Phase I of a National School Network Testbed will test the feasibility of a model for elementary and secondary school participation in internetworking. This model makes available current scientific resources, engages students and teachers in authentic problem-solving, supports teachers in classroom innovation, and supports the implementation of advances in pedagogy and educational technology. The Phase I Testbed brings together a number of projects that have already begun to use networking, from simple email applications to distributed databases and multi-user simulations. BBN-developed technology will provide a uniform infrastructure for this range of applications. Collaborating institutions will supply support, training, and study of usage. The testbed research addresses the trade-off between the educational value and cost of the technology. Can the technology bring educational benefits sufficient to attract large scale investment by local, state, and federal agencies, as well as industry? Can it be implemented in a robust, supportable form with low entry-level costs? The K-12 server and BBN/MacEMail software supply file, electronic mail, database, news/bulletin board, and other communications-based services to classroom desktop computers. The server can operate at a national, regional, district or within-school level. School computers connect over local and wide area networks using TCP/IP, the standard protocol for the Internet, instead of the currently common asynchronous terminal connections to a host computer. A key component of the project involves the design and development of standard mechanisms that allow educational software programs to take advantage of email, database, and other services on the network server by invisibly establishing the underlying connection between the desktop computer and the server.
