BRINGING THE INTERNET TO NORTHERN NEW MEXICO:

BRINGING THE INTERNET TO NORTHERN NEW MEXICO:
A COOPERATIVE EFFORT(1)

Dr. Wayne C. Summers and Curtis Sollohub
Computer Science Department
New Mexico Highlands University
Las Vegas, New Mexico 87701
E-mail: summers_wayne@ColumbusState.edu ; csollohub@nmhu.edu
WWW document: http://csc.ColumbusState.edu/summers/bringing.htm

This work was funded by the Minority University Research and Education Division of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA). Grant Number: NGT90070. (1)

"It takes a village to raise a child."(2)

"It takes a community to bring the Internet to a school"(3) This is certainly been true for bringing the Internet to schools in Northern New Mexico. During the past two years, two High Schools, three Middle Schools, ten Elementary Schools, the United World College, and the Public Library in Las Vegas, New Mexico have been connected to the Internet. This paper discusses what it takes to get a community networked to the Internet. Emphasis is placed on describing how the Netday model was used in successfully completely wiring many of the schools in Las Vegas, NM.

BACKGROUND
Northeastern New Mexico is a rural, relatively poor, and predominantly Hispanic community. It is the type of place that would most benefit from the Internet. A relatively small percentage of the graduates go on to university. One of the challenges for poor rural communities is how to provide the children of the community with the type of education necessary to succeed in a technological society while keeping them in local school systems that cannot afford the latest equipment and do not have immediate access to research facilities and large libraries or to the people who work exploring new technologies. This paper is about a rural community's efforts to improve the education for its children and provide them with this access through the Internet.

In 1992 the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) and New Mexico Highlands University (NMHU) teamed together to form a regional network of schools linked via a bulletin board system (bbs) to the engineering faculty at NMHU. The goals were to develop ways of educating Hispanic and other students with weak math and science backgrounds and to produce more minority-engineering graduates (for detailed information see http://outreach.nmhu.edu/outreach/nasagr1.htm).

At the end of 1994, Dr. Bill Taylor, Associate Professor of Engineering at NMHU, proposed the creation of a network consisting of the two high schools and two middle schools, the United World College and the public library linked via frame-relay and 56K network connections to the university. Through NASA funding enough computers and related equipment were leased to provide each school with at least one Internet capable system. Expertise and training was also provided to allow the schools to expand on this basic system. This network has now been in place for over two years and has proved to be very successful.

With the continuation of the NASA grant in 1997, the focus has shifted to include the eight elementary schools in Las Vegas. Using the Netday paradigm, a single connection to the Internet in a school is being expanded to all of the classrooms and labs in each school (for more information, see http://csc.ColumbusState.edu/summers/netday.htm).

NETDAYS AND COMMUNITY INVOLVEMENT

The Netday concept originated with Netday 96(see http://www.netday.org) in California in 1996 and has spread across the United States. The first school to experience a Netday in Las Vegas was Memorial Middle School on December 7, 1996. Legion Park Elementary School on March 8, 1997, West Las Vegas Middle School on April 12th and three other elementary schools followed this on April 19^th and one more elementary school on May 10^th. Two additional elementary schools are conducting Netdays this Fall. Both high schools are scheduled for Netdays early next Spring along with at least one more elementary school. The main emphasis of Netday is to include significant community involvement. This has certainly been the case in Las Vegas. Each of the Netdays required the cooperation of two school districts, New Mexico Highlands University, the local business community, hardware vendors, volunteers from the state Netday committee, federal agencies and most importantly parents, teachers and community volunteers.

The Netdays in Las Vegas included installation of Category-5 twisted-pair cable to every classroom, lab and office in the schools. At the completion of Netday, every teacher in the school should be able to bring a computer into any classroom, lab or library and connect it to the Internet. The success of such an ambitious project required a tremendous amount of cooperation and community involvement. Coordinating a Netday for a school required a core group of coordinators. Each Netday required a School or Site Coordinator, a Design Coordinator, an Installation Coordinator as well as many other volunteers.

The Site Coordinator was typically one of the schoolteachers selected by the school principal. The Site Coordinator's responsibilities included providing oversight for the project, acting as liaison with the other coordinators, keep everyone informed on the progress leading up to the Netday. The Site Coordinator is also responsible for selecting colleagues to act as Food Coordinators and Registration Coordinators.

The Design Coordinator was typically a student from a Computer Networks class at New Mexico Highlands University. The instructor of the course supervised the Design Coordinator's work. The duties of the Design Coordinator include:

conducting a needs assessment
preparing a simple layout for the school's local area network
developing a detailed wiring diagram based on the needs assessment and the school building information
working with the Site Coordinator and the School District Equipment Coordinator to prepare a complete list of materials and equipment needed for the installation
working with the Installation Coordinator to develop the tasks that need to be performed
be available on Netday to help with the installation

The Installation Coordinator was generally a community member with construction experience or prior experience with an earlier Netday. Installation Coordinators included local electricians, teachers from other Netdays and faculty from NMHU. Their responsibilities included:

reviewing the LAN design with the Design Coordinator
determining the cable run locations
organizing the crews and meeting with the crew chiefs to go over their duties on Netday
working with the Site Coordinator to ensure that adequate tools are available for Netday

The Site Coordinators were very successful in getting support from the parents and teachers. Letters were distributed to the parents who were very eager to help network their children's' schools. Approximately one hundred parents, teachers and community members participated at each of the Netdays. The local businesses were also very supportive. Several local businesses donated gloves and flashlights for the workers while others donated money or food.

Another important person who helped insured the success of the Netdays in Las Vegas was Max Baca, the Network Manager for New Mexico Highlands University. Mr. Baca did a detailed review of all of the wiring diagrams. He also assisted at the Netdays as the chief consultant and troubleshooter.

The Netdays also provided an excellent opportunity for training the students of the Computer Networks class at NMHU in network installation. Besides their duties as Design Coordinators, all of the students volunteered their time in helping prepare the schools for Netday and then volunteering to return to the school afterwards to complete any tasks left undone. This on-the-job training for the students will be invaluable for them in the future. It is highly unusual for students to have such a wonderful opportunity to get hands-on experience.

TRAINING

The next phase in bringing the Internet to Northern New Mexico must be training. In August 1996, approximately twenty High School and Middle School teachers completed three short courses on using the Internet in the classroom. This included developing HTML pages for their respective schools. This past December and January, teachers from each high school, middle school and elementary school were selected to attend several brief courses on network management. This will allow each school to install and maintain their own e-mail and web servers. This training continued this past August along with more training on using the Internet in the classroom. It is really exciting to see how enthusiastic the teachers are in using the Internet. The hope is that this enthusiasm will carry over to their students as well. The next phase of training will involve the trained teachers conducting peer-training sessions. We are also in the process of setting up a discussion group for use by the participants of the various workshops. The two school districts have also promoted a teacher to the position of Technology Coordinator. These teachers will now play a major role in continuing the training as well as other duties.

EQUIPMENT

The final phase will be to provide additional computer facilities in the schools. Most of the schools have only a few computers suitable for connecting to the Internet. Las Vegas is a poor community with limited funding from the State of New Mexico. The hope is that a cadre of teachers will develop from the two school districts that will be highly motivated in writing grant proposals to federal and state agencies as well as the private sector. Both school districts have started to solicit funds through a variety of granting agencies and are beginning to receive additional funding for the purchase of equipment. This may be the only way for the schools to expand on their limited computing resources.

CONCLUSION

Bringing the Internet to Northern New Mexico and the two school districts in Las Vegas has been a long and arduous journey. It began five years with a grant from NASA and has continued with the financial support of NASA. But it has taken the cooperation of the entire community. Support has ranged from the superintendents of the school districts to the teachers and staff of the individual schools. The faculty, staff and students of New Mexico Highlands University have provided a lot of support. But equally important has been the overwhelming support from the parents of the school children and the local businesses. It has taken the whole community to bring the Internet to Las Vegas, NM.

ENDNOTES

1. This work was funded by the Minority University Research and Education Division of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA). Grant Number: NGT90070
2. Clinton, Hillary Rodham/ Osborne, Claire G. (Edt)/ Osborne, Claire G. The Unique Voice of Hillary Rodham Clinton : A Portrait in Her Own Words, Avon Books, 1997
3. Gonzales, Art - Principal of Legion Park Elementary School, Las Vegas, NM - in a conversation on NetDay '97, Mar. 8, 1997.

REFERENCES

NASA/NMHU Educational Outreach Network, http://outreach.nmhu.edu/, August 28, 1997.
NetDay 2000 Website, http://www.netday96.com/, April 4, 1997.
Netday, Las Vegas, NM, http://csc.ColumbusState.edu/summers/netday.htm, August 28, 1997.
Network New Mexico, http://www.networknm.com/, April 4, 1997.
Sollohub, Curtis and Wayne Summers, "BRINGING THE INTERNET TO NORTHERN NEW MEXICO: Introduction of the Internet to a Rural, Minority Community," Proceedings of TelEd '96, 1996.