D animated character with whom they are engaged in conversation. He is lifelike except for his diminutive size, which belies his electronic origins. Enthralled, the children laugh and ask questions of their charismatic companion.

Page 112 This remarkable vision of the twenty-first century could easily become a reality. Given the current rate at which technology is improving, the next one hundred years will most certainly witness the disappearance of the vast majority of technological limitations that currently prevent us from realizing this vision. What now seems technologically impossible will be ubiquitous by the year 2100, and all innovations of this twenty-first century school will have one common feature: the computer. The powerful computational technologies that have begun to appear at the end of the twentieth century, combined with exponential improvements in telecommunications, will come to fruition in a new breed of educational technology known as immersive knowledge-based learning environments . Below, we articulate a technology-rich vision for the twenty-first century in which immersive knowledge-based learning environments integrate advances in artificial intelligence, massive digital libraries, and riveting three-dimensional simulations.

United Nations Diplomacy: A Case Study To understand the power of immersive knowledge-based learning environments, let us rejoin our visiting twentiethcentury teacher. Intent on taking a closer look at the unfolding activities, she wanders into a seventh-grade classroom in the twenty-first century school. Upon entering the classroom, the visiting teacher beholds a a panoramic view of the stately U.N. conference center. Installed in every wall of the classroom is an expansive rear-screen projection panel. Together, the panels supply a 360-degree view of the interior of the United Nations conference center. Colorful flags representing nations from around the world surround the students. Rising prominently in front of the class is an enormous data display panel depicting a detailed record of all votes cast on various resolutions. Periodically, the display panel presents elaborate maps and other graphical information, video, and electronic news flashes. A flurry of quiet activity pervades the room. Suddenly, a news bulletin flashing across the central display panel catches the attention of everyone in room:

(A.P. New York) General Electric's CEO announced this morning that the corporation's recent invention of a nearly perfect photoelectric panel has successfully passed the scrutiny of the independent scientific community. These highly efficient panels convert light to electrical current with a newly discovered crystalline form of a chromium-based compound. Although officials will not reveal details of the manufacturing process, they explained that the ultra-thin panels can be produced for pennies. This finding confirms recent rumors that the holy grail of abundant, cheap, and clean energy has been found. Although mass production of the panels cannot begin for six months, the stock market has reacted violently, dropping 400 points before automatic trade

Page 113 mechanisms closed down trading. In a catastrophic chain reaction, both the Tokyo and London exchanges dropped a record number of points before they too were shut down. Analysts attribute these reactions to a fundamental economic realignment resulting in the toppling of oil-dominated multinationals. This points to an end to the petroleum-based economic infrastructure that has evolved over the course of the past century. These developments have been greeted with signs of increasing political unrest throughout the world. In reaction to what is perceived as more imperialistic behavior on the part of America, riots are spreading rapidly throughout the Middle East as leaders of the oil-producing countries express grave concerns about world stability. As developments continue, political leaders and investors wait and watch. On the platform at the front of the room, a distinguished-looking Secretary General dressed in his native garb instantly materializes before the students. A product of 3-D technology, this virtual artifact has an almost lifelike appearance. The Secretary General explains to the students that they are U.N. diplomats representing countries around the globe. A major event has occurred that will have significant ramifications for the political and economic stability of their simulated world. Each student's desk is equipped with an embedded screen and a small 3-D projection system. Some students are already interacting with diminutive 3-D characters projected from their desks. These impish characters are their mentors, who have already begun to offer advice about what course of action should be taken, as well as rationales justifying these recommendations. In addition to 3-D projection capabilities, the desks also provide sophisticated tools for retrieving historical, geographical and economic data from digital libraries around the world. Turning their attention from the screen, to the teacher, to the Secretary General, and back again to their screen, students glean information from all these sources as they begin to address the situation unfolding before them. The Secretary General explains that each student, as a representative of a particular country, must take actions that will not only be in the best interests of his or her country but will also preserve world peace. To do so requires that the students become experts in their country's geography, history, economy, and political systems. In addition, they must form strategic alliances that can enhance their political influence as well as remain cognizant of alliances that may form between other countries. The Secretary General explains that students will be presented with U.N. resolutions. They will then consult a variety of information sources: their teacher, digital libraries, dynamic economic models, other students, as well as their mentors. Following standard U.N. protocol, the Secretary General announces that a resolution to address the violence in the Middle East has been submitted for

Page 114 discussion. The Secretary General describes the first resolution, which concerns the trouble in the Middle East reported in the A.P. news flash. Proponents of the resolution believe that U.N. troops should be committed to the region. This peace-keeping mission would prevent further violence and pave the way toward a peaceful settlement. Opponents dispute this claim and argue that the problem is in fact much more global in nature; they argue that committing troops would produce devastating results and divert the world's attention from the central issue. They argue instead that the U.N. should address the situation by incrementally reallocating resources on a global scale. The Secretary General then announces that after an hour for research and discussion, each student must determine the stance that will be taken for his or her country and then cast the vote accordingly. Votes will be tallied by an accounting

system, and a simulation engine (a powerful software tool that models the interactions between complex scientific, political, and socioeconomic systems) will compute the votes' effects on the global economy and political environment. The Secretary General explains that the A.P. feed on the central panel will communicate the resulting state of world affairs by continuously updating the latest edition of the interactive multimedia news channel. As the Secretary General slowly disappears, the teacher informs the students that their success will be gauged by observing the effects of their actions on reports of international political stability and economic growth. As negotiations commence, the Secretary General reminds students of the actions they may take as representatives of their countries. In addition to voting on specific U.N. resolutions—including voting to commit U.N. troops to troubled regions and expelling countries from the U.N.—students may independently:

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modify economic policies of their own countries, e.g., by altering exchange rates;

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form alliances, either informally or by signing treaties;

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impose trade sanctions against specific countries or blocs of countries; and

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infuse foreign aid into allied countries.

With amazement, our twentieth-century teacher wanders through the room to observe all of the activities. After a few moments, it becomes apparent that students have been preparing for their mission for some time. It is evident from the conversations between students and their mentors that the students have become intimately acquainted with their countries' histories, economies, national resources, political structures, and religious traditions. Even now, students are

Page 115 pressing their mentors for specific information pertinent to the new resolution under consideration. The visiting teacher meanders among the students as they embark on their fact-finding missions. She approaches an energetic young man who represents the United States in this exercise. To determine the effects of the newly created photoelectric panels on the U.S. economy, the student calls up his mentor. Instantly, a disheveled, professorial 3-D character with striking white hair appears on the desktop. Because the student immediately begins asking the mentor very detailed questions that require knowledge about the invention and its possible effects, it is clear that the mentor is already knowledgeable about the situation at hand. Concerned about maintaining a technological advantage over other countries, the student argues that the government should support this new technology because it is controlled by a U.S.-based corporation and the revenue earned will exceed the income lost from lost oil production. To bolster his argument, the student asks the mentor to display graphically the revenues generated by the oil industry over the past five years. Immediately, the mentor presents the requested information in a concise graph depicting the requested economic data. He then explains to the student that he might also consider examining data available on the percentage of the petroleum industry's revenue that was not generated by transportation use. The student agrees this would be helpful, so the mentor presents this information as well. After analyzing the data, the student and mentor discuss the possible implications of the new photoelectric cell on the U.S. petroleum industry and, consequently, the U.S. economy as a whole. The student is convinced that the invention will benefit the economy considerably and that the United States should not regulate it, but the mentor suggests that the

student should continue to consider alternative interpretations. For example, the mentor points out that the United States is a dominant figure in the world political scene. He explains that careful regulation and control of the technology are of paramount importance for avoiding a massive trade imbalance and the ensuing worldwide instability. He then goes on to discuss the importance of corporate alliances for the design and production of petroleum-powered machinery. To provide evidence for a particular line of reasoning, the mentor invokes a dynamic economic model to simulate the effects of various assumptions on the U.S. GNP. A 3-D visualization tool displays graphically the results of these simulations, which the mentor presents to the student. The student and the mentor continue to investigate different scenarios as the visiting teacher ambles over to another desk. At this desk, an intense student representing Norway is considering the debilitating effects of projected revenue losses when North Sea oil production declines. Her mentor is a Ghandi-esque figure with flowing robes and intriguing smile. The student is engaged in a heated discussion with her mentor about the

Page 116 role of natural resources in Norway's future. The mentor suggests that the student will be in a better position to make predictions if she first explores the country's economic history. She requests her mentor to invoke an interactive multimedia document that presents general trends and specific details pertaining to Norway's dependence on North Sea oil income. The information is presented as an interactive time line that has been highly customized to the student's current needs: information about the distant Nordic past is abbreviated; information about Norway's eighteenth-century economy is more verbose; and information beginning with the discovery of North Sea oil is rich with detail. The interactive time line permits students to view textual, graphic and animated presentations about particular periods and even about particular events of interest. For example, the student quickly develops an appreciation for the economic differences incurred as Norway transitioned from a seafaring nation with income drawn primarily from shipping and fishing to an energy-based economy with significant oil production. Images of Viking ships, colossal industrial freighters and the country's first offshore oil rig flicker across the screen. It is clear that the mentor has produced an exceptionally well-crafted presentation of information for the student. Of the literally millions of facts available in digital libraries throughout the world, the mentor has assembled a document that includes precisely those facts that are germane to the situation at hand. Moreover, of the selected facts, the mentor has emphasized those items that are of the greatest relevance to the student. Nevertheless, the student is free to pursue additional sources of information and browse at will (within the given time constraints). As the our visiting teacher leaves this student, the student begins to chat with the mentor about developing a strategy for predicting the consequences of the student appearance of the photoelectric chip for Norway's petroleum industry. The visiting teacher's attention is then caught by a neighboring student representing Kuwait. This student, a serious young man, is equally troubled by the prospects offered by the new photoelectric technology. His mentor, a stately woman in an elegant burgundy dress, advises him to consider soliciting support from other oil-producing nations. The mentor explains that Kuwait is facing a strange sort of double jeopardy: not only will it be crippled by the appearance of the alternative energy source, but it has recently depleted all but a small amount of its oil reserves. Barring the discovery of any new oil fields, the country is in dire straits. Given these factors, the mentor recognizes an opportunity for the student to exercise his algebraic skills. She poses this highly-contextualized math problem to the student in a way that the student can understand without difficulty. To estimate the total volume of remaining oil, the student realizes that he must determine the amount of oil in well-charted fields and extrapolate from this data. The mentor suggests that he request a detailed cartographic representation of

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oil holdings in fields for which data is available. For each of these fields, the color-coded 3-D map depicts not only the topographical surface but also the volume of remaining oil. It also indicates the rate of change over the previous six months. The student then sets up a system of equations and, with the mentor's assistance, solves for the variables of interest. Next, the mentor suggests that the student might wish to investigate other resources in Kuwait. During the course of this investigation, the student discovers that the Kuwaiti Treasury holdings are significant. He factors this information into a second system of equations to determine if Kuwait has the financial wherewithal to purchase the new photoelectric technology outright, thereby eliminating the political unrest that is certain to follow otherwise. Finally, the visiting teacher spots an energetic young woman who is discussing the effects of the invention for her country, China, with her mentor, a miniature Asian sage with a flowing white beard. The mentor recommends that the student consult interactive multimedia documents illustrating the defining moments in Chinese history. Specifically, he directs the student's attention to presentations that discuss China's historical tendencies to adopt policies rejecting Western technology. The student eagerly agrees and instantaneously finds his screen filled with an intricately detailed animation: In Hong Kong, Chinese royalty hold court with Portuguese missionaries, who present the Emperor with automata and mechanical clocks as gifts. The student realizes she can take advantage of her mentor's ability to present the same situation from multiple perspectives. She first chooses the perspective of the Chinese royalty. The mentor constructs a multimedia presentation with text, graphics, and animation depicting the Portuguese missionaries as barbarians. These uncultured foreigners offer nothing more than mechanical trinkets to the Emperor of the Celestial Kingdom. The Chinese are distrustful of the foreigners and insulted by the visitors presumption in presenting such worthless gifts. In the second perspective the student chooses, that of the Portuguese missionaries, these historical events take on a much different interpretation. In the missionaries' eyes, the Chinese heads of state are ignorant and pompous. These heathens have no right to bar the missionaries from spreading the true religion, and they have no appreciation for the modern industrial world that the Portuguese represent. The student discusses both of the perspectives with her mentor and concludes that it might be wise to act quickly with regard to the new photoelectric technology. To verify this conclusion, the mentor offers the student the opportunity to view an ''alternate history": What would have happened if the Chinese had recognized the significance of the trinkets' underlying mechanisms for their future? What if the Chinese in their organized and efficient manner had duplicated this technology and incorporated it into their society? How would this have resulted in a different culture for the Chinese? Would the dream of the Celestial Kingdom have been realized? With the assistance of her mentor, the

Page 118 student manipulates numerous variables in a complex social simulation and explores the consequences of the Emperor's decisions. Eventually, the mentor suggests that the student may wish to pursue a comprehensive trade agreement in which China would serve as the world manufacturing center for photoelectric chips. The learning session culminates when a news bulletin interrupts all activities across the network. The virtual Secretary General requests that all votes be cast. All students register their votes which the system tallies on the central display. The results on the classroom's wall indicate that the Assembly has opted for a plan that incrementally reallocates resources in hopes of achieving global political and economic stability. The vote is fed immediately to the simulation engine. As the visiting teacher makes her way to the door a barrage of news bulletins fly across the central display. . . .

Electronic Mentors Mentors will provide highly individualized advice and instruction to students. Built on the most advanced artificial intelligence technologies, these intelligent animated personae will play a central pedagogical role in the twenty-first-

century classroom. Mentors will pose problems, understand speech, answer questions, produce multimedia explanations and even offer advice. Most importantly, mentors will track students from the time they enter school in order to tailor all responses and presentations to the student's learning style and experiences. Since the Greeks, the privileged have educated their children by hiring learned scholars who provide individualized instruction. Twenty-firstcentury society will provide the most advanced form of one-to-one tutoring in a nurturing, long-term relationship between student and teacher that would otherwise be unavailable except for the most affluent members of society. Mentors will continually assist students as they access information from digital libraries around the globe. These libraries will be linked by massive networks that provide rapid access to every conceivable type of information, all of which will be deliverable in any medium. The ability to filter and assimilate an ever-increasing barrage of bits will be of paramount importance in the hyper-information age . Without the assistance of mentors, everyone (particularly students) would be so inundated with the incalculably large volume of information that they could not cope. Consider a mentor assisting a student as she analyzes eighteenth-century economic upheaval. The mentor will provide an information filter that selects pertinent economic data. It will also dynamically assemble a historical narrative about the role played by the industrial revolution in this period. The mentor will produce a narrative that is highly customized to the student's knowledge of economics. With this type of personalized information, students will be well positioned to evaluate a broad range of complex economic hypotheses.

Page 119 Building on research in computational simulations of emotion, each mentor will have its own unique appearance and personality. Combining such traits as seriousness, humor, curiosity, gender and eccentricity, each mentor will simulate human-like qualities that become apparent to the student through ongoing interaction. Students will choose mentors from immense electronic catalogues. Each student will be able to modify the appearance and personality of his or her mentor by selecting different character "shells." An elementary school student might be enamored with a variety of superhero mentors while a high school student might prefer mentors with an attitude. Despite its changing outward appearance, a particular mentor's knowledge of its student's abilities will persist throughout the lifelong relationship. Importantly, mentors exemplify the coalescence of the software, hardware, education, and entertainment industries that is only now beginning.

Digital Libraries Every student will have immediate access to the best libraries in the world. Fiber optic cables, one of the few inventions of the twentieth century to survive unchanged into the twenty-first century, will connect every information source on every continent. Optical cables will boast virtually unlimited bandwidth, i.e., the volume of information transmitted within a given period of time will be enormous. As a result, every publicly and commercially available information archive will be instantaneously accessible to students in every classroom. In addition to cable connections, the virtual, distributed library will be available to those not on the physical network through omni-directional, satellite-based, wireless transmission. The combined cable-wireless network will constitute a shared, international resource that will be essential to students in their formative years and, equally important, as they pursue both professional and recreational activities throughout their lives. Continuously updated and expanded, the library will serve as the international repository of human knowledge. To access information from the library, students will not be required to browse endlessly, conducting futile searches in the enormous information space. Rather, students will delegate this task to the mentor by asking questions. Students will pose questions to their mentors by pointing and speaking. Because mentors will be senstive to body movements and subtle gestures, students will interact with them naturally. Mentors will use their knowledge of students' information needs to retrieve the appropriate information from a collection of library sources, integrate it into a well-organized hyper-media structure, and, finally, present it to the student. Mentors will create expansive hyper-media documents that facilitate rapid investigation of tangents as the situation

demands. This technology will stand in stark contrast to the twentieth-century paper-based mode of knowledge communication that was primarily linear; in the twenty-first century, students

Page 120 will be at home with non-linear knowledge presentation. The long-touted "paperless society" will finally become a reality because of universal access and mentors' ability to tailor information to any given user and problem-solving context. Suppose that a student asks a mentor how the industrial revolution began. The mentor will scour the network searching for relevant material, thereby saving the student hours upon hours of search time. From one repository, the mentor may unearth an intricate map of London in 1750. In another digital warehouse, the mentor may discover a beautiful piece of prose chronicling the birth of the factory system. In a third library, the mentor may encounter a collection of animations of inventions, including an intricate animation of Darby's coke smelting process. Taking into account the student's interest in economics, the mentor will integrate the selected information packets into a compelling hyper-media document unified by the theme of economic impact. As the student poses questions and solves problems, the mentor will anticipate the student's needs and continuously work behind the scenes to gather additional knowledge for future presentations. At opportune moments, the mentor will proactively offer the student the opportunity to view these customized documents. For example, by the time the student expresses her interest in the textile industry, the mentor will have already retrieved, customized, and prepared for presentation a rich hyper-media document describing the invention of Hargreaves' spinning jenny. To enable mentors to rapidly retrieve information about a given topic, massive index structures will define the organization of information packets in the library. The index structure will enable mentors to score exceptionally highly on standard measures of information retrieval quality: mentors will exhibit high recall (percent of appropriate available objects that are retrieved) and high precision (percent of retrieved objects that are appropriate). The indices will also permit mentors to access information along multiple dimensions. For example, mentors will be able to retrieve information about the development of the steam engine along several dimensions: temporally (the steam engine's development reached its apex in the mid-1770s), geographically (the steam engine was developed in England), economically (the steam engine had an enormous impact on employment), politically (the steam engine resulted in the formation of unions) and scientifically (the steam engine constituted a radically new approach to energy transformation). Perspective-based indexing will play a central role in the library's overall functionality. For example, depending on the perspective that is being emphasized, the mentor will extract a vastly different body of information about the steam engine. If the mentor is emphasizing the labor perspective, it will extract information about factory working conditions: if the mentor is emphasizing the industrialist perspective, it will extract information about production efficiency.

Page 121 In short, indices (particularly perspective-based indices) will enable the mentors to extract precisely the information packets that bear on a particular problem-solving session.

Immersive Environments All student-mentor interactions will take place in an immersive 3-D projection. In these synthetic worlds, students will visualize information through numerous channels, including 3-D space, color, and time. (See chapter 3 for a discussion of the critical role of visual technologies in social studies education.) Students studying the Industrial Revolution will navigate through a three-dimensional facsimile of London in the mid-eighteenth century. In addition to viewing scenes

of factory workers' squalid living conditions in vivid "fly-throughs," students will experience a bird's eye view of the city with a color-coded schematic representing concentrations of pestilence and death. These lucid displays of information will demonstrate the devastating effects of unsanitary sewage systems on urban dwellers. Powerful simulation engines will lend a verisimilitude to educational experiences that is unavailable in twentiethcentury computing environments. In contrast to first-generation simulation packages that offer simple, abstracted, and pre-defined models of the world, twenty-first-century simulation engines will enable students to model the interactions between complex scientific, political, and socioeconomic systems. Both the number of available parameters and the amount of world knowledge encoded in mathematical and symbolic models will exceed the complexity of firstgeneration simulations by several orders of magnitude. This will enable students to test significantly more sophisticated hypotheses—and do so very quickly because of the computational power available on their machines—and give them near-instantaneous feedback for a variety of initial conditions and assumptions. For example, students will be able to model England's national textile productivity as a function of the size of the workforce from 1700 to 1850. They will be able to observe the effects of the introduction of the flying shuttle in 1733, the spinning jenny in 1764, and the power loom in 1785. Students will be able to "zoom in" spatially to see the structural details of a simulation. They can zoom from a factory-level view of a production simulation to a machinelevel view of the same simulation, to an intra-machine view of the mechanisms of a particular machine in the factory. Students will also be able to zoom in temporally to see the time-based details of a given simulation. They can view a textile production simulation over a span of two centuries, or they can view the same simulation over one-week period to observe more fleeting "temporally local" effects such as variances in cotton supplied to the factory.

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Social, Economic, and Ethical Challenges Like all revolutionary technologies throughout history, immersive knowledge-based learning environments will offer great promise but will be accompanied by serious social economic and ethical dilemmas. Students, parents, school systems, communities and all levels of government will experience the repercussions, both positive and negative. To a great extent, the political structures and economic conditions that hold when a technology is integrated into the education system largely determine its overall contribution to society. If information is power, then the political nature of the entities that control technology will have a profound effect on its uses and, more importantly, on its misuses. Consequently, it is crucial that educators and technologists come to grips with the social, economic, and ethical implications of these technologies. Growing pains will be inevitable. Given the irrevocable march of technology, the emergence of mentors and immersive knowledge-based learning environment technologies seems certain. The time frame in which they appear and the degree to which they are integrated into the classroom are matters for conjecture, but their technical feasibility in the coming century is almost certain. Nevertheless, whether the appearance of any given technology constitutes "progress" depends entirely on the social milieu in which it emerges. With the bi-directional causality inherent in human affairs, educational technology will control the social and economic forces shaping society; these same social and economic forces will dominate decisions about how the technologies are applied. It is difficult to predict the path that a society will follow, but it is clear that educational technology, often deemed the great equalizer, can just as easily become the great separator. Two radically different futures warrant exploration: a utopia in which communities use the technologies to empower students of all socioeconomic backgrounds in their quest for education and economic security, and a dystopia in which these potent technologies are used to preserve and even increase inequalities.

A Utopian Vision

Immersive knowledge-based learning environments may well be the holy grail that educators have long sought. The technology has the potential to offer a broad range of benefits including the cost-effective delivery of universal education, twenty-four-hour accessibility that is independent of location, and efficient, individualized educational experiences that are highly interactive. Immersive knowledge-based learning environments can educate every child in the country in a cost-effective manner. Although the initial cost of constructing the digital libraries will be immense, and developing mentor and immersive simulation technologies will be costly, this capital will be invested for two rea-

Page 123 sons. First, it will be amortized over a multitude of students and a broad range of subjects over a period of decades. The technological infrastructure required for fully functioning mentors and simulation engines need only be developed once. This technology can then be reused for mentors and simulations for different disciplines, grade levels, and learning styles. For example, the technology underlying a comical mentor for a third grader is identical to the technology responsible for a sagacious mentor belonging to a sophomore college student. Second, the investment will be shared across the education, entertainment, and communication sectors, thereby reducing the fiscal load incurred by any individual industry or agency. In short, the rapid emergence of these technologies will be such a market-driven phenomenon that investing in their development will be inevitable. As a result of the massive infusion of capital, students around the country will have access to the most advanced technology available for the proverbial "pennies a day." Just as Alexander the Great was tutored by Plato, every child, regardless of parental income, will consult a mentor who will provide him or her with personalized instruction and access to the massive body of information available in the digital libraries. The high cost of creating the content in the digital libraries will be offset by the fact that an information packet can be recycled for a multiple number of contexts without reduction in value: it is the ultimate non-depletable resource. Not only will the production and dissemination of information in the digital libraries be major—possibly the primary—sources of industry activity, the public digital libraries will constitute a national treasure. Unlike the Library of Congress, whose information use is limited at best, the digital libraries of the future will be the single most active entity in the country. Immersive knowledge-based learning environments will produce life-changing improvements in the quality of education. They have the remarkable potential to remake the education system from the ground up. Mentors will create a warm, inviting atmosphere that will draw students to education as video games of the 1990s have drawn adolescents to arcades. Mentors will communicate subject matter in a clear, exciting, and compelling manner. By combining text, graphics, animation, audio, and video, mentors and 3-D simulation engines will create a sense of immediacy that is unobtainable—and almost unimaginable—in today's classroom. A student in the twentieth century reads about U.N. diplomacy; a student in the twenty-first century lives diplomacy by visiting an immersive simulation of the Chinese embassy and conversing with a synthetic Emperor about the potential benefits of a trade agreement. In combination with tradition methods, these sophisticated visualization techniques will enable children to assimilate information much more quickly than by the traditional methods alone. Moreover, the ability to communicate readily with other students online will facilitate group dynamics never before possible (see chapter 5).

Page 124 An education should give students a solid grounding in the fundamental principles and problem-solving skills they will draw on throughout their lives. To a great extent, educational experiences should mirror those that students will encounter later in life. Just as everyday life has few disciplinary boundaries, a great education should interleave the myriad problems, information, perspectives, and interrelationships of the world around us. Immersive knowledge-based learning environments will provide exactly this capability.

The 3-D simulations immerse students in situations demanding cross-disciplinary problem solving. For example, when a student estimates the oil reserves in Kuwait, he or she must be able to combine mathematical skills with geographical, economic, and political knowledge to solve the problem. Mentors will encourage multidisciplinary thinking by providing advice that involves a broad range of disciplines and perspectives. Because society in the twenty-first century will be even more mobile than today's, mentors will be completely portable. Students will be able to interact with their mentors in virtually any location. Given the ubiquity of fiber optic cable and advances in the telecommunications industry, students will be able to "plug in" to their mentors at school, home, museums—literally anywhere. Students will have twenty-four-hour access to the entire network and their mentors will always be at the ready. At the end of the twentieth century, information is available in ever-increasing volume. However, the ability to evaluate automatically the relevance of a particular document for a given problem is severely limited. Clearly, accessing information efficiently and effectively will be the critical skill required in the "hyper-information" age. Students will acquire this skill in their everyday interactions with their mentors. Mentors will assist students in posing the most important questions helping them pursue the most promising lines of inquiry, and providing feedback at every step of the way. Because students will learn how to extract particular bits of information from digital libraries with great facility, they will be well prepared to enter the job market, which will require an intimate knowledge of the global information space. And of course, their mentors will make the transition with them from the academic world to the job. Perhaps the most significant difference between this utopian world and the one we inhabit today lies in the teacher's quality of life. Today many teachers spend excessive time on mind-numbing administrative tasks and unfulfilling duties that are better left to machines. In the twenty-first century, teachers will be able to focus on the rewarding aspects of their profession. They will lead the way by harnessing the power of these new technologies to engage students in active dialogue and creative problem solving. If they are properly trained with these technologies (see chapter 3 for a discussion of the importance of pre-service training), unfettered by administrivia, they will once again play the pivotal role in the overall learning experience.

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A Dystopian Vision These promising new technologies are unfortunately not without their dangers (see chapter 4). Along the way to a fully realized system it is possible that temporary technological inadequacies will result in a series of less-than-perfect learning environments. Although these intermediate versions lack qualities that will make the ultimate system so attractive, they are nevertheless inevitable. Mentors' performance may suffer from poor recall, resulting in students' inability to locate critical information. Mentors' performance may also suffer from poor precision, forcing students to sift through mountains of unfiltered information. While the digital libraries are initially under construction, large packets of critical information will be poorly developed or completely absent. Although students may have a tendency to assume that the libraries are comprehensive, this will not be the case. In short, a fully fleshed out library will not appear for a number of decades. At the other extreme, when digital libraries and mentors mature, students could well become "over-mentored." if mentors provide exactly the information and analysis required in a situation, students' reasoning abilities will go unexercised. Students will not be forced to consider alternate hypotheses and solutions. Consider a student learning about Pacific Rim economic diplomacy through a simulation. If a mentor served as a surrogate for the student during the entire negotiation, benefits to the student would be minimal. In short, students would fail to develop critical problem-solving skills, and their inherent creativity would go untapped. A significant danger in the desperate search for digital library content lies in the marriage of the entertainment,

communication, and education industries. The powerful influence of the entertainment industry, coupled with the public's insatiable desire for instant gratification, may well result in entertainment-oriented technologies thinly disguised as educational software. Missing from the sugar-coated experiences provided by these technologies is a solid grounding in rich problem-solving experiences and stimulating tutorial dialogue. In the worst case, such software might engender a form of cognitive passivity with no educational value whatsoever. Despite these pitfalls, by far the most disturbing vision is an Orwellian nightmare in which a small number of corporations create a highly centralized information culture. Corruption and disinformation run rampant in this world with a radically skewed distribution of wealth and power. The education system is in shambles. Drugs and violence reign. Teachers are underpaid. In many cases, schools from socially disadvantaged areas offer vastly inferior educations to private wealthy, suburban ones. It is easy to envision a divided country where the haves and have-nots are clearly separated socially, economically, and even geographically. Society itself is in jeopardy.

Page 126 The impact on education—and on society as a whole—cannot be under-estimated. As we have seen, immersive knowledge-based learning environments have the potential of narrowing the gap between the affluent and the disadvantaged; however, this technology also has the potential of expanding the gap significantly. It is not difficult to imagine a twenty-first century in which the schism between the technology-rich and the technology-poor continues to broaden. Unfortunately, it is also easy to imagine a gap that is increased by design . Disregarding moral imperatives, the technology-rich are fully aware that knowledge is power and could be used as a weapon to preserve their status in society. The technocrats are well positioned to use technology—particularly educational technology—to steer society in the directions that benefit themselves. Those in the inner circle can buy, sell, trade, and withhold information at will. Without a government that values open access and a strong national press, the technological cognoscenti will manipulate public perception on every issue that they believe affects their standing. By controlling access to information, they have the power to reinterpret (or rewrite) history, influence (or determine) the outcome of future elections, and misinform (or misdirect) the general public. Concentrating information access in the hands of the few almost always has the same effect: as demonstrated time and time again in Communist China, Stalinist Russia, and Nazi Germany, the repercussions of centralized information control can be devastating. The potential for catastrophe will be even greater in the twenty-first century because information control can be much more insidious. Mentors could easily be programmed to misdirect or mislead students as they search for information. A mentor created by a dictatorial government could direct a student away from politically sensitive information. In the worst case, mentors could be subtle purveyors of propaganda by slanting all the information they present. Even if mentors were innocuous, the content in the digital libraries they access could be invalidated. Select partitions of digital libraries could be made inaccessible to "blacklisted" students from specific socioeconomic or political groups. Most disturbing of all is the prospect of digital libraries serving up untruths or, worse yet, partial truths. Students and their parents—literally all of society—must trust the veracity of information disseminated in the schools. In the hyperinformation age, if this trust is breached, the integrity of society as a whole will be compromised.

Conclusions Much as children of today find it difficult to understand how their grandparents could have been entertained by radio dramatizations, students of the twenty-first century will find it exceptionally awkward to read books in a linear (and comparatively limited) fashion. Watching two-dimensional non-interactive videos will seem as quaint to them as watching Technicolor drive-in movies.

Page 127 The twenty-first century, however, will witness the convergence and integration of artificial intelligence, digital libraries, and immersive environments to form the most extraordinarily sophisticated educational technologies. They will give rise to a new generation of interactive learning systems that will fundamentally alter the education process. Mentors, synthetic 3-D environments, and powerful simulation engines will create highly individualized learning experiences that are almost unimaginable today. By utilizing compelling educational tools such as auto-adaptive mentors, massive, multi-perspective digital libraries, and customized, interactive simulations, students will be well prepared for full participation in the coming global society. These technologies offer the promise of an educational system in which all students develop an indefatigable passion for learning that continues throughout their lives. Because of the unparalleled potential offered by immersive knowledge-based learning environments, they call for a substantial funding commitment at the national level. Each of the enabling technologies (artificial intelligence, virtual environments, and high bandwidth telecommunications) must be nurtured and allowed to mature. Because the challenges of integrating these technologies cannot be overestimated, national policy makers should begin this effort sooner rather than later. Educational technology by itself cannot solve society's fundamental problems. It can address neither the drugs nor the violence. It can replace neither the love nor the security that the family offers. There is no panacea. Nevertheless, educational technology can significantly increase motivation, adapt to individual learning styles of students, and instill curiosity. It can offer instantaneous delivery of vast stores of information, increase comprehension and retention, provide multiple perspectives on social, economic and political issues, and facilitate cross-cultural communication. Clearly, in its fullest manifestation, educational technology can be a powerful force for radically improving not only the educational experience per se, but the way that students consider society and their role within it.

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List of Contributors Richard A. Diem University of Texas at San Antonio San Antonio, Tex. Patrick J. FitzGerald North Carolina State University Raleigh, N.C. Lynn A. Fontana George Mason University Fairfax, Va. Milton Kleg University of Colorado at Denver Denver, Colo. James C. Lester North Carolina State University

Raleigh, N.C. Peter H. Martorella North Carolina State University Raleigh, N.C. Charles S. White Boston University Boston, Mass.

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Index A African-American. See blacks Al-Mansour, K. A. T., 75 , 88 American Foreign Service Association (AFSA), 8 , 11 America Online (AOL), 6 , 9 -10, 13 , 17 -18, 21 , 51 , 95 animation, 117 , 120 , 123 artificial intelligence, 112 , 118 , 127 Aryan Nations Annual Conference, 77 Aryn race, 79 Aryan Resistance Center, 73 Aryans, 72 -73, 75 , 77 -79, 85 -86 AskERIC, 44 attitudes, 78 , 85 , 87 auto-adaptive mentors, 127

B Bahnuell, C. F., 109 Baird, R. E., 71 , 88 Barnouw, D., 84 Barron, A., 60 , 68 Beam, L. R., 77 Beginning Teacher Computer Network (BTCN), 28 beginning teachers, and telecommunications, 28 -30, 43 -45, 53 -54 Benson, L., 67 -68 bigotry, 73 -74, 80 , 84 -86, 88 blacks, 75 , 77 , 89 Boyer, B. A., 61 , 69 Brown, W., 60 , 69 bulletin boards, 73 , 84 . See also newsgroups Butler, R. G., 75 , 77 Bork,. A., 109

C Callison, D., 62 , 68 cartographic representation, 116 CD-ROM, 60 , 62 -64, 67 , 91 , 98 , 100 , 101 , 107

mastering, 63 Center for the Study of Ethnic and Racial Violence, 74 , 77 , 89 chat, 5 , 7 , 10 Chesoff, R., 74 , 89 children's literature, and portraying characters, 30 Christian Identity Church, 75 -78 Christian Patriots, 72 Christians, 72 -73, 75 -77, 80 Church of Jesus Christ Christian Aryan Nations, 75 Church of the Creator, 77 Churchill, W., 80 citizenship education, 1 -4 and technology, 106 -7 civic and social issues, 101 -2 Civitas, 95 CNN, 27 , 32 -33, 35 , 54 computer hackers, 105 computer-managed communication, 29 conspiracy theory, 77 constructivism, 1 , 29 , 32 controversial issues, 30

Cooper, A., 73 Croty, C., 65 , 68 C-SPAN, 59 Page 132

curriculum standards, 1 CU-SeeMe, 50 , 65 . See also videoconferencing Cyberspace Minutemen, 73 , 86

D Darlin, D., 63 , 68 Dawson, T., 109 desktop videoconferencing. See videoconferencing DeVito, J. A., 89 digital library, 112 -13, 118 -19, 122 -27 Diplomats on Line (DOL), 4 , 8 -21, 23 -24 Discovery Channel, The, 59 discussion groups, 73 , 76 -78, 84 , 86 distance education, 27 , 29 and problems, 39 distance learning. See distance education drill and practice, 98

Dutch State Forensic Science Laboratory, 83 dystopian vision, 125

E electronic academic village, 28 Electronic Emissary Project, 41 electronic fieldtrip, 58 -59 electronic mail, 7 , 13 , 17 , 19 , 22 , 77 , 78 e-mail. See electronic mail emotion simulation, 119 Euro-Canadian Alliance, 86 evaluation, 99

F facsimile (fax), 72 , 89 Federal Communications Commission (FCC), 73 Federal Reserve System, 75 fiber optic cable, 119 , 124 field studies, virtual, 31 file transfer protocol (FTP), 46 -47 Firestone, C. M., 69 foreign service officer, 8 , 14 , 16 -17 Frank, A., 83 -84

Franklin, B., 88 FrEDMail, 41 , 49

G Gardner, H. 59 , 68 Gates, W., 68 Gay, G., 74 , 89 genocide, 84 -85 George, J., 87 -89 Germany, 78 , 80 , 86 Germany Watch, 86 Global Schoolhouse, 49 -50, 64 Global SchoolNet Foundation, 41 gophers, 43 -46 graffiti, 71 -72

H Hadley, M., 110 Halpren, T., 90 Harington, H. L., 109 Hartoonian, H. M., 68 hate, 71 -75, 77 , 80 , 83 -89 hate crimes, 86

hate groups, 72 , 74 -75, 85 -86, 88 anti-black, 77 , 80 antihomosexual, 77 , 80 anti-Mexican, 72 anti-semitism, 71 , 78 -79, 80 , 84 hate literature, 71 -72, 77 , 85 hate messages, 71 -72, 83 -84, 88 History Channel, The, 59 History Day, 11 , 16 , 19 Hitler, A., 78 , 80 homosexuals, 78 human rights, 79 Hunt, M. P., 81 , 89 HyperCard, 101 hyper-information age, 118 , 124 hypermedia documents, 119 -20

I Identity Church movement. See Christian Identity Church immersive environments, 121 , 127 information, 5 -7, 23 information filter, 118

information-processing skills, 54 information revolution, 92 information superhighway, 5 -6 inquiry, 31 -32, 54 instructional paradigms, 108 interactivity, and learning systems, 127 and multimedia, 114 , 116 -17 and simulations, 127 Internet, 64 , 73 -74, 78 , 84 -86, 95 , 105 Israel Identity Christian. See Christian Identity Church

J Janzen, P., 89 Japanese, 77 , 87 Jefferson, T., 106 Jeram, p., 61 , 68 Jews, 71 , 73 , 75 -79, 82 -85

K King, M., 109 Klanwatch, 72 , 74 , 77 , 89 Kleg, M., 71 , 75 , 78 -79, 107

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Kleim, M. J., 78 , 80 , 83 knowledge-based learning environments, 112 , 122 -24, 126 Ku Klux Klan, 75 -78, 80 , 86 Knights, 80 Kurshan, B., 109

L laserdisc. See videodiscs Laughlin, M. A., 68 learning environments, 107 -8 Linkway, 101 listservers, 28 , 33 education related, 42 subscribing to, 41 -42 Lowry, A., 74 , 89

M Martorella, P. H., 74 -75, 89 Marx, S., 66 , 68 Mass LearnNet, 64 -65 Mass LearnPike, 60 Matthews, M., 75 , 89

McAlister, K., 69 McLemore, S. D., 89 McVay, K., 84 Means, B., 91 , 109 Mecklenburger, J. A., 60 , 68 , 93 , 109 mentor, 113 , 115 -21, 123 -27 Metcalf, L. R., 81 , 89 Metzger, T., 72 , 77 , 79 , 80 Mexicans, 71 -73, 77 Microsoft Network (MSN), 50 middle school, 72 , 78 militias, 86 Minnesota Educational Computing Consortium, 100 Mosby's Rangers, 71 Muhammad, K. A., 75 , 89 multiculturalism, 88 multimedia, 60 -61, 118 interactivity, 61 -62, 64 -65, 67 , 114 presentation, 117

N Naisbitt, J., 21

National Council for the Social Studies (NCSS), 41 , 94 , 109 NCSS-L listserver, 41 -43 National Register of Historic Places, 32 , 34 National Socialism, 78 , 80 , 86 National Trust for Historic Preservation, 32 Nation of Islam, 80 Native Americans, 77 Nazi Germany, 78 , 80 Nazi Odinist, 76 Nazis, 72 , 75 -80, 86 , 89 , 90 Negroponte, N., 94 , 98 , 109 Netherlands State Institute for War Documentation, 83 -84 Netscape, 65 -66 Neuman, W. R., 61 , 69 newsgroups, 41 , 43 alt.discrimination, 73 alt.skinheads, 73 , 78 alt.revisionism, 73 , 76 , 84 alt.religion.Christian, 76 alt.politics.nationalism.white, 84 alt.politics.correct, 73

alt.christnet.theology, 76 . See also discussion groups

O Office of Technology Assessment, 91 , 92 , 94 , 110 on-line learning communities, 1 , 3 -5, 7 , 9 , 20 -22, 24 on-line services, 50 -53 Oregon Trail, 100

P paperless society, 120 Pawloski, 64 , 69 penpals, 30 , 52 Percell, J., 90 perspective-based indexing, 120 -21 Poole, M., 67 , 68 Posse Comitatus, 75 -76 Peters, P., 76 Postman, N., 97 , 109 Practical Guide to Defeating the Radical Right, 86 prejudice, 73 , 84 , 87 , 89 -90. See also bigotry Preservice Teachers Online (PresTO), 46

primary sources, 31 , 39 problem solving, 99 Prodigy, 73 public access television, 77

Q QuickTime, 60 QuickTime Conference, 65

R race, 72 , 74 -79, 82 , 87 race mixing, 82 racists, 73 -77, 80 -82, 84 , 86 -87, 89 Recanati, T., 90 religion, 73 -76 revisionism, 73 , 75 -76, 79 , 83 -84 Rheingold, H., 1 , 4 -5 Rice, M. J., 74 , 89 Rivera, J. C., 66 , 69 Robb, T., 80 Page 134

Roosevelt, F. D., 80 Rothkopf, E. Z., 81 , 89

Rummel, R. J., 85

S Satan, 75 , 82 -83 Sattler, M., 65 , 69 Savage, R., 76 -77, 80 , 87 -88 Schmuck, P. A., 87 , 89 Schmuck, R. A., 87 , 89 Scholastic Network, 50 -53 Selznick, G. J., 90 Semrau, P., 61 , 69 Seraw, M., 79 SHARPs, 82 Sheingold, K., 110 Shevits, R., 90 Simon Wisenthal Center, 73 simulation engine, 114 , 121 , 127 simulations, 99 , 118 Singh, S. K., 66 , 69 Skinheads, 73 , 75 -79, 82 -84, 86 Snider, R. C., 91 , 110 social and civic responsibility, 105 -6

Social Education, 74 social studies, 1 , 2 , 4 , 6 , 7 -8, 14 -17, 22 , 24 social studies curriculum standards, 94 Stearns, P. H., 64 , 69 Steinberg, S., 90 Stoner, J. B., 77 Suall, I., 90 synthetic 3 -D environments, 127 synthetic world, 121

T Teacher Education Information Server (TEIS), 44 -46 TeacherLINK, 28 TeacherNet, 28 teachers, preservice. See beginning teachers Teaching with Historic Places (TWHP), 32 , 39 , 54 technology, 97 telecommunications, 27 , 54 , 68 , 71 -73, 75 -76, 78 , 80 , 84 -85, 88 in methods courses, 138-39 Telecommunications Act, 1996, 104 -5 television, 57 -58

cable, 58 -59 TENET, 64 -65 three dimensional, animated characters, 111 , 115 environments, 127 map, 117 projection, 111 , 113 simulations, 112 , 123 -24 visualization, 115 Tom Snyder Productions, 100 two-dimensional display panels, 111

U Una Chapman Cox Foundation, 8 United States Census Bureau, 96 University Online, 221 USENET, 43 utopian vision, 122

V vandalism, 72 , 78 Van der Strom, O., 84 Varnadoe, S., 60 , 68 VaSPAN, 65

videodiscs, 58 -62, 67 , 91 mastering, 62 videoconferencing, 49 -50, 64 two-way, 64 video games, 123 virtual artifact, 112 violence, 73 -74, 77 -78, 81 , 88 -89 visualization technologies, 123 Vockell, E. L., 60 , 69

W Wall Street Journal, 81 -82 Washington, G., 87 Watson, B., 59 , 69 Where in the World is Carmen San Diego? . 101 White Aryan Resistance, 72 , 77 -78 white pride, 77 -78 white supremacists, 72 , 74 -76, 80 , 86 Wilcox, L., 88 -89 World Manipulators, 79 -80 World Wide Web (WWW), 49 , 55 , 65 , 86

Y

Yeaman, A. R. J., 110 YGGDRASILL, 80 -81

Z Zionist Occupation Government (ZOG), 75 , 79