010.10: How to Tour the NSFnet by Eric M. Aupperle When visitors come to Merit's operations center to learn about the NSFNET, a frequently asked question is "What's this network able to do for me and how do people use it?" Our visitors seek a better understanding of how the network appears to the user and what services it provides to them, not a detailed description of the technology employed in its implementation. One technique we use is tailoring a real time demonstration focused on the visitor's area of interest. By encouraging and aiding the guest to use a workstation to search, for example, a distant library's catalog or seek information from a server often helps people visualize what is difficult to explain verbally. This hands-on involvement allows visitors to experience a better sense for how easily it is to access services, how quickly information is available, and the wide breath of resources that exist, many of which are freely available. This last point is frequently a surprise. Another approach we use is sharing anecdotal examples of how individuals use the Internet. This works better for larger groups of visitors and for conference presentations using slides, overheads, or video tapes. We also selectively publish these examples in our newsletters or other user focused documents. Our latest variation of this information sharing theme is a Macintosh-based presentation named "A Cruise of the Internet." This product was previewed at NET '92. Several illustrations of the examples we share follow. We're always interested in learning of new ones and will welcome your contributions. Spacelink, sponsored by NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama, contains information about shuttle launches, astronauts' biographies, and NASA publications. It is primarily geared toward K-12 educators and students, but is open to the public. A Free-Net bulletin board system is operated out of Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, Ohio. An exciting portion of this Free-Net is the U.S. Supreme Court's Project Hermes which has the full text of recent decisions. Another Free-Net system is located in Peoria, Illinois. This one offers a senior center, a teen center, and forums on taxes, banking, and investments. Its educational forums stress involvement with schoolchildren. Projects include electronic mail exchanges between senior citizens and eight-year-olds. Appalachian State University's campus-wide information system (CWIS) contains world news obtained by monitoring short-wave radio broadcasts from the BBC (British Broadcasting Corporation) and other global sources. The CWIS for the Massachusetts Institute of Technology provides information about the MIT campus, the city of Boston, and using the Internet. It provides menus of Boston area restaurants, a list of Internet accessible library card catalogs, and the Internet resource guide. New Mexico State University's CWIS has information for K-12 teachers including a data base of activities for helping at-risk students in the New Mexico public schools. The CWIS for the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, includes a database of grants, scholarships, and funding opportunities for undergraduates, graduate students, faculty. A large number of U.S. library catalogs are available on the Internet, including the Colorado Alliance of Research Libraries, University of California Melvyl catalog, the Penn State libraries, and many others. Examples of on-line card catalogs from other countries include The University of Melbourne in Australia and Cambridge University in England. Sidebar by Eric M. Aupperle Can you imagine an adult student who doesn't read or write leading a discussion of poetry? In Michigan's Upper Peninsula, Jan Runyan, a teacher in the Consolidated Community Schools, has seen it happen. Her students are in a high school completion program and range in age from 16 to 70. The motivating tool she uses in called Interactive Communications & Simulations (ICS), offered through the University of Michigan's School of Education. ICS links students around the world in an interactive, collaborative learning environment using a computer conferencing system. The International Poetry Guild, one of the ICS exercises, allows students to share their poetry with other students worldwide as well as to review and edit others' poetry. Each participating school produces a poetry journal comprised of poetry from students in their own school and poems they select from other participating schools. What Jan Runyan discovered is that students are drawn into this activity and experience a sense of pride in having their own poetry published in other schools' journals. At the same time they build self-esteem as they gain confidence in learning valuable computer skills. In fact she finds some students use their lunch hour to go on-line. In addition to the poetry guild, ICS offers another Communications Exercise, Earth Odysseys, where students travel vicariously by conversing, using the Internet, with travelers on unusual expeditions. ICS also offers three Simulation Exercises: Environmental Decisions, Arab-Israeli Conflict, and United States Constitution.