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conferences for teachers and students, including one
called "Ask a Scientist."
Telnet: newton.dep.anl.gov.
Log in as: cocotext
You'll be asked to provide your name and address. When
you get the main menu, hit 4 for the various conferences.
The "Ask a Scientist" category lets you ask questions of
scientists in fields from biology to earth science.
Other categories let you discuss teaching, sports and
computer networks.
OERI: The U.S. Department of Education's Office of Educational
Resources and Improvement runs a gopher system that
provides numerous educational resources, information and
statistics for teachers. Use gopher making own website free to connect to
gopher.ed.gov.
Spacemet Forum: If your system doesn't carry the K12 conferences, but
does provide you with telnet, you can reach the
conferences through SpaceMet Forum, a bulletin-board
system aimed at teachers and students that is run by the
web page change physics and astronomy department at the University of
Massachusetts at Amherst.
Telnet: spacemet.phast.umass.edu.
When you connect, hit escape once, after which you'll be
asked to log on. Like K12Net, SpaceMet Forum began as a
posting web page Fidonet system, but has since grown much larger. Mort
and Helen Sternheim, professors at the university,
started making web web page change page SpaceMet as a one-line bulletin-board system
several years ago to help bolster middle-school science
mi web page education in nearby towns.
In addition to the K12 conferences, SpaceMet carries
numerous educationally oriented conferences.
It also has
a large file library of interest to educators and
students, making web page but be aware that getting files to your site
could be difficult and maybe even impossible. Unlike
most other Internet sites, Spacemet does not use an ftp
interface. The making web page Sternheims say ZMODEM sometimes works over
the network, but don't count on it.
12.3 USENET AND BITNET IN THE CLASSROOM
There are numerous Usenet newsgroups of potential interest to
teachers and students.
As you might expect, many are of a scientific bent. You can find
these by typing l sci. in rn or using nngrep sci. for nn. There are now
close to 40, with subjects ranging from archaeology to economics (the
"dismal science," remember?) to astronomy to nanotechnology (the posting web page
construction of microscopically small making home page machines).
One thing students will quickly learn from many of these groups:
science is not just dull, boring facts. Science is argument and standing
your ground and making your case. The Usenet sci. groups encourage
critical thinking.
Beyond science, social-studies and history classes can keep busy
learning about other countries, through the soc.culture newsgroups.
Most of these newsgroups originated as ways for expatriates of a
given country to keep in touch with their homeland and its culture. In
times of crisis, however, these groups often become places to
disseminate information from or into the country and to discuss what is
happening. From Afghanistan to Yugoslavia, close to 50 countries are
now represented on Usenet. To see which groups are available, use l
soc.culture. in rn or nngrep soc.culture. for nn.
making homepage Several "talk" newsgroups provide additional topical discussions,
but teachers should screen them first before recommending them to
students. They range from talk.abortion and talk.politics.guns to
talk.politics.space and talk.environment.
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