March 20th,1997 A MODEL DUAL-WIRELESS SCHOOL Dr. Mary Murphy (jbfish01@richmond.infi.net) is a dynamo of an Elementary School Principal. She presides over an equally dynamic and progressive Elementary School in a sylvan residential setting in Richmond, Virginia. It is called - with good reason, the J.B. Fisher Model School, organized in the 1980's with open enrollment as part of the greater Richmond School District, to experiment with progressive methods of teaching and learning. Since the school met several criteria for a partnership of communications businesses who were responding to Congressional House Speaker Newt Gingrich and Virginia Congressman Thomas Bliley's call of several years ago to move our public schools into the modern communications age - it was selected for a grant-based demonstration school project involving wireless communications in two basic forms - local school-site cellular mobile, and local area network wireless. It thus became one of a number of sites in the country equipped and supported under the Cellular Telecommunication Industry Association (CTIA)'s "ClassLink Project." The Fisher school version of the project differs sharply in one key area from all other ClassLink sites - it uses analog cellular telephones provided to the school for voice only, while using spread spectrum no-licence wireless radios from other vendors for data within the school and access to the Internet. Most, if not all of the other ClassLink sites use the cellular phones for both voice and data transmission. In effect Fisher school has two seperate systems that reach into all classrooms - a cellular voice and Internet data system. The school was picked in part because it has a healthy racial and geographic mix. It approaches a cross section of Virginia's school populations. 60% of the attendee youngsters are black. 15% are on free school lunches. Its not poor, its not rich. It physically sits in a tree lined neighborhood near the James River with well kept up houses. But since it is 'open registration' it draws from a broader demographic and geographic area than just its neighborhood. The school emphasizes 'critical thinking' reasoning, and decision-making skills more than traditional schools would. It has been using classroom computers for teaching the young students how to read and write. Previous to the ClassLink project, the school only had one modem line for education, used to communicate through the Virginia's Public Education Network (VA PEN), with Web access in text (Lynx) only by a character graphics terminal. Seperately the school had and still has, an administrative modem link to the district headquarters. The school has all classrooms equipped with at least one Power PC from Apple, and one or two additional, earlier Mac computers. They have at least 40 classroom computers. No classrooms were wired for LANs. The ClassLink project at Fisher, started in December of 1995, and rolled out in May of 1996, is an active partnership between GTE Mobilnet, (the wireless division), Infinet, a Norfolk based Internet provider, and Wi-LAN, a Calgary, Canada (FCC Part 15 type) radio manufacturer. (paul@wi-lan.com) This business partnership has provided, at no cost to the school for effectively one full school year, ending in July 1997, all the hardware, software, links, installation, support, and services to provide the entire 460 student Pre K-5 school, and its teachers and staff with data access to the Internet over Bell Atlantic's ISDN service, as well as classroom access to its own automated internal library resources. It also has hand held cellular voice telephone access for all teachers and staff, with access to each other internally, and to outside lines (except long distance), and voice mail. THE DATA WIRELESS The route to the wireless data choices are interesting. After CTIA responded to the Congressmen's challenge, GTE started to plan on the use of the cell phones, with cellular-modems to provide the data links to the classroom MacIntosh's, as all other ClassLink sites were doing. But somebody in GTE was smart. They realized that standard analog cell phones are at best, marginal for use with data, and almost unusable for access to the Internet, especially the world wide web, being bandwidth limited to no more than 9,600 baud in most cases, and susceptible to interference. So they decided to search, online, for a data radio partner. Wi-LAN of Calgary, makers of the 'Hopper' series of FCC Part 15, no-licence, spread spectrum radios responded to their online appeals, and, undoubtedly seeing an opportunity to showcase in a high-political profile US educational networking project, offered their 1.5Mbps (T-1) radios in whatever numbers the school needed, for the project. This was an interesting decision, for the no-licence wireless is, defacto, a competitor to telco wireless commercial services for data - which future data cell phones will be able to handle much better than the current generation of analog cell phones. A 128Kbps ISDN service was purchased from Bell Atlantic by the partnership (not the school). Bell Atlantic, though the local RBOC, is not a partner in the ClassLink project. The ISDN links the school to Infinet, which is providing both the ISP service, and the ISDN service free to the project. At the school the ISDN is connected to a Livingston router, which in turn is connected to a base Hopper 1.5Mbps (T-1) radio. Then, in classrooms across the building, 14 more Hopper radios are deployed. Each of those is linked by thinwire ethernet to thinwire ethernet boards in one to three Mac computers in the classroom. Wi-LAN states that the bridges are 'intelligent', and will filter out local Ethernet MAC addresses and will only send across the wireless link what is required. Thus they can accomodate over 200 computers on each local segment of a WAN. The Hopper radios at Fisher are being used as a substitute for a school-wide, wired, local area network. Infinet provides static IP addresses from its licence, so that all connected computers at the school have a static IP address. From the reports of the principal, teachers, and Daniel Arkin the Internet consultant to the Richmond School District and Fisher School, there have been no interference problems with the 15 radios in pretty close proximity to each other in the rooms of the school. The wireless LAN network works as it should. Only two radios have given trouble during the period, one from a suspected user mistake. Using the thinwire, rather than 10baseT, there are no ethernet hubs in use.The classroom computers are simply connected, wirelessly, to both the library server, and to the Internet via an ISDN pipe to the school. And then to each other in the classroom via a wired ethernet from the radio. In several cases, however, the school has been extending the wire network into auxuliary rooms and places where there is no radio, linking the computer there into the nearest Hopper station. It is not clear to me that there was a compelling need to have as many radios as the GTE Engineers asked for - 15. The walls are concrete block, and not easy to punch holes through. There was a belief there was insulating asbestos in the walls and that may have accounted for the number of wireless system requested. Wireless LANs are a more cost effective solution to such problems than doing what is usually necessary to deal with the asbestos. If there was not such a problem, they would not have bought as many, instead balancing the costs of LAN wiring in some complexes with the cost of the radios. A careful cost-effective analysis of the alternatives need to be made in such instances. All units at Fisher School are in the 902 to 928 MHz band in this system. (Wi-LAN also has radios which operate in the 2.4 GHz bands as well.) The units are configured in a polling system (pseudo-Token Ring) which means there is no lost time due to Ethernet collisions on the radio portion of the entire system. In most cases the Hopper units are now placed high on shelves, out of the student's reach, with the two status lights on the front of the Hopper showing status. The base Hopper unit, router, ISDN demark are on a high shelf in a locked sports equipment room, as well as a GTE telephone software machine. There have been some problems from overheating in the unventilated room. From all accounts the network of radios are never turned off, and are troublefree. All operate with a 6-8" mast antenna that comes with the product. No larger antenna are needed. In essense the data network, from classroom PC to the Internet is a seperate system from the related voice system. THE VOICE WIRELESS The installation and use of the cellular voice phones is interesting, innovative, and holds lessons for other schools. GTE Mobilnet uses a 'package' model for ClassLink, in which the school is provided with a special local-area 'cell' within which all the handheld cell phones operate, linked to GTE equipment that concentrates the phones and allows cross school communications without the usual per minute standard common carrier charges, and access to a Centrex set of lines to the outside. In the case of Fisher school there are 8 Bell Atlantic lines that come into the Centrex system, which then can be accessed for local dial only, by any teacher or staff member at any time. (This is an 'Astronet' communications package as represented by a CTIA executive to me at a seperate school networking conference I attended. This developed package would cost a school about $60,000.) There are over 40 hand held cell phones at the schools, and all teachers and staff are equipped with them. In the 'local cell' 'free' configuration, they only operate within about 1,000 feet of the school complex. But if any teacher has a regular cell phone account with GTE, they can also use that from within the school, with the same handset, paying for the charges individually. There is an interesting economic riddle for commercial cell phone companies who offer such a flat-cost, local special-cellphone package, subsidized or not. The frequencies that the cell phones have to access have to come from their commercial-service frequencies. So in effect, not only, in the ClassLink project are they giving the school the cell phones and associated specialized equipment, they are also reducing the number of customers they can serve, individually and commercially, in the cell area. So whether this ClassLink model can scale throughout the 84,000 public schools in the US remains to be seen. Now one would wonder what a cell voice phone would have to do with classroom education, but both from the presentation I heard at the Washington DC networking conference by CTIA, and the comments by Brian Regrut, a consultant to GTE who has coordinated for GTE the entire Fisher School ClassLink Project, it is clear what their uses are. In a nutshell, the cell phones contribute to the improvement of the 'learning and support environment' surrounding the substantive education itself. The teachers use the phones to reach and be reached by the staff, or other teachers while in their classroom. This is an internal telephone network that does not go to the Bell Atlantic Switch to return to the school, and thus, as its own local loop, also does not incur a per-minute cell phone charge. The local cross-school use ranges from scheduling conversations, requests for assistance, to finding out about educational materials on the spot. Many schools have had public address systems, some even two way, but the cell phones are more flexible, and can be used outside during recess, and the madhouse when busses arrive or depart. Originally there was no Voice Mail provided in the package, but it was quickly added to make a very large contribution to the voice communications contact between the teachers and parents. For one thing, the teachers can leave voice mail for individual parents of their students, and fetch replies. The parents can use any phone to communicate in this way with the teacher. No one can 'call into' a classroom phone (an administrative, not technical, decision), but since the voice mail is on the general Bell Atlantic service, it is generally accessible. Teachers get 20 minutes of stored Voice Mail space, which they use to announce to any parents interested, home work assignments, or other special scheduling matters. The consequence of this use between teachers and parents has been a demonstrable increase of parental involvement in their children's education - even at the elementary level. Disciplinary problems, excellent work, can be discussed easily by the teacher with the parent via the asynchronous Voice Mail, and at times and places in the school day that hitherto would have been impossible or very inconvenient, and then only using the few 'office' phone lines available in the typical school. Thus this cellphone package, overcomes one of the anomolies of the Communications and Information Age - the fact that, of all the professional workers in America, only teachers have not had phones at their desks. Now they may indeed have them, to be used whereever they are, even standing before students in the classroom. It is even possible for the teacher, having a hard time with a student to stand right before them in a classroom, and dial up their parents - which has a theraputic effect on the youngster. Obviously this has more applicability to higher grades with older and less naturally obedient school children. But the potential value became obvious after observing Fisher school. It is equally true that the teachers can, and do, use the phone to tell parents the 'good news' also, in ways the student knows. There are now few 'notes' being sent home by the teacher, some of which traditionally, as we all know, may never see their destination - the parent, especially when it involves bad news. Usage in the above ways has increased steadily since the system was installed. It is obvious by extension, that the same technique used in higher grade and tougher inner-city schools, for safety reasons by teachers, is a contribution to the learning environment there. In a survey done by CTIA, it was noted that even the students 'felt safer' when a cell phone was available in the classroom. Not feeling safe is obviously a distraction from education. Another use of the cell phone has been for special needs students with moderate to severe - less than 60dB - hearing loss. I watched a special education teacher help 10 year old Tori Johnson, suffering from 'severe' hearing loss, attach a device from the cell phone to her hearing aid, and hold a normal conversation with the Principal over the cell phone, smiling broadly from beginning to end. THE WIRELESS COMBINATION I frankly had not given much thought to the educational value of classroom cell phones that could not handle data, until I watched it in action in this school that uses all its resources to best advantage. (Telecommunications in all its forms is routine in this school within the first 6 months of its full introduction.) But it is clear - especially with the flat package-rate Astronet cell phone system, and Voice Mail to the outside - that they are of great assistance to a classroom teacher, and encourages and facilitates timely parental involvement in their children's education - a goal oft professed but seldom seen. The ubiquity of the classroom cell phone can change that. The Wi-LAN Hopper wireless units are operating very well within the school complex, both substituting for wired LANs, and possessing the capability to be moved, with no incurred cost, if classrooms have to be changed. Something not possible with hard wired classrooms. I suggested at one point that the Principal experiment with sending a teacher home with a wireless Hopper, connect it via ethernet to a home computer, and begin to gain experience with that mode of connectivity. The radios, unlike fixed wired installations, can be moved and changed over time, and changing building configurations. It remains to be seen what the continuing cost of both the outside Internet connection, and the cell phone system will be. I hope to communicate with the Richmond School District Chief of Operations, Mike Griffin, after all the contracts are signed for a continuation of the now-subsidized services in the fall, and determine and report on those costs. They will include the Infinet ISP costs, the 8 Centrex lines to the school and the Bell Atlantic data link from the school to the ISP. Fisher school is fully 8 miles from downtown Richmond where the District HQ and several ISPs reside. Given the hilly, very wooded terrain between the school and downtown, and that it is in a depression of sort, there is little practical possibility that there can be a wireless link between the school and the district, even with a relay. The combination of the 1 watt FCC limitation on the radios, and the necessity to operate in the higher frequency line of sight ranges, such as the 915Mhz, 2.4Ghz, or the new service just approved at the 5Ghz level - precludes doing a needed link between the school and the district level. Fisher Model school could definitely use a T-1 capable no-licence wireless link between the router at the school, and the ISP, or the District headquarters. But unless the FCC loosens up on its range restrictions for such devices, it will never happen, and the school system will be obliged to pay the commercial rate for data links, whose demand in bandwidth will get ever higher as more imaginative and ubiquitous use, and more installed computers increases. 460 students can still generate considerable demand on any network. Wi-LAN itself has a wavier from the FCC to permit higher antenna gain for their 2.4Ghz Hopper Plus radios - which could be used to reach the District Headquarters, though with additional radios in between used as relays. Wi-LAN claims there would be little loss in data rates through relay radios. We were not able to test this. There is a disagreement going on between the Principal and the Internet district consultant on what will happen when the subsidy for the ISDN ends in July, assuming the link will be a wired link. The Principal questions the substitution of a flat monthly rate 56Kbps line to the school, for the per-minute rate of 128Kbps ISDN, until adequate assurances are given that the change will not degrade current functionality. The bandwidth battle has already begun. LESSONS NOT BEING LEARNED The only bad news to report on this excellent example of intelligent use being made of wireless voice and data networks, classroom computers, and the Internet, is the lack of attention to its details and effective in Fisher school by the District-level leadership and technical as well as economic staff. This clearly disappoints the school, and the consortium of business doners to the project. I kept asking what involvement there was at the Technical Staff at the District, and I kept getting the answer 'None.' In my judgement this will ultimately be self defeating for the whole Richmond district, which is beginning to embark on extensive school to Internet connectivity. It is learning nothing from the Demonstration Project. No technical person at the district level is, or has been, involved with the hardware, software, or special considerations involved in the wireless. There will be two consequences - first, if or when equipment breaks down, the district will be unable to render technical support. Because the district knows nothing about the radios, they are in no position to consider them, on a cost-effective basis, for the remainder of the district, which is beginning to connect up its schools to the Internet - wired. The important economics of wired versus wireless are also being lost on the District. For the lack of interest in the details of the installation also has meant that there has been no cost-effectiveness analysis of the wireless solution when compared with more traditional wired alternatives- both inside the school and to an ISP or the District using Bell Atlantic data services. Since the ClassLink project is an equipment, installation, service and support grant to the school, the Principal does not know the economics either. But she should not need to know - it is the district which must pay the ultimate bills for this kind of communications service. The true costs may become better known when, in July, the District has to commence paying for the Centrex and ISDN, or a dedicated 56Kbs line they are considering. But there was such an ample gift of equipment - over 40 cell phones and 15 wireless Hopper's - that it is not clear what the remainder of the District can learn in educational cost-effectiveness terms from the project. It is a demonstration of capability, not comparative affordability of the technological mix. I had to dig this information out while visiting the school - the judgements expressed above were not based on complaints to me. But I felt it important to determine these things, because my experience with school systems and new technologies tells me that ultimately, at the Superintendent and School Board level, the issue of technology will be decided upon judgements of costs, not just educational merit. The ClassLink Project at Fisher Model School is not just a demonstration of educational technology, it is a demonstration of the economics - both in productive use of teacher, student, parents time, and the comparative (with traditional method and materials) dollar costs - of technologically supported education. A NEW QUESTION The use of cellular analog phones in the Astronet package, with a flat montly rate, raises an interesting question for the cell phone companies. When devices such as a the CDMA Quaalcom digital cellular phones become more broadly available, can they be used effectively, not only to confer the benefits described above for classroom voice communications, but be the main link - but at a suitably high data rate, say 56Kbps or higher from each classroom computer with a cell-phone data port, for both purposes, obviating the need for seperate no-licence wireless devices, and even more fully integrating the voice and data? KIDS LEADING THE WAY The impact of this ClassLink project, not only on the school operations, but in the surrounding community is significant, and flows from both the access to the Internet and the use of cell phones. As I visited classroom after classroom, encountered children in the hallways and observed them during lunch, I was struck by the vitality of the school. This is a Pre K-5 school, where the children are eager to learn, to please, to be outgoing without being disruptive, and to share what they know. And they are definitely learning the skills of the future, starting at a very young age. The kindergarten has the same 1.5Mbps (T-1) Hopper radio as everyone else. Full credit must go to Mary Murphy who has made Fisher Model School a wonderfully dynamic place, where every behavior of the students I observed was positive. The kids are obviously exited to be there and learn, and not a bit shy about speaking up brightly. The impact of this outside the school seemed to be demonstrated when I visited a classroom. In one classroom - 5th graders - whose teacher was down the hall taking with others a formal class in the use of the Internet from a school-cluster consulting trainer, the Principal introduced me to them, and we chatted a few minutes. There were about 25 students in the room, over half black children. While Dr. Murphy had earlier indicated to me she thought that 30% of the homes where these children lived had computers, when she asked the class how many of them had Internet access from their homes, fully half - 12 hands shot up! 50%! Not just computers, but commercial Internet access. And the children knew exactly what that meant, for when further questioned, everyone she pointed to immediately responded 'Compuserve' or 'AOL' or 'Prodigy' and many had two, and one youngster three commercial services from home! The children were positively eager to tell about it. Not just one or two, but 8 to 10 hands went up on every question. I left my URL and email address on the blackboard for them, fully confident anyone of these youngsters could grab and run with it. Mrs Murphy had only to suggest they write them down and everyone's pencils flew into action. At lunch we discussed this high percentage of Internet enabled homes. There was a consensus that the homes were being 'kid driven' in technology - from very young ages. The evident exitement and routine use by the children in using the Internet from the classroom - for exploring, preparation, for example, for trips to the zoo, for studying famous people, their programmatic use of the compters to learn how to read and write, coupled with the greater involvement of the parents aided by the close cell-phone contact by the teachers with them, meant that households have been aquiring personal computers AND going out to the net, reflecting their quite young children's exited and masterful use of the technology. This is in contrast to the usually observed 'affluent parent' driven technology based school. While this is indeed a 'Model School' the demographics of the school is more normal than abnormal. J.B. Fisher Model School is the fountainhead of advanced telecommunications technology for lots of local families, and the kids are now the driving force for its applicability to their and their families' lives. The kids - very young kids - are leading their parents into the Information Age in ways they do not realize. Speaker Gingrich probably does not know what his challenge to the telecomm industry has actually wrought. Its time for him to visit the place. I suggest even he would be amazed. Dave Hughes Principal Investigator NSF Wireless Field Tests for Education dave@oldcolo.com http://wireless.oldcolo.com