Microsoft K-12 Technology Connection

May 1997

1. Connected Learning Community
•	Fundraising at a Florida Elementary School
•	Learning Anytime, Anywhere

2. Internet 
•	Lee Country School District Installs Microsoft Proxy Server
•	Tips: Placing a Mail Server Behind a Proxy Server, and More!
•	Troubleshooting: Proxy and RAS Auto Dial 

3. Networking
•	Connecting to Windows NT
•	Tips: Adding Manage NetWare Servers to a Win NT Domain
•	Troubleshooting: Windows NT Server v. 3.51 and 4.0

4. On Your Desktop
•	Technology on a Shoestring at a Rural Vo-Tech High School
•	Tips: Working on the Desktop
•	Troubleshooting: Windows 95

5. Classroom Corner
•	First Graders Go Birding
•	Untangling the Web of Online Resources
•	Teacher Curriculum Resources and School Management Solutions

6. Q&A

7. Products and Promotions
•	Products Features in This Issue
•	New Products, Betas, and Recent Releases
•	National Education Computing Conference
•	National NetDay Initiatives
•	Authorized Academic Training Program

1. Connected Learning Community
Fundraising at a Florida Elementary School

By Maureen O’Neill

At Greynolds Park Elementary School, the combination of a dedicated PTA and a full-time grant writer has been unbeatable. In the past year and a half, the school has raised approximately $434,000 and achieved its goal of integrating technology into every classroom.

When David Multz was appointed principal of Greynolds Park Elementary in 1992, he found two PCs, 35 Apple IIes, and six typewriters. The only machines actually working, however, were the typewriters. The Macs and PCs were gathering dust for reasons familiar to many schools: no one knew how to set up the hardware and software, and no one had time to learn. 

Greynolds Park, a public school located in Miami, had already been operating over capacity for years. Built in 1957 to accommodate 457 students, the population in 1992 was 825 and rose to 1,404 at the start of the 19961997 school year. Most of the students are from working-class families, many newly arrived in the United States.

Convinced that technology could improve education and ease the student/teacher ratio in severely overcrowded classrooms, Multz turned to the PTA. “I had an idea I wanted to bounce off of them, and that was to network a grade level, putting five computers and a printer in each classroom and a file server in one classroom.” After some research, Multz found that IBM could offer complete hardware, software, and network installation as well as training and follow-upall for $35,000.  The PTA backed him fully and committed an entire year’s proceeds to the project. The only hitch: they’d never raised $35,000 in a single year. So Multz worked out a five-year lease-purchase agreement with IBM, and the problem was solved.

Multz selected the second grade to network first because one of the second-grade teachers was computer literate and wanted to work with kids and computers. The school bought the computer furniture, and by November the system was completely installed. Recognizing that teacher involvement was the key to integrating computers into the classroom, Multz did not allow children to touch the machines until the teachers were trained. Multz brought in substitutes, and all the second-grade teachers went to a four-day training at IBM headquarters, returning with an enthusiasm that was contagious. 

Within weeks, many of the other teachers were eager to follow suit. Multz responded to their interest by approaching the region superintendent, who agreed to give $40,000 to Greynolds Park to network another grade level. “By year two, I have the second and third grade on board, and parents are starting to bug me [to network the rest of the school].”

At that time, Greynolds Park had just begun the process of moving away from the “stand and lecture” classroom model to one in which the teacher is a facilitator, guiding the students in self-directed learning activities. A variety of learning modes, including independent and cooperative learning, small-group activities, and field-site visits were incorporated into the daily routine. Computers were an integral part of this vision, but after networking two grade levels, Multz realized that providing on-site technical support and ongoing training for his teachers was just as important as installing additional hardware.

Having exhausted his inside funding sources, Multz asked a few of his teachers to write grants and hired substitutes so they would be free of teaching responsibilities. For two years, however, they were unsuccessful. “Couldn’t get a grant if I stood on my head,” recalls Multz. It was then he decided to put out the word that Greynolds Park was looking for a grant writer.
Taking the Plunge
In Florida, funds to hire teachers are allocated according to district guidelines for the number of students per class. Because Greynolds Park lacks the physical space to actually place the number of teachers allocated to it, the funds to pay for those teachers can be used for hiring additional staffincluding teachers on special assignmentor for purchasing equipment and materials.  In 1994, Multz dedicated a portion of his discretionary funds to hiring an on-site technology coordinator. In 1995, fully aware that grant writing is a specialized skill and cannot be “sandwiched in” while attempting to teach, Multz  used the same funds to hire Joan Kuperstein as a full-time grant writer and curriculum specialist.

“Finding the right person is the key to unlocking the door to obtaining funds,” says Multz. “Joan Kuperstein is particularly well suited for the position. She has the technical expertise, the experience, and the personality to make things happen.” Kuperstein, a sixth-grade teacher, came with a track record guaranteed to reassure any potential employer: she had already successfully written grants that totaled over a million dollars and in the past year and a half, has raised $438,000 for Greynolds Park (see table below). 

When asked why he believes Kuperstein has been so successful, Multz describes not only her writing talent, but also her ability to work with teachers. “The fact that she was a teacher gave her the experience to relate to other teachers.” According to Multz, Kuperstein came in with the attitude “I’m not here to teach you how to teach. You already do that quite well. I’m going to write grants and put money in the school’s pockets to buy the products you need and want.”

Once funds were received, Kuperstein’s first step was to create a staff development program. As a teacher, Kuperstein recalled that she dreaded being out of her class for five days. “You pay the price before you go, preparing five days of classroom activities, and you really pay upon your return, when chaos reigns and you try to put things back together.” Therefore, she let the teachers make their own decision: they could attend a five-day training during the school year or during the summer (receiving the money that would have been used to pay substitutes). A resounding yes for summer training resulted in relaxed and motivated teachers who brought their excitement into the classroom the following fall. 

Curriculum Development and Grant Writing: What’s the Connection?
Curriculum development is closely tied to grant writing for an obvious reason: people who give out money want to know how it’s going to be used. For example, Kuperstein won a grant for $20,000 that allowed the school to buy laptops for an experiential education program. In addition to writing the grant, Kuperstein developed a curriculum that focused on sea turtles and dune restoration.  Building on the small- group method already widely used at Greynolds Park, Kuperstein recently introduced a new learning model called “Project CHILD,” created by Dr. Sally Butzin at Florida State University. 

According to Kuperstein, a good grant writer needs to be able to work within the grant’s parameters to meet the needs of her school or district. For example, if a donor wants to promote programs that have an impact on families, Kuperstein might develop an after-school program, a Saturday program, or an adult education class for parents. “I stay away from some grants because they can’t address the school's needs.”

When asked why she’s so good at what she does, Kuperstein keeps it short and sweet: “I really believe in reform. I come from the heart. I like to write.” Here’s her advice to anyone writing grants for education:
 
•	Find grant providers that share your vision.
•	Focus on a creative solution to a current need. Don’t focus on the need itself. For example, a hardware acquisition needs to be tied to a specific goal, whether educational or social.
•	Before you sit down to write, gather all the information you’ll need.
•	Go for the maximum amount of money.
•	Use the Internet to do your research.
Improving Education Is a Team Effort
Currently, every grade level at Greynolds Park is networked with Novell NetWare and Microsoft Windows 95. The PTA continues to raise enough money to pay for maintenance and annual upgrades to the installed base of 150 486s. Selecting Kuperstein, says Multz,  “has paid tremendous dividends in all areas of our school program. She is deeply committed to education reform through technology and staff development, and works with an effervescent zeal and passion to make it happen for children.” 

Like most successful ventures, wiring Greynolds Park was a team effort. “The fundraising efforts by our incredible PTA, and contribution and support by our business and community partners have been outstanding,” adds Multz. Clearly Multz himself also deserves a lot of credit for catalyzing the energy of an entire community toward improving the education of its children.

Reducing the student-teacher ratio is an important benefit of technology, but even more important, says Multz, is the fact that “our children are getting a fair shake at tomorrow’s job market. Even though none of us can predict tomorrow, these children of working-class parents will be totally computer literate when they leave Greynolds Park. They’ll know Web pages, spreadsheets, databases, word processing, and publishing. That’s a definite asset to any child.”

Grants Received During the 199596 School Year
•	Instructional Technology Grant 		$117,000.00
•	Library Power Grant 				$  30,000.00
•	Citi-Bank Mini Grant 				$       500.00
•	Business Partnership Challenge Grant 		$  20,000.00
       						$167,000.00

Grants Pending During the 19961997 School Year*
•	Reader’s Digest 				  $10,000.00
•	H.E.A.R.T. Community Partnership 		  $50,000.00
•	Challenge Grant 				  $20,000.00
						  $80,000.00

*Two additional grants are currently being developed. 

Grants Received During the 19961997 School Year 
Mini grants 				                $  2,000.00
Wide area network project 		                $25,000.00
					                $27,000.00

Major Partnerships Established by Joan Kuperstein during the 19951997 School Years
•	Silver Burdett Gin 
Materials
Staff development

•	The Net Digital Services	
Consulting services
Hardware
Web site development support
Web site maintenance
Connectivity
School interaction with parents 
Via online system (under construction)
						  $160,000.00 (combined total)

Resources mentioned in this article:

•	Greynolds Park Elementary School: http://www.thenet.net/~gpes/
•	Project CHILD:  http://www.ifsi.org/
•	Silver Burdett Ginn:  http://www.sselem.com/
•	The Net Digital Services:  http://www.thenet.net

About the author: Maureen O’Neill is the editor of the Microsoft K12 Technology Connection.

 1997. Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.
Learning Anytime, Anywhere

Fifty-two schools implement laptop learning programs with support from Microsoft and Toshiba 

When Jacobo—a student at Mott Hall, a public middle school in New York City’s Harlem—entered the fifth grade, he wasn’t interested in school, didn’t want to do his homework, and wouldn’t work collaboratively with his fellow students. According to his teacher, Janice Gordon, he just “did not want to be here.” 

Then Jacobo got a laptop computer to use as his personal learning tool, and his attitude toward school and his classmates was transformed. Now, Gordon says, Jacobo does all of his homework and classwork, loves working in groups, and goes out of his way to be helpful to other students. Gordon credits Mott Hall’s innovative approach to increasing access to technology, providing students with laptop computers 100 percent of the time, as the source of Jacobo’s newfound interest in school.

“When we had the opportunity to have a laptop program, Jacobo promised that he would get his act together, and he really has,” Gordon says. “He is a success story.” 

With support from Microsoft Corporation and Toshiba, students at Jacobo’s school and 51 other public and private schools nationwide use laptop computers to learn “anytime, anywhere.” Ten thousand teachers and students in grades 4–12  have access to laptops 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, using them as personal learning tools anytime they need to, anywhere they may be. 

While there are different models for this program throughout the country, the teachers are reporting similar educational benefits. Students are no longer settling for “good enough” on their class projects. They ask each other for feedback and strive to improve each version of their work. Students are developing their critical thinking skills, teachers are taking on the role of learning coach, and parents are playing a more active role in their children’s education. In addition, access to a laptop computer and productivity software is helping prepare these students for the work force. 

Through Microsoft’s support for this “anytime, anywhere learning” concept, these schools—from New York City to Washington state—receive information and assistance as they implement their laptop pilot programs during the 1996–97 school year. The students and teachers use their Microsoft® Windows®-based Toshiba notebooks as a basic “learner’s tool kit,” loaded with Microsoft Office Professional and a modem for connecting to the Internet. 

 “These teachers and students are doing incredibly creative and innovative projects using laptops as learning tools,” comments Elizabeth King, general manager of Microsoft’s Education Customer Unit. “Microsoft is helping educators to make informed decisions about implementing anytime, anywhere programs by documenting best teaching practices and helping schools share information.”

Anytime, anywhere learning supports Microsoft’s overall vision for technology in education: the Connected Learning Community, an educational environment in which all students have access to the world’s information through personal computers, and students, educators, parents and the extended community are connected to one another.

With access to a computer 100 percent of the time, students can take advantage of what educators refer to as the “teachable moment.” This means that when the student is ready to learn, a key point in the instructional process, the computer and access to vast information resources are available. For example, students from Forest Ridge School of the Sacred Heart, a private girls’ school in Bellevue, Washington, that has a laptop learning program, recently visited the Seattle Art Museum. When they wanted to know more about a painting, they used their laptops’ wireless modems to access an Internet Web site and conducted their research on the spot.

“Having access to a computer at the teachable moment is an effective way to integrate technology into teaching and learning for children,” says Ronald J. Areglado, associate executive director of programs, National Association of Elementary School Principals. “Instant access to whatever information they need, whenever they want it helps students develop a new enthusiasm and motivation for learning.”
Microsoft and Toshiba Provide Ideas and Models
With a resource book and Web site, Microsoft provided schools with ideas, best practices, strategies, models, and case studies as well as connections to potential solutions for hardware, financing, insurance, and training. Microsoft and Toshiba also are funding a two-year independent evaluation. This study will measure the impact that the use of full-featured laptops on a one-to-one ratio has on teaching and learning. 

There is no one model or blueprint for implementation. Each school system developed an implementation model that worked best for its community. For example, New York’s Community District 6 limited its program to one fifth-grade classroom, other school systems involved several classrooms, and at Cincinnati Country Day School, a private K–12 school in Ohio, all 600 students in grades 5–12 turned on their laptops on the same day. Regardless of the size of their program, the participating schools report they see similar effects on student learning. The students are developing higher-order thinking skills, learning to summarize, and using the tools of business.

“A full-featured laptop loaded with the software that students will use in their worklife is the ideal solution to mobile computing in education,” notes Tom Scott, vice president and general manager of the Computer Systems Division of Toshiba American Information Systems. “We are pleased to work with these schools to develop hardware, financing, and insurance solutions that enable them to provide their students with this important personal learning tool.”

The support from Microsoft and Toshiba helped some school systems rethink their approach to technology and others to implement ideas they had been considering. As Anthony Amato, superintendent of Community District 6, describes, “Our original technology plan was for computer labs where students would have scheduled classes 45 minutes each week, maybe every two weeks. That meant nothing to the children in terms of what computers are used for in the real world. With this program, they have a computer 100 percent of the time. The power that gives them is incredible.”

Cincinnati Country Day School has a long history of technology integration that has evolved from computer labs to PCs in the classroom and now to laptop computers. “The help from Microsoft came along at just the right time,” says Joe Hofmeister, director of technology. “We did our homework and decided that laptops were right for our students; we just weren’t sure what the next steps would be. The information from Microsoft and Toshiba helped us develop our strategy.”
Funding Models Include Parent, School, Community, and Grant Support
Both public and private schools fund their laptop programs through a variety of sources including reallocation of school budgets, parent participation, corporate/community sponsorships, and government grants. Kathy Klock, executive director of curriculum, instruction and assessment at Snohomish School District in rural Washington state, calls the laptops the “great equalizer” in the district’s schools.  Snohomish schools use a mix of community donations, private and state grant funding, and parent support to help fund the students’ personal learning tools. 

In New York City’s Community District 6, where more than 90 percent of the students live below the poverty line, parents share the leasing costs for the laptops with the school district. Superintendent Amato plans on growing the program from this year’s pilot of 26 students in one classroom to 1,000 students at the start of the 1997–98 school year and another 1,000 in January 1998. Recent permission to use U.S. Department of Education Title I funds to pay the school district’s share of the laptop leases will help Amato with this ambitious expansion.

 In response to an invitation from the county school district’s superintendent, a group of community volunteers in Beaufort County, S.C.—less than half with children in the schools—formed a community foundation, the Beaufort County SchoolBook Foundation, to help offset the costs of putting laptops in the hands of the students. “Portability allows students to introduce technology into their homes where it might not otherwise be accessible,” says Jane Jude, foundation president. “This program helps to close the gap between the technology haves and have-nots. The laptop benefits both the students and their families.” Laptop leases for students who receive free and reduced lunches are subsidized by the foundation. 
Anytime, Anywhere Learning Changes Teaching and Learning
Personal learning tools such as laptops change the way that students learn, educators say, transforming teachers’ roles and increasing parental involvement in their children’s education. “Report on the Effectiveness of Technology in Schools,” a 1995–96 study by the Software Publishers Association concluded that introducing technology into the learning environment makes learning more student-centered, encourages cooperative learning, and stimulates teacher-student interaction. Those are exactly the outcomes educators in laptop learning schools are seeing.

“We see kids coming together in ways that didn’t exist before,…. kids from different social groups with different interests, suddenly they have something to discuss,” says Charlie Clark, headmaster at Cincinnati Country Day School.

In Snohomish School District, fifth- and sixth- grade classrooms in seven of the district’s elementary schools participate in the laptop program. The teachers and administrators in Snohomish report that their students have discovered a new excitement for learning.

Mike Hyland has taught fifth grade at Snohomish’s Riverview Elementary School for eight years, and since the laptop program began, his math and science students beg him to teach “just one more thing” at the end of each day. His colleague Kimberlee Spaetig, a fifth-grade teacher at Dutch Hill Elementary School says, “The kids light up when they use the laptops to learn. The laptops make learning relevant, and the students know it. I would fight for a laptop classroom in the future.”

“Our parents and students work together on the laptop, teaching each other,” says Snohomish’s Kathy Klock. “At parent-teacher conferences, the question of how laptops will be used in future grades always comes up.”

Teacher training plays a vital role in successful integration of the laptops into instruction at all 52 schools. Teachers receive their laptops before the students and most receive intensive training on the hardware and software. Then they work together and with curriculum specialists to integrate the laptop into their schools’ already existing curriculum. Teacher professional development is an ongoing process, like in Snohomish where the teachers in laptop classrooms meet monthly to share ideas and strategies. 

Mott Hall teacher Janice Gordon summed up why her superintendent has determined it’s critical to expand the laptop program in Community School District 6: “My expectations for the children and their perceptions of what they can achieve have changed. They now work to master each assignment. They don’t just want it to be good. They want it to be perfect, and they all believe they can achieve anything they want.”  

For more information about “Anytime, Anywhere Learning” using laptops, send e-mail to clc@microsoft.com Microsoft’s support of “Anytime, Anywhere Learning” is part of continuing efforts to help create a global “Connected Learning Community” in which all students and educators have access to technology and information online to support learning today and for a lifetime. Microsoft received the 1996 EdNet Pioneer Award for its significant contribution to the advancement of educational technology.  

(c) 1997 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.
2. Internet/Intranet
Lee County School District Installs Microsoft Proxy Server 

Lee County School District, with more than 4,100 students in 13 K12 schools, is the poorest school district in Virginia. To cope with rising costs and declining state funding, the district needed an inexpensive source of teaching materials. The solution? Installing a wide area network (WAN) to link its school libraries and setting up Microsoft Proxy Server to ensure quick and economical Internet access. As an added benefit, Proxy Server enables the schools to monitor activity and block access to inappropriate sites.

Tucked into the westernmost corner of Virginia, right on the Tennessee border, Lee County ranks as the poorest county in the state in terms of tax base for education. The district has a composite index of 17 percent, which means the county is expected to pay only 17 percent of the cost of educating its children. Yet with technical support from Educational Technology, LLC; a WAN connection from Bell Atlantic; a technology grant from the state of Virginia; resourceful planning from a committee of parents, teachers and administrators; and Internet access provided by Microsoft Proxy Server, this very rural school district is providing its students with access to a world of information on the Internet. 

In 1995, just about the time Lee County was looking for ways to connect its schools to the Internet, the state of Virginia allocated the county $350,000 for technological expenditures. There was only one catch: the school had to use the money to automate all school libraries in the district before it could spend funds on other technology, such as Internet access. 

According to parent advocate Paul Elswick, the standard library management solution is to install a local area network (LAN) running K12 library management software in every school. The problem with this strategy was that two small schools in the district have fewer than 100 students in a K7 setting. “Setting up a LAN, by the time you buy the software and everything, is about $30,000 to $32,000 per school. It’s not very cost-effective to put that LAN in small schools that don’t have many books to start with,” explains Elswick, who is also a technical consultant at Educational Technology, LLC. 

The district decided instead to investigate setting up a wide area network (WAN) that would tie all the schools together. In the past, Bell Atlantic had partnered with Lee County to set up fully interactive fiber-optic classrooms that tied the county’s two high schools to a community college, enabling an instructor to teach students at all three sites from a single location. In talking to the company about a traditional leased-line WAN, Lee County officials determined it was beyond their budget. However, Bell Atlantic decided to put in a public frame-relay WAN for southwest Virginia, and Lee County signed on as its first customer at a cost significantly lower than leasing a T1 line. Bell Atlantic also installed wiring to connect every building in the county over a WAN. 

Because all the school libraries in the district were to be linked by a WAN, the district needed to find a client/server library tracking system. The available systems for WANs were either too difficult to manage or too expensive, so Elswick contacted Alan Hughes, a Microsoft Certified Product Specialist, to develop a client/server library management software system from scratch. 

Hughes provided the technical expertise, and Lee County media specialists provided the library science background. In developing the application, Hughes suggested that the school district make its public-access library catalog a Web page on the Internet and on the school district intranet. That way, the schools could still use their numerous older personal computers (mostly 486/33s and 486SX computers with 8 MB of memory) to run a browser to access the school libraries even though the machines couldn’t handle client software. This setup enabled the libraries to provide access to the system with most of their existing PCs. “Any computer that can run a browser can have access to all 13 of the libraries from anywhere in the school system,” notes Hughes.
Economical, Secure Internet Access 
Once the library system was in place, there was still the matter of setting up Internet connections for all the schools. Before setting up the WAN, Lee County schools had a few dial-up Internet accounts. Although these accounts served to get students and teachers acquainted with the Internet, they created long lines, were too costly to accommodate a large number of users, and provided no ability to control the sites accessed. 

Coincidentally, at about the same time Lee County was wrestling with how to resolve these issues, the beta version of Microsoft Proxy Server was released. In contrast to the “direct connect” method of tying desktops to the Internet, Microsoft Proxy Server provides a single point of management for all of an organization’s Internet connectivity. The school district installed it immediately. 

“For a great deal less money than the cost of setting up 10 dial-up lines and maintaining them, you could easily put a server into a school, and put in an ISDN line and Proxy Server,” Hughes observes. 

The first big benefit was that Proxy Server enables Lee County to provide Internet access to all its users at 13 schools through one secure 256K link. Equally important are the Proxy Server monitoring and filtering capabilities, which enable network administrators to monitor which sites are being accessed by students and teachers and to block access to inappropriate sites. 

In addition, the Proxy Server caching capabilities enable the school district to add users and still use the same economical 256K link. And, because Proxy Server integrates tightly with the Microsoft Windows NT® Server network operating system, it can be centrally managed from a remote site. 

Simplifying Administration 
Originally Lee County was encouraged to set up a Class C address for every school and an IP address for each client computer. Hughes resisted this notion because it would create more traffic, complicate network management, and make it virtually impossible to monitor and block access to inappropriate sites. 

With Proxy Server, Lee County was able to set up just one IP address along with private Internet addresses for each of its 324 client computers. This configuration simplifies administration of the WAN and enables administrators to move computers from school to school without having to reconfigure them each time. 

Monitoring and Filtering Out Inappropriate Sites 
The problem with dial-up Internet access, beyond the cost, is that it is impossible to control or monitor the sites being accessed. Microsoft Proxy Server enables administrators to both monitor use and block out inappropriate sites. 

“To start with, we just monitored what was going on,” explains Hughes. Originally the information was logged into a text file that was loaded into a database that Hughes reviewed weekly. 

Then Hughes began to develop a list of IP addresses and domain names to which administrators could deny access. The system uses Hughes’s own automated program, which collects inappropriate site addresses to be filtered out and automatically loads them into the Proxy Server registry every night. 

Even with the automated filtering, network administrators are vigilant about monitoring use. They have a log-monitoring program that enables them to query by various parameters to help ensure that no new inappropriate sites are being accessed. 
Caching Makes the Most of Existing Resources 
The Lee County system averages about 30,000 hits per day. However, on Wednesdays the system sometimes registers twice that many hits between 7:30 A.M. and 3:30 P.M. Proxy Server stores frequently accessed Internet data on the server where users can bring it up without going on the Internet, thus enabling the school district to handle even this high capacity without adding bandwidth to its existing Internet connection. Elswick estimates they get a 30 percent hit rate on the cache. 

Caching also enables teachers to prepare for their classes. They can access ahead of time the sites they plan to use so those sites are loaded into the cache before the students arrive. Then, during class, all the students can access the information immediately. 
Controlling Access Through User-Name Security 
Because Proxy Server integrates tightly with the user authentication feature of Microsoft Windows NT, it enables network administrators to restrict access by user name or group affiliation. This capability means the school district can easily restrict access to certain protocols or from certain schools. In an extreme situation school administrators could easily turn off student access to the Internet altogether and make it available to the teachers only. 

Proxy Server also prevents unauthorized users outside the school district from connecting to Lee County’s private network. On its intranet, the county runs EduQuest software, which stores student information. Some systems have machines with separate IP addresses, and without Proxy Server, it would be difficult to protect these machines from unauthorized access. 
Leveling the Playing Field 
A great advantage of Internet access for a small rural community like Lee County is that it opens up a world of resources to its students, enabling them to compete more effectively with students in other areas. 

In a recent problem-solving competition, students were able to participate more fully in the competition because they were able to access information on the Internet that wasn’t available in their local libraries. The Internet also provides resources for teachers: lesson plans from educators all over the country can be downloaded. 

With all these benefits, the cost per student is surprisingly reasonable. Elswick estimates they are able to provide unlimited Internet access, e-mail, interlibrary access, and a delivery system for school system news to every location in the Lee County School District for just a little over a dollar per student per month. 

The Internet project also fostered teamwork among the school districts. Because the project started as a library automation solution, the librarians at all 13 schools collaborated and decided to pool their budgets to make it work. 
Future Plans 
Ultimately Lee County expects to have at least one computer in every classroom to provide a ratio of four students to one computer. 

The district is also actively trying to create the first virtual Governor’s School in the state, which would provide enhanced learning experiences for gifted students. The goal, according to Elswick, is to be able to pull in curricula from the best curriculum developers in the country. “We feel as if the Internet is the equalizer, and Microsoft Proxy Server makes it possible to do just about anything here that you can do in a big city.” 

 1997. Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.
Tip: Placing a Mail Server Behind a Proxy Server

Although it is possible to place an SMTP (or Internet Mail connector) server behind a proxy server, it will not be able to receive connections from the Internet. A proxy server provides a one-way connection. Mail servers need to listen for connections from the Internet to exchange mail with other mail servers, and these connections will be blocked by a proxy server. There are two workarounds: 

1.	Install your mail server on another machine that is directly connected to the Internet. Your mail clients on the intranet will be able to connect with POP or SMTP through the proxy server. 
2.	Install your mail server on the proxy server. It will be exposed to all networks that the proxy server is connected to. 

Note: The first option is the preferred method because it is good practice to minimize the number of services running on the proxy server. Extra services on the proxy server provide more points of access to hackers.
Tip: Configuring Microsoft Internet Explorer to Use a Proxy Server

For Microsoft® Internet Explorer versions 2.0 and 3.0 for Windows® 95

Use the following procedures to configure Internet Explorer to use a proxy server over a LAN connection.

For Internet Explorer 2.0:

1.	If you have not run the Internet Setup Wizard, click the Start button, point to Programs, point to Accessories, point to Internet Tools, and then click Internet Setup Wizard. Follow the instructions, selecting the Direct LAN Connection option when you are prompted.
2.	In Control Panel, double-click Internet.
3.	Click the Advanced tab, and then click the Use Proxy Server check box to select it.
4.	In the Proxy Server box, enter the appropriate proxy settings. Use the following syntax

http://<address>:<port>

where <address> is the address of the proxy server and <port> is the port number assigned to the proxy server. For example, if the proxy server’s address is “proxy.example.microsoft.com” and the port number is 80, the setting in the Proxy Server box should read http://proxy.example.microsoft.com:80.

If you do not know the address or port number of the proxy server, see your network administrator.

5.	If there are any Web servers on the local network for which you want to bypass the proxy, type the appropriate host names in the Bypass Proxy On box.
6.	Click OK.

Note: Internet Explorer 2.0 does not support different proxies for different uniform resource locator (URL) types. For example, you cannot configure a different proxy for FTP URLs and HTTP URLs. However, Internet Explorer 3.0 does support different proxies for different URL types.

For Internet Explorer 3.0:

1. 	Click the Start button, point to Programs, point to Accessories, point to Internet Tools, and then click Get on the Internet to start the Internet Connection Wizard. 
2. 	Click Next, click Manual, and then click Next to start the Internet Setup Wizard.
3. 	Click Next, click Connect Using My Local Area Network, click Next, and then follow the instructions in the remainder of the Internet Setup Wizard. Be sure to click the Use Proxy Server check box to select it when it appears and type the appropriate proxy settings in the Proxy Server box. Use the following syntax for the proxy settings:

http://<address>:<port>

where <address> is the address of the proxy server, and <port> is the port number assigned to the proxy server. For example, if the proxy serve’s address is “proxy.example.microsoft.com” and the port number is 80, the setting in the Proxy Server box should read http://proxy.example.microsoft.com:80.

If you do not know the address or port number of the proxy server, see your network administrator. Also, if there are any Web servers on the local network for which you want to bypass the proxy, type the appropriate host names in the Don’t Use Proxy For These Addresses box.
Internet Explorer 3.0 supports the following proxies:
•	Socks V4
•	CERN-compliant proxies
•	HTTP 1.1 Proxy Authentication with CERN-compliant proxies
•	SSL Tunneling with CERN-compliant proxies
•	Specialized FTP proxy support, including TIS Gauntlet and WinGate

 1997. Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.
Troubleshooting: Proxy and RAS Auto Dial

Q. Proxy Auto Dial works, but why doesn’t it hang up when the connection is idle? 

A. The Idle Timeout option in Dial Up Networking must be set for the connection to hang up after being idle. Double-click My Computer, and then double-click Dial Up Networking. Click the More button, and then click User Preferences. Set Idle Seconds Before Hanging Up to the desired amount of time.

Q. Why doesn’t RAS Auto Dial always dial when a proxy request is made? 

A. When RAS displays the message that the line is disconnected, the line may not really be disconnected yet. The message really means that disconnecting has started, but it can take a long time. For example, on an unloaded server disconnecting an ISDN line can take 30 seconds, and an analog modem line can take several seconds. 

On a busy server, it can take much longer. When the line is disconnecting, an attempt to dial will usually fail. Therefore, the proxy may receive the disconnect event, notes it must dial on the next connection, dials, and the dial fails because the line is still disconnecting. In this case, the proxy will not try to redial for four minutes because it thinks it received a ”no answer” error message; it probably got a hardware error message, but a no answer condition can produce a hardware error. 

By default, the proxy waits four minutes to redial. Adjust the following entries in the registry to shorten the amount of time.

Below are REG_DWORD values that you must add to the registry using the following location:
HKEYlocal machine\system\current control set\services\W3Proxy\Parameters

BusyRetryInMinutes
NoAnswerRetryInMinutes

Note: The options are misnamed. The value is in seconds, not minutes. The default for the first is 120 seconds, and the default for the second is 240 seconds. Changing one does not affect the default value of the other. So, if you want them both other than the default, you must change both.

© 1997. Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.

3. Networking
Connecting to Windows NT

By Jeff Zwier

Staying on top of growing academic networks isn’t easy. In addition to the daily problems involved in maintenance, administration, and growth, district network administrators face the challenge of adding new capabilities to their networks. Unless you have recently built up your school’s network or invested in a major migration effort, your servers, classroom PCs, and Macintosh computers probably run a number of different operating systems, all demanding equal access to services spread across widely varying server hardware and software platforms. Yesterday’s solutionswhether in the form of network operating systems (NOS) or varied client PC operating systemsmay not meet all of today’s classroom technology needs. In this article, we’ll take a look at how the Microsoft Windows NT operating system can be integrated into an existing network and at some of the tools that make the process easier.
Why Use More Than One Network Operating System?
Media attention to the Internet and an explosion in the number of available products have created an unprecedented demand for leading-edge classroom technology. Your old reliable network operating system may simply not be up to the task of sharing multimedia resources or providing World Wide Web access. However, it may be handling printer services just fine. Do you really need to migrate the entire network over to the new operating system? Depending on your school’s budget constraints and the real benefits offered by the latest, greatest product you have in mind, the answer may be yes, noor both.

If you do decide to have it both ways and retain your in-place system when adding a new network operating system, you’re not alone. Nick Rodriguez, a managing consultant with Interim Technology’s Network Integration Services practice, has seen corporate network administrators choose to work with several different network operating systems, taking advantage of the features of each to meet their specific needs. “You might maintain [more than one network operating system] because one NOS does something a little bit better than another.” Strong competition in the NOS market has encouraged developers such as Microsoft to add attractive featuresbuilt-in Internet access, centralized administration tools, advanced security features, and morein an attempt to win over users who are reluctant to trade in familiar and reliable file-sharing and print-services tools. 

The decision to add Windows NT into an existing network is often based on local expertise as well. While NT certainly isn’t classified as an entry-level product, its ease of use and stability are appealing to many who need to set up minimum-support servers. This is often the case in districts depending on one skilled technician to maintain several sites. “[For example, Windows] NT is a really good choice for smaller, entry-level, or low-administration sites,” says Interim’s Rodriguez. Windows NT setup and user administration wizards, for example, may be a key feature for novice networking professionals or those who will depend on less experienced staff for routine administration tasks. 
Adding Windows NT to Your Network
A Windows NT server can play many roles in your network, adding a variety of services without requiring a large investment in setup time. Making the connectionsboth physically and in software settingsis a fairly straightforward process. Many schools and businesses have added Windows NT to the LAN as a multipurpose server, linking to existing NetWare servers and other environments as well. A technology coordinator might add Windows NT in this general-service role to deliver print services and to take advantage of built-in tools for Internet/intranet publishing and remote access. This often sets the stage for an eventual migration of all users to a Windows NTbased network.
NetWare Interoperability
Still others plan to capitalize on the strengths of both Windows NT and Novell’s NetWare in the near term. This may sound like an administrator’s nightmare, but thanks to built-in client and server compatibility, adding the benefits of Windows NT does not necessarily mean reconfiguring all of the clients accessing Novell servers. Windows NT and the family of Windows client operating systems all support NetWare file and print services via direct NCP links and the Microsoft version of the NetWare communications transport protocols, IPX/SPX. (See Tricks and Tips below.)  

Communications compatibility at the server level via NWLink, the NetWare-compatible protocol, means complete two-way access for applications based on the Windows NT or NetWare side of your network. Migration and access for existing NetWare clients on your network are controlled via the Windows NT Migration Tool. Version 4.0 of Windows NT Server also includes the Gateway Service for NetWare (GSNW), enabling access to the Windows NT network by NetWare clients and providing support for the latest Novell Directory Services (NDS).  

Microsoft also offers File and Print Services for NetWare (FPNW). FPNW software lets Windows NT servers directly emulate NetWare 3.x binderies, allowing PCs running Novell’s Virtual Loadable Modules (VLMs) to log on to Windows NT. 
In the Mix With UNIX
Although a large installed base of educational networks are concerned with NetWare compatibility, you may have the challenge of linking to other systems. Many schools who joined the Internet community a few years ago still depend on UNIX for Telnet, PPP/SLIP access, and other basic connectivity services. One possible strategy these early Internet adopters can consider is moving to the graphical interfacebased TCP/IP utilities provided by Windows NT. Windows NT Server offers built-in native TCP/IP for fast performance, wizards, and online documentation, plus a growing suite of communications and Internet tools, such as Internet Information Server (IIS).

If you plan to integrate UNIX with Windows NT, both built-in emulation and additional support tools are available. For example, FTP services can be provided to UNIX clients directly from the standard Windows NT software, as well as both TCP/IP and LPD (Line Printer Daemon) print support to allow UNIX clients to access Windows NT print queues. Network File System (NFS) software is also available from third parties to allow any UNIX host to access your Windows NT file server as if it were a UNIX server.  

Adding Windows NT on the client side of the network can also be a cost-savings rather than performance strategy. For example, in university settings, some schools have taken advantage of the ability of Windows NT Workstation to connect to UNIX servers (which have been historically used for large scale computing applications, Internet, and mail services in that environment). For these schools, the alternative is spending thousands of dollars for RISC processor clients.
Tricks and Tips
As mentioned, Windows NT has a number of built-in tools and features that can ease your transition and allow smooth integration of NT servers into your network. Here are a few suggestions to make your introduction of Windows NT a success:

•	Know your network.  Make sure your inventory and software management tools are up-to-date before you add to the network. Know what versions of server software, client access tools, and drivers are in place to ensure that you are using the right tools to achieve your goals.

•	Take advantage of Windows NT compatibility, migration, and integration tools. Start with making sure that TCP/IP and NWLink (NetWare IPX-compatible protocol) are installed on your Windows NT Server. To integrate with NetWare networks, activate the Gateway Service for NetWare (GNSW), which enables server-to-server communication. The Gateway Service is installed through the Network Control Panel, which then generates a separate Control Panel icon once the Gateway Service for NetWare service is installed. The Migration Tool (used to physically move user and group accounts and NetWare volumes to a Windows NT server) is accessed through the Start button. Double-click the Administrative Tools program group to view, and run the Migration Tool.

•	Simplify user administration and leverage your NetWare knowledge. Use File and Print Services for NetWare (FPNW) to make your Windows NT server(s) look like NetWare resources to existing NETX-, VLM-, or Client32-based clients. FPNW facilitates Windows NT integration into NetWare clients and lets you run many NetWare user-administration commands to manage both clients and resources. Director Service Manager for NetWare (DSMN) allows clients single-logon, single-password access for both Windows NT and NetWare networks. FPNW and DSMN are available as a separate upgrade to the basic Windows NT Server 4.0 installation.

•	Remember, your clients are depending on you. Windows NT can emulate file- and print-sharing features for Macintosh and UNIX clients, as well as run services such as TCP/IP and LPR. Client software for a wide variety of non-Microsoft clients is included on the Windows NT Server 4.0 CD-ROM in the Clients folder. The Clients folder also includes a 32-bit TCP/IP stack for Windows for Workgroups. Be sure to install the Microsoft Network Client for DOS on both DOS and Windows 3.1 clients to enable these clients to interact properly with Windows NT domain controllers. 

•	Plan your services. Take the time to determine exactly what services you would like each of the servers in your network to provide. Compare the relative strengths of both the hardware and software in place, and avoid unnecessary duplication of services by choosing the best tool for each application in your unique network environment.

For more information on interoperability, visit the Windows NT Web site at http://www.microsoft.com/ntserver/.

About the author: Jeff Zwier is a technology services consultant with expertise in technical training, recruiting, and Windows NT networking. He is currently a consultant with Interim Technology’s Technical Communications and Training Practice in Oak Brook, Illinois. You can reach him at jzwier@msn.com. 

 1997. Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.
Tip: Adding Managed NetWare Servers to a Windows NT Server Domain 

You can add multiple NetWare servers to a single Microsoft Windows NT Server domain. However, to ensure high-level performance, it is recommended that you add no more than 32 NetWare servers per domain. 

If you have more than 32 NetWare servers to add to Windows NT Server domains, you should divide the NetWare servers into smaller groups and add each group to a different domain. When dividing NetWare servers into groups, consider which servers must be used by the same people. It is best if all the servers used by a particular group of users are in the same domain. 

When each NetWare server is added, you specify which NetWare users and groups to transfer from that server to the domain. The domain’s directory then contains a sum of all the users and groups that you copied from each NetWare server, plus the users and groups created directly in the Windows NT Server domain. 

The list of users and groups being propagated may differ for each NetWare server participating in the domain. If a NetWare user needs access only to specific NetWare servers, you can propagate the user’s account to only those servers. This enables you to minimize network traffic, making the Directory Service Manager for NetWare more efficient. 

For example, suppose members of the Elementary_Teachers group need access to NetWare servers NW1 and NW2, while members of the HighSchool_Teachers group need access only to NW1. When you specify which groups to propagate to NW1, select both Elementary_Teachers and HighSchool_Teachers. When you specify the users to propagate to NW2, select only Elementary_Teachers.

 1997. Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.
Troubleshooting: Windows NT Server 3.51 and 4.0

Q. Why does the Microsoft Windows NT Server fail to start Directory Service Manager for NetWare (DSMN) services? 

A. This is by design. You can install DSMN on the primary domain controller (PDC) and backup domain controller (BDC). However, you can only run DSMN on servers functioning as the primary domain controller. In cases where the PDC is not available, you must promote the BDC to a PDC before the DSMN service can be started. 

If the PDC fails and you do not have DSMN installed on any BDC, you must promote one of the BDCs to be a PDC before installing DSMN on this server. If you don’t do this, you’ll receive an error message stating that the domain controller is not found.

Q. 	Why doesn’t the Windows NT connection clear from the Novell server? 

This problem occurs under the following conditions: 

•	A connection is made to a NetWare print queue, you log on, and then log off. Every time you log on and off, another connection is used up. 
•	An application fails to close properly when you are logging off, and another connection is used when you log on again. 

About 90 percent of the time, these connections remain until you shut down and restart the system. If you have a limited number of connections, the following message might appear at startup: “You cannot be authenticated on <server name>. Do you want to select another preferred server?”

To resolve this problem, log back on, go back into Print Manager, and remove the printer. The prior connection is dropped. 

Microsoft has confirmed this to be a problem in Windows NT versions 3.51 and 4.0. We are researching this problem and will post new information in the Microsoft Knowledge Base at  http://www.microsoft.com/kb/articles/q154/7/04.htm as it becomes available. 

 1997. Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.
4. On Your Desktop
Technology on a Shoestring at a Rural Vo-Tech High School

By Terri Casey with Robert Wachob

Many large urban and suburban school districts have substantial budgets to build and maintain their computer systems, and many districts get large sums from time to time in the way of grants or levy funds for purchasing and networking computers. But in rural west-central Pennsylvania, computer science instructor Bob Wachob at Jefferson County-Dubois Area Vo-Tech has built and maintained a high-caliber network of computers and introduced the faculty and students to unlimited Internet use on a limited budget. Here, he tells how he’s done it and advises other technology coordinators on how to make a little money go a long way.

Jefferson County-DuBois Area Vo-Tech School (Jeff Tech) is a small vocational-technical high school in Reynoldsville, Pennsylvania. It offers three years of training in 14 technical areas, plus a full complement of academic instruction.

The school’s demographics are typical for a poor area in rural Pennsylvania. Nearly half of the 450 tenth- through twelfth-graders are eligible for the federally supported lunch program, which means that the family income of these students falls below the $28,860 average (for a family of four). The school’s budgetfed by the four school districts that jointly operate Jeff Tech and by federal funds for vocational technology programsis very limited.

Despite its size and demographics, Jeff Tech runs an Internet site complete with an SMTP Internet mail server, Web server, and DNS services. It has a building-wide Ethernet network with two file servers running Microsoft Windows NT Server 3.51 and more than 100 Windows 95 desktops. Instructors, administrators, support staff,  and 80 engineering and computer science students have full-time access to the Internet, including e-mail. The school is ugrading to Windows NT Server 4.0 over the summer and plans to begin installing Windows NT Workstation 4.0 next year. In addition, the school plans include for all students to have email and Internet access soon.

How do they do it? Robert Wachob, a Jeff Tech alumni who graduated back when the school was using keypunch systems, has been the computer science instructor and computer lab director for 15 years. His planning and resourcefulness enabled the Jeff Tech system to be built mostly by students in the school’s computer science program. 

“We have computer repair, network administration, and Web development curricula that cover the basics,” says Wachob. “Once students have completed those courses, it becomes on–the-job training. One of the things I do is to run my training area like a business. I have department managers (students) who help supervise their areas. These students are usually seniors who have gone through prior years of training. When computers are in need of repair, teachers fill out work orders that are then referred to my department. I get with my supervisor students every morning and help them plan out the day. As different types of problems occur, the younger students work with the older students and are trained ‘on the job.’ When a problem occurs that the supervisors can’t solve, we solve it together.

“I have several different departments, and all function the same way. Daily Web page changes come in and are directed to the students in charge of Web development. Network administration handles the day-to-day monitoring activities.”
Realistic Planning for Technology Acquisition and Maintenance
Six years ago, Jeff Tech administrators received school board approval to launch a technology plan that called for the placement of at least one computer in each vocational training area and each academic classroom. These computers, for both teacher and student use, would allow for access to e-mail, both in-house and Internet, Internet Web access, and access to in-house applications.  It also called for labs in several vo-tech areas: computer science, engineering-related technology, drafting, and design (a business marketing course).

Today, those portions of the plan are completed. The next priorities are installing a computer lab in the library, upgrading older machines, and getting all students onto the Internet mail system. Starting with the first group of 20 386/33 machines six years ago, equipment purchases have averaged around $30,000 a year. 

Wachob’s experience boils down to a few sound pieces of advice: Be careful, take your plan in steps. Allow room for mistakes and growing pains. Don’t bite off too much. Make sure you work with your administrators and school board to budget money for technology on a yearly basis.

Wachob offers the following rules of thumb:

•	Spend consistently over the years. “Even if you convince your administration and school board into spending a lump sum to build a few labs, either through local funds or through grants, try to make them realize that’s not the end of it. Educate board members about ongoing costs like network management, upgrades (both hardware and software), security monitoring, and so on. Persuade them to budget a follow-up amount each year as a permanent line item. Computers purchased today can be out-of-date and nearly useless within five years.”

•	Consider finding a technology focal point. “When we began, we realized most of the computer education occurred in our computer science lab, both during the day with students and at night with adults. So we decided to focus on the computer lab and keep the latest technology there. We still do. Replacing some hardware in the computer-science lab every year enables us to move the older technology to teachers and students who don’t necessarily need the latest Pentium.” While Wachob has focused on a lab, a district could focus on building a high school, for example, and equipping it well, and then annually replace a few of the PCs, moving the older ones to middle schools, which will then move their older ones to elementary schools. “With the proper plan and continued spending support, a whole district could be networked within a few years,” says Wachob. 

•	Be creative in reducing costs. “We currently have 20 outdated 386/33s computers, which were part of our original equipment purchase six years ago. The 386/33 processors are terribly out-of-date, but the monitors, keyboards, and net cards still work. For $500 apiece to buy a new motherboard and hard drive, we can upgrade those machines to Pentium 133 equivalents with 16 MB RAM. The alternative is purchasing new machines starting at $1,700 apiece.” 

Cutting costs on maintaining systems pays off in other ways as well. Because Jeff Tech maintains its own Web server and provides DNS and e-mail services, the school’s ISP gave Jeff Tech Internet access for a discount rate of $175 per month. This service provides a 24-hour ISDN connection using a Bell Atlantic Centrex system. The ISDN line charge is a flat rate of $95 per month. That means that Jeff Tech pays only $270 per month for more than 100 computers with dedicated access to the Internet. Not only do they receive a discount rate by providing their own services, but there are also no concerns about Web space or the number of e-mail addresses created. 

•	Use in-house resources for network maintenance and administration. At Jeff Tech, computer science students perform routine network maintenance tasks, install new applications, and do day-to-day PC maintenance and repair. This saves Jeff Tech money that other schools must pay to consultants and technicians. Wachob’s students have done everything from running wire across ceiling tiles and plugging computers into the network hub to configuring network cards and setting up new accounts. Along with a high school diploma, each student graduates with a certificate in computer science and data-processing specialties. Wachob encourages his counterparts at other schools to use student resources, such as computer club members and business students, as often as possible to reduce costs and give them hands-on learning and experience. 

•	Know what you’re getting into.  Be sure your administrators and board members understand that networks require qualified personnel to run and maintain them. Wachob notes, “ I have seen schools with little or no network experience suddenly launch plans for networking labs and buildings. When you ask them about their plans for installing or maintaining servers, managing accounts, network security, application installations, etc., they just give you this blank stare. Many people are under the impression that you go out, ‘buy a lab,’ and plug it in. While Windows NT is a very easy networking operating system to configure and run, it’s also very powerful. That means that administering it is more involved than just turning it on.”

•	Don’t necessarily buy the latest and greatest just because it’s the latest and greatest. “Some schools have no computers at all, and then they get a grant or state money and race to put in 100 MB Ethernet networks. We’re running 150 computers on 10 MB cards, and we have no speed problems whatsoever. Someday we may move to 100 MB cards, but we don’t need to yet, and we may never need to. I’m not saying the decision to buy 100 MB cards is wrong; I am saying, weigh your needs and look at the possibilities. If the difference is $100 per machine, that’s a lot of money over several hundred machines. Could you get a faster Internet connection or more computers for the same money?”

•	Match equipment capabilities to user needs. “The beauty of our plan is that I’m constantly replacing computers. If I make a decision to purchase Pentium 133 machines instead of Pentium 200 MMXs because I can get eight more computers for the same money, and next year, I discover that a new software package needs the faster speed, I haven’t wasted money. The Pentium 133 machines will be fine for someone else in the building, so we purchase a few new Pentium 200s and move the 133s around.”

Roger Keith, director of Jeff Tech, has seen Wachob develop the vo-tech school into a local technology leader. He confirms that a careful, sustained approach to technology acquisition and maintenance works, and that in-house technical competence has been a huge savings to the school. “If schools go out and buy a big pile of computers all at once, in three years it will all be obsolete. We put $30,000 a year into technology, and that helps us stay current,” he says. “Technology changes so fast. We have found that incremental spending is the answer.”

•	Visit Jeff Tech’s Web page at http://www.jefftech.tec.pa.us.

About the author: Terri Casey is a freelance writer who has written about computer technology for nearly 10 years. She was the editor of Microsoft Education News, a higher-education quarterly that Microsoft published from 1989 to 1993.

 1997. Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.
Tip: Creating Notes and Scraps of Text on Your Desktop

Many people routinely jot down important notes on scraps of paper that end up lying around on their desks indefinitely. If you’re one of those people, you may want to consider an alternative to this chancy “organizational” method. Wouldn’t it be nice if you could quickly create a note on your desktop that you could easily edit, print, or delete? Well, you can if you use the following technique.

Let’s suppose you’re hard at work when you remember that you need to pick up some things at the grocery on the way home. Instead of writing a reminder on the back of your hand, right-click an empty space on your desktop and select New and then Text Document from the resulting context menu. When you do, a document named New Text Document will appear on your desktop. The document’s name will be highlighted, so just type “pick up groceries tonight” in the name field and press ENTER. Now if you double-click the document icon, Notepad will open the text file and you can enter your grocery list or any other information. You can edit the list at any time, and at the end of the day you can print the list by right-clicking the file’s icon and selecting the Print command. 
Working With Scraps
Did you know that in many applications you can drag scraps of text or graphics to the desktop for later use in their original or another application? For example, let’s say you’re working on a report in Microsoft® Word and you decide to cut a paragraph. However, you may want to use that paragraph later in the document or even in another file. To create a scrap, select the text you wish to use and then drag it onto the desktop with the right mouse button. When you release the button, select the Move Scrap Here command from the context menu (dragging with the left mouse button will automatically copy the scrap). Now when you want to copy the scrap into a document, just drag it from the desktop into the text.

 1997. All rights reserved. Reprinted with permission of The COBB Group, a division of Ziff-Davis Publishing at http://www.cobb.com/.
Troubleshooting: Microsoft Windows 95

Q. Every time I log on I am asked for a password. Is there any way to prevent this?

Note: If you are using User Profiles, you cannot prevent the password prompt.

To prevent MicrosoftWindows 95 from prompting you for a password at startup, follow these steps:

1.	Use the right mouse button to click Network Neighborhood, and then click Properties on the menu that appears.
2.	On the Configuration tab, click Windows Logon in the primary Network Logon box, and then click OK.
3.	When you are prompted to restart your computer, click No.
4.	In Control Panel, double-click Passwords.
5.	Click the Change Passwords tab, click Change Windows Password, and then click OK.
6.	In the Change Windows Password dialog box, type your current Windows password in the Old Password box. Leave the New Password and Confirm New Password boxes blank, click OK, and then click OK again.
7.	Restart your computer.

Q. When using the IPX/SPX-compatible protocol in Windows 95, why can’t I connect to other computers on the network?

This behavior can occur if the frame type setting for the IPX/SPX-compatible protocol on your computer differs from the frame type being used on the server. To correct the problem, verify that the frame type setting on your computer matches the frame type setting on the server. 

1.	Use the right mouse button to click the Network Neighborhood icon on the desktop, and then click Properties on the menu that appears. 
2.	On the Configuration tab, click IPX/SPX-compatible Protocol, and then click Properties. 
3.	Click the Advanced tab. 
4.	In the Property box, click Frame Type. 
5.	Note the setting in the Value box. If this setting does not match the setting of the server, click the server frame type in the Value box, and then click OK. 
6.	Click OK again. 
7.	If you are prompted, restart your computer.

 1997. Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.
5. Classroom Corner
First-Graders Go Birding 

By Terri Casey

Software packages for classroom use have been around for years, but only when a teacher decides to use technology in a lesson plan does it become a meaningful learning tool. How do teachers begin to incorporate computers into their curricula? How do students respond? Below, a first-grade teacher tells of her experience with an ambitious hands-on lesson both before and after she introduced software programs into it. 

Celeste Bunting has taught for 24 years, all in the first grade and all at Worcester Country Day School in Berlin, Maryland. When she began there, the school was a small building surrounded by fields and farmland, and Bunting and her young charges, along with older students at Country Day, created a bird sanctuary outside her first-grade classroom. The high school students dug post holes and fenced the area in, and the first graders sold bird feed to raise money, planted trees and shrubs, carved out small ponds, and hung feeders.

Over the years, Country Day expanded into a quad-shaped building, and the sanctuary—three-quarters of an acre—became the “courtyard” that the school’s four wings look onto. Local offices of the U.S. Department of Natural Resources and U.S. Soil Conservation Service chipped in with resources, and each year Bunting’s class added more plantings, feeders, and walkways. Every spring for Earth Week, the first-graders plant special annuals to attract tropical migratory birds.

While the bird sanctuary has always been a focus for Bunting and her students, things have changed since computers arrived in her classroom. “Years ago, we would only dream about the things we do so easily now—how to draw or write something about the sanctuary that we could publish, for example. Today, whatever we can come up with, we can do using the computer. The children don’t even imagine that something cannot be done,” she says.

Their ambition and optimism were evident in a recent bit of activism. Bunting received notice from the Chesapeake Bay Foundation of a bill threatening the federal Endangered Species and Clean Water acts. “The boys and girls watched me open this mail and asked, ‘What is it?’ When I told them, they sat right down at the computer and wrote letters to President Clinton, members of Congress, and their local representatives in support of cleaning up the Bay,” she says. “We’re still getting mail in response, and the children love it.”

Bunting’s 14 first-graders use the spreadsheet and database tools in Microsoft Works to keep a daily bird journal and a record of weather information. The first-graders share the information with the Feeder Watch project at Cornell University, an experiment started many years ago for fourth-, fifth-, and sixth- graders in the Finger Lakes area of New York and later expanded nationwide.  

One part of the first-grade bird sanctuary project involved trying out different seed mixtures. After researching the subject using Microsoft Encarta, Bunting’s first-graders created bird-feeding guides that include student-tested birdseed recipes such as Birdy Cupcakes, Peanut Butter Pine Cones, and Magic Meatballs. The students recorded the ingredients in Microsoft Works, and then moved the text to Microsoft Creative Writer for formatting and printing.

The youngsters also enjoy learning to use field guides, Bunting says, and every class ultimately wants to create its own. Each student researches a bird by using Encarta as well as books from the school library. They tape-record bird calls from Encarta, draw birds with a program called Kid Pix, import the Encarta information into the file, then print out and assemble pages. The result: “Birds of a Feather: A First-Grade Guide to Bird-Watching.”

Bunting builds on the skills learned in the bird sanctuary in other lessons. She uses Scholastic’s The Magic School Bus Explores the Human Body and The Magic School Bus Explores the Solar System in her class. “We do a travel guide to the planets and a booklet of constellation stories—complete with paste-on glow-in-the-dark stars—using Creative Writer,” she says. Students do a similar “field guide” to the human body, using Encarta to research body parts and then recording themselves reading their reports. 

Bunting says she can’t imagine going back to teaching without computers. “The bird sanctuary has been a joy in my life,” she says, “and using technology to enhance student learning and enjoyment of it has made it even more wonderful.” 

About the author: Terri Casey is a freelance writer who has written about computer technology for nearly 10 years. She was the editor of Microsoft Education News, a higher-education quarterly that Microsoft published from 1989 to 1993. 

 1997. Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.
Untangling the Web of Online Curriculum Resources

By Liza White

With the school year nearing completion, you may be on the lookout for innovative curriculum resources for next year’s classes. But if you sit down to surf the World Wide Web for some new ideas, the problem won’t be a lack of resources. Quite the opposite: how to wade through the growing volume and types of educational resources available on the Internet? 

Educational resources are varied and often overlap in the rush to provide information to educators; however, they can be categorized into the following types:

•	Directories of educational sites. Directories list links to sites that have educational content or resources, for example, the Technology & Learning Hotlist of Web Sites at http://www.yebb.com/~Brandon.Valley/hotlist.htm or The Internet Schoolhouse at http://www.onr.com/schoolhouse/school.html. This type of resource abounds on the Web; the difficulty is in finding well-organized directories that keep their links updated.
•	Educational content. These sites range from encyclopedias (such as the Encarta site at http://encarta.msn.com/EncartaHome.asp) and museums  to project collections (such Adventure Online at http://www.adventureonline.com/). The National Geographic Society’s Web site, Discovery Channel Online, and the CNN Web site all provide excellent content.
•	Lesson plan collections. These resources contain lesson plans and activities that can be downloaded or used online and incorporated into classroom curriculum. The best example of this type of resource is the AskERIC Virtual Library at http://www.ericir.syr.edu/.  
•	Educational communities. Online communities create a professional environment for teachers to share information and ideas. For example, The Well-Connected Educator section of the Global Schoolhouse at http://www.gsh.org/ is especially geared toward the professional educator.
Lesson Plans: The Heart of Internet Resources
It’s Sunday night, and you’ve got a class to teach in the morning. You need a lesson plan fast, so you turn to the Internet to download an activity. It may seem a bit far-fetched, but with the right information about where to look, this scenario is the one teachers will find most useful. As attractive as some of the more sophisticated online projects may be, the reality is most teachers are looking for good solid lesson plans they can implement quickly.
	
Teachers have been sharing lesson plans and learning activities over the Internet for years. Most of these resources exist as plain-text documents that reside on “gopher” sites—sites that serve as posting and retrieval locations. Others sites, designed to create an online community of educators, may have chat rooms, mailing lists, and online contests for teachers.
A Few Good Collections of Lesson Plans 
The following sites contain lesson plans as well as links to other sites:

•	Access Excellence Activities Exchange at http://www.gene.com/ae/AE/AEC/AEF/. Activities prepared by teachers who participated in summer programs sponsored by Genentech, Inc.
•	AskERIC Virtual Library at http://www.ericir.syr.edu/. (16 subjects) A large collection of lesson plans (more than 700) from the award-winning Internet-based education information service of the Educational Resources Information Center (ERIC) System, headquartered at the ERIC Clearinghouse on Information & Technology at Syracuse University. Lessons can be accessed from a gopher site; however, most of the new material since 1996 is HTML. New lessons are added each month.

•	Columbia Education Center’s Mini Lessons at http://www.col-ed.org/cur/. Short plain-text plans that were written at summer workshops. Some of these are great for a lesson you need right away without much preparation or materials. 

•	Connections+ at http://www.mcrel.org/connect/plus/index.html (12 subjects) About 100 lesson plans, activities, and teacher’s guides that are linked with corresponding subject-area content standards from Content Knowledge: A Compendium of Standards and Benchmarks for K12 Education.

•	Library-in-the-Sky at http://www.nwrel.org/sky/pilot/teacher.html (all subjects) Lesson plans and educational resources from a variety of sources.
Global Resources: Joining Forces
With sharing resources in mind, the Global SchoolNet Foundation and Microsoft have collaborated to present the Global Schoolhouse at http://www.gsh.org/default.htm, an online resource for educators. The Global Schoolhouse serves several purposes: it provides a place for educators to learn about online projects, to talk with other teachers, and to get information about Microsoft’s educational resources. These resources include Microsoft’s Encarta Schoolhouse at http://www.encarta.msn.com/schoolhouse/default.asp, a monthly online magazine with a feature topic that can be used in the classroom and that accesses Microsoft reference products.

Dr. David Trowbridge, science educator and former physics teacher, has been a proponent and developer of educational software for over 20 years. In his current position as education business development manager for Microsoft, Trowbridge is in charge of the development of the Encarta Lesson Collection, an easily searchable database of lesson plans drawn from several collections for K12. “I believe there is a good opportunity now to build an exemplary database of lesson plans—developed and submitted by teachers—that make use of Encarta, Bookshelf, and other Microsoft reference products,” says Trowbridge.

“One of the ways we will grow is to encourage contributions from teachers. We’ll keep the quality bar high by evaluating submissions against pre-established criteria.” If their lessons are selected by a panel of judges, contributing teachers will be awarded Microsoft software titles. In addition, they will be eligible for other prizes for the best submissions. The Encarta Lessons Collection is scheduled to be available some time in May from the Encarta Schoolhouse. 
Ten Sites We Recommend
For those who don’t have time to scout around, these 10 sites—selected and reviewed by David Trowbridge—represent some of the best online resources for educators seeking innovative Internet projects, lesson plans, source materials, and collaborative opportunities with other schools and teachers.

1.	Access Excellence at http://www.gene.com/ae/
Specifically for biology teaching and learning, this site offers an engaging forum for discussion among high school teachers, university professors, and research biologists, and provides lesson plans submitted by selected teachers. 
2.	Big Sky Telegraph at http://macsky.bigsky.dillon.mt.us/
Comprehensive lists of community networks, initiatives, and projects. Annotated collections of teacher resources.
3.	Busy Teachers’ WebSite K12 http://www.ceismc.gatech.edu/BusyT/TOC.html
The goal of this site is to provide teachers with direct source materials, lesson plans, and classroom activities, with a minimum of site-to-site linking. The site is organized alphabetically by subject area. 
4.	CCCnet at http://www.cccnet.com/
Created by Computer Curriculum Corporation, a company that makes curriculum-based educational software for grades K12, CCCnet provides project ideas and discussion areas for both teachers and students. While most of the site can be accessed free of charge, registration is required and a subscription to curriculum projects is $7.95 per month. 
5.	Classroom Connect at http://www.classroom.net/
Classroom Connect offers a searchable database of recommended Internet sites, an online discussion area for educators, a list of schools with sites on the World Wide Web, and information on conferences and educational software. 
6.	Education World at http://www.education-world.com/
Sponsored by American Fidelity, this site provides an educational search engine for the World Wide Web, an educators’ forum, education news, and a set of detailed links on topics relevant to education. 
7.	ExploraNet at http:/www.exploratorium.edu/. ExploraNet is a collection of online exhibits created by the Exploratorium, a museum of science, art, and human perception. It emphasizes interactive, hands-on exhibits, including, for example, a virtual dissection of a cow’s eye and an exploration of light and shadow. Be sure to visit the Learning Studio and Teacher Institute for additional resources. 
8.	The Global Schoolhouse at http://www.gsh.org/
Since 1985 Global SchoolNet Foundation (GSN) has been a leader in the instructional application of telecommunications. With the goal of networking an international K-12 educational community, GSN’s new Global Schoolhouse (sponsored by Microsoft) posts class projects, registers school Web pages, and highlights schools that are using technology successfully. 
9.	McREL Internet Connections at http://mcrel.org/
The Mid-continent Regional Educational Laboratory (McREL) is a nonprofit organization that provides technical assistance, research and evaluation support, training, and information services to education clients in all 50 states and in 20 countries. The site includes an archive of activities that use national standards. 
10.	NickNacks at http://www1.minn.net/~schubert/NickNacks.html
NickNacks’ primary goal is to encourage collaboration among educators and students around the world. The site is designed to recruit participants in collaborative educational projects and to help teachers gather resources such as lesson plans, tools, and shareware.
Where on the Globe Is Roger?
One of the most popular and enduring Internet educational projects is Where on the Globe Is Roger? at www.gsn.org/gsn/proj/rog/index.html. Roger Williams, a retired airline pilot, decided to drive around the world. During his travels, Roger visits schools, meeting students and teachers and sending greetings and reports back to the classes participating in the Where on the Globe Is Roger? project.

In addition to the lively reports, there are also lesson plans that spring from Roger’s travels. For example, after a trip through Tokyo, Roger sent a list of how much several common items cost. This sparked a price comparison activity that could be done with any classroom—except that the answers were posted on the site for classes around the world to see. New lessons or activities are added on a regular basis, keeping the project alive for students and teachers.
The Price You Pay
A relatively new approach to the dilemma of unwieldy databases is the subscription method in which you, or your school, pays a monthly or yearly fee to gain access to lesson plans and activities. The collections tend to be oriented toward projects and activities that use the Internet. The advantage is that these sites are organized and have high-quality materials presented in a uniform format, so you don’t have to waste time searching. 

The disadvantage is that the cost often comes from individual teachers; however, many times these sites offer a free trial period and some provide complimentary subscriptions for up to six months. A good example is CCCnet at http://www.cccnet.com/, an online project center for Web-based lessons and educational activities created by Computer Curriculum Corporation. Their In Vox project is a free educational area that can be used by teachers in the classroom and allows students to communicate worldwide.

About the author: Liza White, a former computer-education instructor, is a freelance writer and editor.

 1997. Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.

Curriculum Resources and School Management Solutions

Windows School Connection! at http://www.microsoft.com/education/k12/wsc/

The Windows School Connection is a strategic alliance of more than 140 leading software publishers. Co-sponsored by Compaq and Microsoft, this program is designed to give educators simplified access to a wide choice of the top Windows-based solutions for K12 schools.

The products of the Windows School Connection will increase your productivity, inspire exploration, help you teach better, and help your students learn faster with Microsoft Windows 95 and Windows NT–based administrative and curriculum solution software.

K–12 CD Sampler for Windows 95 at http://www.microsoft.com/education/k12/wsc/

This FREE interactive resource showcases 25 Windows School Connection member software titles that are designed for Windows 95. You’ll also find information on the Windows platforms and Compaq PC systems for K–12 education. System requirements: 486/33 running Windows 95 and a CD-ROM drive.

Education Product Guide at http://www.microsoft.com/education/k12/edu_prod/
A complete directory of curriculum and administrative solutions.
Teacher Training at Microsoft

To help school districts and teachers integrate technology into their classrooms, Microsoft’s Professional Development Partnership Program is currently being revised and improved.  The program was recently renamed: teacher.training@microsoft and has a new Web site still “under construction” at  http://www.teachertraining.com.  No new applications are being accepted at this timebut please feel free to revisit the web page by June 15 for the application RFP.  

Through the teacher.training@microsoft program, Microsoft will team with over 350 State Department of Education and College of Education teacher training sites. Our associates serve an important need by providing pre and in-service staff development for teachers who will be implementing Microsoft technology in their classrooms. Microsoft supports their training efforts through annual software donations for teacher training lab sites and preview/demonstration sites.  By year end 1997, over 200,000 educators will be trained on Microsoft software via these programs.  Comments and questions to teachers@microsoft.com.            

7. Q&A

Q. I am a technology facilitator from Indian Hill Schools in Cincinnati, Ohio. We’ve been surrounded by technology, fortunately, since the late ‘80s.  The “downside” to this is that with 600 PCs, upgrading is expensive, and cannot happen all at once.  We presently have machines that are capable only of running Windows 3.11.  Do you have a recommendation for a good Web page development product that is user-friendly, as full-function as possible, and able to run on a Windows 3.x machine?

Arline L. Liegel

A.  You can use Microsoft Internet Assistant, a no-charge add-in that makes it easy to create and edit great-looking documents for the Internet and intranets right from within Microsoft Word. If you know how to use Microsoft Word, you already have most of the skills you need to create Internet documents. You don’t need to learn complicated HTML tags and type them in by hand. Just save your Word documents as HTML, and Internet Assistant does all the coding.

•	Microsoft Internet Assistant for Word 6.0, 6.0a, 6.0c for Windows 3.x (16-bit versions of Word only) is available at http://www.microsoft.com/word/internet/ia/.  
•	Documentation is available at http://www.microsoft.com/msword/internet/ia/default.htm. 

Q. Our grade school (K-8) is about to get hardware for a computer lab.  Who do I need to talk with about getting information on licenses for Windows 3.1?

Tom Niedzwiedz,  Immaculate Heart of Mary Catholic School, North Little Rock, Arkansas

A. Call 1-800-426-9400 or contact a Microsoft Academic Authorized Reseller (list available at http://www.microsoft.com/education/partner/resource/aerinfo.htm).

Q. What is Microsoft’s position on NetPCs? 

A. Customers want to continue to reap the benefits PCs offer in terms of price/performance, compatibility, and adaptability, but they want an option that supports lower cost of ownership. 

The NetPC Reference Platform was defined by Microsoft and Intel with support from industry partners such as Compaq Computer Corp., Dell Computer Corp., Digital Equipment Corp., Gateway 2000 Inc., Hewlett-Packard, Packard Bell, NEC, and Texas Instruments Inc. It specifies industry-standard components in a “sealed” case with limited expandability to prevent end-user modification. 

The NetPC is a new PC family member, not a replacement. It allows PC vendors to build Intel architecture and Windows-based systems that lower the cost of owning PCs. The NetPC will serve as a complement to organizations’ existing investments in the PC platform, providing the optimal combination of reduced cost and extensibility while maintaining full compatibility. The overall benefit will be reduced support costs, a stable hardware platform for several years, a lower initial purchase price, and the ability to build upon existing organization training, development, and capital investments in Windows and applications designed for Windows. 

Microsoft and Intel are working with leading hardware vendors to define the compatibility testing, certification, and uniformity requirements for the NetPC. Together, we will also determine how to best incorporate emerging technologies into future versions of the NetPC so that ownership costs for customers continue to be reduced. 

© 1997. Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.
7. Products and Promotions
Products Featured in This Issue

Microsoft Windows® 95 Operating System: http://www.microsoft.com/windows
Windows 95 presents a major step forward in functionality on desktop and portable PC platforms by providing a system that is even easier, faster, and more powerful to use, and which maintains compatibility with the Windows and MS-DOS® operating system-based applications and hardware peripherals.

Microsoft Windows NT® Server 4.0: http://www.microsoft.com/ntserver/default.asp Powerful, easy to use, reliable, flexible, and scaleable, it all adds up to one of the world’s best network operating systems. At last, educators can expand the potential of networking in schools everywhere. 

Microsoft Proxy Server: http://mscominternal/proxy/default.asp The easy and secure way to bring Internet access and extend Internet applications to every desktop in your school or district.
New Products, Betas, and Recent Releases 

Attention Educators! We have a special promotion for schools and libraries involving Encarta® 97. This promotion allows you to receive a free copy of Encarta 97 Encyclopedia Deluxe Edition (our new, CD product) for every two that you purchase at the discounted academic rate. It’s quite a deal. The price for each copy is $69.95 (plus shipping, handling, and sales tax), but if you get two, the unit cost drops to $46.63 (plus shipping, handling, and tax) on the three copies you’ll receive. Call (800) 615-8149 to order. 

Microsoft Encarta 97 and Microsoft Encarta 97, Deluxe Edition: http://encarta.msn.com/LanguageChoice.asp Award-winning multimedia encyclopedias that combine comprehensive text, rich multimedia, and a unique interactive environment. 

Microsoft Internet Explorer 3.02 for Windows 95 and Windows NT 4.0 operating systems: http://www.microsoft.com/ie/ie3/ A powerful browser that supports the latest HTML features, is easy to use, customizable, and free from the Microsoft Internet Explorer Web site at http://www.microsoft.com/ie/ie3/. 

Microsoft Internet Explorer 3.01 for the Macintosh: http://www.microsoft.com/ie/mac/ Built for the Macintosh from the ground up, Microsoft Internet Explorer 3.01 for the Macintosh is now available. 

Microsoft Internet Explorer 3.01 for Windows 3.1 and Windows NT 3.51: http://www.microsoft.com/ie/launch/win31.htm A fast, high-performance browser designed to put you a step ahead on the Internet. 

Microsoft Office 97: http://microsoft.com/msoffice/ The world’s best-selling office suite integrates intelligent applications with the power of the Internet. For an overview of new features in Office 97, see the What’s New Checklist at http://microsoft.com/office/97tour/checklist.htm/.

Microsoft FrontPage® 97:  http://www.microsoft.com/education/products/prod17.htm
This Web authoring and management tool delivers a complete set of advanced Web publishing tools to Web masters and novices alike. Designed for nonprogrammers, yet robust enough even for experienced Web site developers, Microsoft FrontPage is the fast, easy way to create and manage professional-quality Web sites. With easy-to-use functionality such as WYSIWYG editing and wizards to step you through the creation of your Web site, it’s never been easier to publish on the Web!

Microsoft Works: http://www.microsoft.com/works/ Includes a word processor for writing letters and memos, a database for keeping track of lists, a spreadsheet for doing budgets and calculations, and communication tools for dialing up other computers or online services.

Microsoft Publisher 97: http://www.microsoft.com/publisher/ Makes you and your students look and feel like professional publishers. Create everything from class newsletters, flyers, banners, letterhead, postcards, origami, and more in a few easy steps. 

Microsoft PowerPoint 97: http://www.microsoft.com/mspowerpoint/ Whether conducting an informal meeting, presenting to your students, or delivering your message over the Internet, Microsoft PowerPoint presentation graphics program gives you the tools you need to communicate with impact.

Microsoft Word: http://www.microsoft.com/Word/Learn.htm  The easy way to create powerful documents, communicate ideas, and share information anywhere from the desktop to the Internet.

Microsoft Excel: http://www.microsoft.com/office/office97/documents/xl97ds/default.htm. The world’s most comprehensive spreadsheet program.  

Microsoft Creative Writer 2: http://www.microsoft.com/kids/creative2.htm A brand new version of the award-winning creative writing and desktop publishing program. 

Scholastic’s The Magic School Bus™ Explores in the Age of Dinosaurs: http://www.microsoft.com/kids/msbdinos.htm Ms. Frizzle and her class take you on another interactive field trip aboard the Magic School Bus. Travel to seven different dino hot spots in three prehistoric eras. 

Scholastic’s The Magic School Bus Explores Inside the Earth: http://www.microsoft.com/kids/msbearth.htm Ms. Frizzle and her class are here to take you on an incredible adventure inside the earth. 

Picture It ™: http://www.microsoft.com/pictureit/ Create, enhance, and share your photographic memoriesfrom everyday snapshots to special occasion prints. 

Nickelodeon 3D Movie Maker: http://www.microsoft.com/kids/nick3d.htm gives you the power to easily create your own original 3D animated movies. 

P.J.’s Reading Adventures: http://www.microsoft.com/education/products/prod37.htm Three timeless tales unfold into captivating storytelling adventures. 

Microsoft Encarta World Atlas 97: http://encarta.msn.com/atlas/ Delivers the highest quality maps and some of the richest cultural information of any world atlas ever created. 

Microsoft Bookshelf® 1996–97: http://www.microsoft.com/bookshelf/ Provides quick and easy access to a world of useful and interesting information. Offers one-click access to nine best-selling reference works while using any software program on the Windows or Macintosh platform. 
Special Licensing Offer

Microsoft Open License for Education can provide you with the pricing you need to bring the vision of the Connected Learning Community to life. And now, it can also provide you with free Office 97 and Encarta 97 licenses!

As part of Microsoft’s long-standing commitment to education, we offer specially reduced volume prices for schools with as few as 10 desktops. By providing you with licenses, as opposed to packaged products, we can offer you prices up to 70 percent less than what you would normally pay. For example, Microsoft Office 97 Professional academic edition is $199 U.S. for the full-packaged product. An open license for Office 97 Professional is just $52 U.S.*that’s a savings of more than 70 percent!

The Microsoft Open License for Education is designed to reduce the costs associated with acquiring, upgrading, maintaining, and managing software by providing simple and flexible volume-based pricing over a two-year period. You simply acquire the minimum number of units at one of two price levels, and continue to receive that discount level for reorders over the next two years. For more information on pricing, visit our Web site at http://www.microsoft.com/education/promos/molp.htm.
The Microsoft Open License for Education offers the full benefits of an innovative volume-based licensing program, including: 

•	Value. Consistent volume licensing helps you manage overall costs, facilitate consistency school-wide, and maintain control of licensed use of the Microsoft software products you need to operate your academic institution.
•	Simplicity. The Microsoft Open License volume licensing agreement is easy to understand, communicate, and administer. It features simple, clear terms for acquiring your software licenses. 
•	Custom fit. Customer input helped design this simplified licensing model, which enables you to cover the products you need and offers purchasing levels that best fit your organization. 

Enroll in Microsoft Open License, and receive Microsoft Office 97 and Encarta Deluxe 97 licenses free.

For a limited time, when you enroll or reorder at least 20 application licenses from Microsoft Open License, you will receive Office 97 and Encarta 97 licenses free. Order 20 application licenses from popular titles like Microsoft Office, Microsoft FrontPage Web authoring tool, Microsoft Works, Encarta World Atlas, Microsoft Visual J++, Scholastic’s Magic School Bus, and more and receive one free Office and one free Encarta license. Order at least 40 application licenses, and you’ll receive two licenses for Office 97 and two for Encarta 97FREE! Order 60 and receive three each, and so on. 

For more information on Microsoft Open License, or the Open License Promotion for Education, contact your Authorized Education Reseller or Microsoft Solution Provider. Call (800) 426-9400 in the United States or (800) 563-9048 in Canada for the name of a reseller or Solution Provider in your area. Or, visit our World Wide Web site at http://www.microsoft.com/education/pricing/howtobuy.htm. 

Customers who are deaf or hard of hearing can reach Microsoft text telephone (TT/TDD) services at (800) 892-5234 in the United States or (905) 568-9641 in Canada.

*Promotion good from March 3 to July 31, 1997, in U.S. and Canada. Offer available to qualifying educational institutions only (call your Microsoft Authorized Education Reseller to see if you qualify). Free Office 97 and Encarta 97 licenses are for Windows 95 versions of the product only. Your institution must have one legally obtained copy of Office 97 and Encarta 97 for Windows 95 to use the licenses. The free licenses will not count toward a higher Open License purchasing level. Price for Microsoft Office 97 Professional Open License example is quoted at the academic price for the “B” level and is estimated retail value only. Prices may vary.

Education Solutions Briefings
If you’d like to make smarter technology decisions, take a seat!

The Microsoft Education Solutions Briefing is a FREE three-hour seminar that introduces K–12 technology decision makers to Microsoft’s Connected Learning Community Vision and showcases complete technology solutions for school districts of all sizes.

By highlighting actual schools, this seminar shows how your school can also realize the benefits of an enriched learning environment made possible by Microsoft’s networking products, productivity applications, new and exciting Internet applications, and electronic mail.  A combination of presentations, demonstrations, and video testimonial makes this seminar a very informative and useful briefing that will help you start planning immediately

By attending this seminar you will walk away with free Internet software and an opportunity to receive a special free product by Microsoft called Communications Tools for Schools, a collection of communications and Internet tools. This product is the only communications solution to incorporate the K–12 Web template, education-specific wizards, e-mail, video-conferencing software, and Internet publishing. In addition, Communications Tools for Schools includes new Macintosh-installable File System drivers, thus extending the cross-platform capabilities of the Windows NT network operating system by providing full network access to native Macintosh CD-ROMs.

This seminar offers suggestions on how your school can get the most out of technology dollars by utilizing Microsoft’s volume licensing alternatives.  In addition, the seminar offers schools the opportunity for a free, no risk, comprehensive evaluation of all Microsoft products.

You won’t want to miss this exciting opportunity to see how Microsoft products can work in your school. To register for one of these events online go to http://www.microsoft.com/events/ and search on Education Solutions Briefings. You will see a listing of where and when an Education Solutions Briefing is in your town. You can also call (800) 550-4300 or e-mail edusem@microsoft.com.
Visit Encarta Schoolhouse—Where the Doors to Learning Are Always Open!

Encarta® Schoolhouse at http://www.encarta.msn.com/schoolhouse/default.asp is a free online extension to Encarta Encyclopedia. It provides learners of all ages with opportunities to explore information, ask questions, and participate in challenging activities. Geared primarily to secondary school teachers and students, Schoolhouse is an excellent resource for student reports and an asset for teachers seeking new lesson plan ideas. 
Compelling Content Complements School Curricula
Encarta Schoolhouse highlights a variety of topics relevant to subjects taught in American schools. Each month the site features a timely curricular topic, such as the February 1997 Harlem Renaissance (http://www.encarta.msn.com/schoolhouse/harlem/harlem.asp) in celebration of Black History Month, or the March 1997 Women in Science topic (http://www.encarta.msn.com/schoolhouse/womensci/womensci.asp) in recognition of Women’s History Month. Previous archived topics include:

•	Native Americans at http://www.encarta.msn.com/schoolhouse/nativeam/nativeam.asp
•	Life in the Ocean at http://www.encarta.msn.com/schoolhouse/oceans/oceans.asp
•	The Olympic Games at http://www.encarta.msn.com/schoolhouse/olympics/olympics.asp
•	The American Civil War, at http://www.encarta.msn.com/schoolhouse/civilwar/civilwar.asp
•	The Environment at http://www.encarta.msn.com/schoolhouse/environ/environ.asp 
•	Earthquakes at http://www.encarta.msn.com/schoolhouse/equake/shearth.asp

With each topic package, you will find engaging articles and media, relevant Internet links, and related learning activities. In addition, you will have the unique opportunity to have your questions about the current topic answered by an expert in the field—just go to the Ask an Expert page at http://www.encarta.msn.com/schoolhouse/harlem/hrexpert.asp to meet the current expert. 

The Topic Archive at http://www.encarta.msn.com/schoolhouse/tarchive.asp is an easy way to browse the complete Schoolhouse topic packages. If you are interested in exploring certain features, such as Learning Activities, the Topic Archive has quick links to other archives, including the Learning Activity Archive at http://www.encarta.msn.com/schoolhouse/larchive.asp, the Expert Archive at http://www.encarta.msn.com/schoolhouse/xarchive.asp, and the Web Links Archive at http://www.encarta.msn.com/schoolhouse/warchive.asp.

The site also encourages visitors to suggest future Schoolhouse topics by submitting an e-form available on the Upcoming Topics at http://www.microsoft.com/encarta/encwire/upcoming.asp.
Features Encourage Students to Become Active Learners
Topics come alive in Encarta Schoolhouse as just the right amount of multimedia is coupled with fast download speeds for use in schools. Pictures and sounds make information fun and illustrate concepts beyond print, while InterActivities challenge students and adults to learn by doing. The Native Americans InterActivity at http://www.encarta.msn.com/schoolhouse/nativeam/naia.asp provides an exciting way to learn how to count in three Native American languages by listening and responding to audio recordings stored in a Shockwave file. Schoolhouse also encourages students to learn by talking with experts in the field. The Ask an Expert feature teaches students the value of asking questions and gives schools access to a renowned subject expert every time a new topic is posted. See the Expert Archive at http://www.encarta.msn.com/schoolhouse/xarchive.asp to browse the complete collection of questions and answers addressed by the Schoolhouse experts. 
Discover Fresh Lesson Ideas in Learning Activities
With every new topic, Encarta Schoolhouse presents an engaging learning activity that can be adapted to middle- and high-school classrooms. Each learning activity includes clear objectives, step-by-step instructions, and ready-to-use worksheets. The Learning Activity Archive at http://www.encarta.msn.com/schoolhouse/larchive.asp organizes all of the Schoolhouse activities across a broad range of topic areas. For example, students can track their trash in an environmental activity called Where Does All the Garbage Go? at http://encarta.msn.com/schoolhouse/environ/envact1.asp or consider the difficult ethics involved in issues of censorship and free speech in Talk of the Times: Debating the Limits of Free Speech at http://encarta.msn.com/schoolhouse/otractiv/shenact.asp.
Network With Colleagues in the Teacher’s Lounge
Created just for educators, the Teacher’s Lounge at http://www.encarta.msn.com/schoolhouse/lounge/default.asp is a convenient place for teachers to link to useful educational sites, to communicate with colleagues, and to learn about Microsoft’s special offers to the educational community. Teacher bulletins at http://encarta.msn.com/schoolhouse/lounge/tbmain.asp is a free service that allows teachers to share information, ideas, and requests with each other. It is an electronic version of a cork bulletin board you might find hanging in a faculty lounge covered with announcements, but this bulletin board reaches teachers all over the world. The bulletins include a range of requests, such as this one from a fifth-grade teacher: “I’m interested in making teacher/class contacts with people living along the Oregon Trail. My students will be studying this later during the year, and it would add interest to talk with those who now live near these historical sites.” And a seventh-grade science teacher writes: “Looking for ideas on an integrated approach to oceanography. Incorporating lessons on: classification, evolution, comparative anatomy, weather, ecology, etc.” Like the classified ads in a Sunday newspaper, Teacher bulletins are driven by individual contributions and offer something for everyone.
Learn About Special Offers for Educators
The Teacher’s Lounge is also the place to find out about Microsoft’s special offers for educators at http://encarta.msn.com/schoolhouse/lounge/offers.asp. You can learn about Encarta 97 Deluxe School Edition at http://encarta.msn.com/schoolhouse/lounge/facts.asp, connect to an online Encarta Teacher’s Activity Guide, and find out how to run Encarta over a school network. 

Encarta Encyclopedia is currently running a special “Buy 2, Get 1 Free” offer for educators at http://encarta.msn.com/ms/school/offer.asp. For a limited time, educators can order two copies of the North American edition of Encarta 97 Encyclopedia Deluxe School Edition at $69.95 per copy (plus shipping and handling) before June 30, 1997, and get a third copy free. To learn more about this offer and to order copies online, go to the “Buy 2, Get 1 Free” page, or call (800) 615-8149.

© 1997. All rights reserved. Microsoft Corporation.
NECC 

This year, the National Education Computing Conference will be held in Seattle, and here at Microsoft, we’re gearing up for a fantastic event. Bill Gates, chairman and CEO of Microsoft, will present the keynote address on Monday morning, June 30, the first day of the conference. Theater presentations, product demonstrations, and a Microsoft partners’ pavilion will be featured in the Microsoft booth in the exhibit hall. Hands-on training sessions on our products will be held at the Sheraton. And to top it all off, plan on attending the Microsoft-NECC Party and Dance on Tuesday, July 1st from 9 P.M.12 A.M. All NECC attendees are welcome, and we promise it will be a fun-filled evening! Stay tuned to this newsletter for more detailed information and schedules, or visit the NECC at http://www.wce.wwu.edu/necc97

 1997. Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.
National Netday Initiatives Help More Schools and Students Get Connected to the Internet

April 19 marked the second annual NetDay, the national grassroots initiative to wire the nation’s schools and link every classroom to the Internet by 2000.  Volunteers in 40 states and the District of Columbia pulled wire through walls and established online connections. As a Patron Partner of NetDay, Microsoft provided wiring, hardware and software, Internet tools and resources, training and volunteers to ensure schools have the resources they need to use the Internet once they are wired.  

More than 16,000 Microsoft NetDay resource CDs were shipped to the schools with products and tools for exploring and publishing on the Internet. The CDs are distributed through state NetDay organizers, wiring kit providers, and Microsoft field offices. Resources include Microsoft® Internet Explorer, a Web tutorial and a 10-step technology planning guide. 

Microsoft also is helping state NetDay organizers establish Web sites with donations of the Microsoft Windows NTÒ Server 4.0 operating system. Through its field offices, Microsoft has donated more than $300,000 in software to schools participating in NetDay and established local training programs for teachers, staff, students, and community members. Hundreds of employees have volunteered.

At one NetDay school in Washington D.C., Microsoft donated wiring, hardware and software to connect the school to the Internet. More than 50 volunteers wired 70 classrooms and 15 offices by 7 p.m. “This is a very happy moment here, and it’s showing on everyone’s face,” said Principal Cleo Davis, Jr., of H. D. Woodson High School.

To learn more about NetDay, visit the NetDay2000 Web site at http://www.netday.org. For a Microsoft Education CD-ROM for NetDay, contact your state NetDay organizer.

 1997. Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.

AATP Announcement

Microsoft Authorized Academic Training Program (AATP) institutions are accredited academic institutions that offer courses, including Microsoft Official Curriculum courses, over an academic term. AATP institutions are an excellent learning option for high school or college students seeking training on Microsoft development tools and server products. AATP institutions deliver Microsoft authorized courseware in an academic environment to help students prepare for Microsoft certification exams and to meet the employment demands of the technology marketplace. 

If you are interested in taking a Microsoft Official Curriculum course or sharing the opportunity with teachers and students, use the Microsoft Course search tool at http://www.microsoft.com/train_cert/  to review the course descriptions. For a referral to a local AATP, call Microsoft at (800) 508-8454; in Canada call (800) 688-0496.

If you are interested in finding out how your institution can become an AATP institution, visit the Microsoft Channel Resources site at http://www.microsoft.com/channel_resources/chanprog/aatp.htm.

Microsoft’s academic training program will be the topic of a roundtable discussion at the National Education Computing Conference in Seattle, Washington, in July. Panelists will include representatives from high schools, colleges, and local businesses who are interested in integrating Microsoft training into school curricula. NECC attendees interested in the program should attend. The Web site listed above will carry updated information.