Shadle Class Will Provide Service Stop On Infobahn

With a little help from software giant Microsoft, computer students at Shadle Park High School are about to get onto the information superhighway.

But instead of just cruising down the superhighway, they will be providing a service stop for other users.

The students will begin publishing on Internet’s World Wide Web using a computer system and phone line provided by Microsoft.

Internet is a global network of computer systems and networks accessible through telephone lines and a modem. The web is an easy-touse, visual way of using the Internet.

On the web, users just point a mouse at options rather than typing in long, wordy commands. Internet services connected through the web also feature pictures and sound, not just text.

Students in the Shadle computer class will set up and design a web server, or a system computer that users can access via modem through the web. It is expected to be up and running next month.

In exchange for providing a highspeed phone line and computer, Microsoft wants the students to convert product brochures into computer text and images that Internet users can view on-line.

Don Story, Shadle’s computer teacher, originally discovered the Microsoft offer through a message the company posted on the Internet. He decided it would make a nice master’s-degree project for him and an opportunity for his students to approach Internet in a new way.

“Instead of consumers of information, they’ll be producers,” Story says.

Once in operation, the service will have K-12 school information for District 81 students and parents as well as sections devoted to public broadcasting.

The service will have information on KSPS television programs and will even have digital audio samples of KPBX radio programming.

“The whole beauty of the web is that you get all media - pictures, audio, everything,” Story says.

Shadle senior Peter Deacon thinks that is the most powerful aspect of the web. He plans to design pages - or sections - of the web server that feature photo-realistic graphics, viewable on-line.

“It’s real cool,” he says.

Sophomore Khoi Nguyen likes the assignment because, unlike most, the end result will be available to the public.

“It’s not like the homework you do for a teacher,” he says. “It’s for the whole world.”

While setting up the web server is a public service in and of itself, Story sees the project’s ultimate value in what it will teach students. The Internet, he says, is the most powerful informational tool in the world, bar none.

“It’s like walking into the library of Congress times 1,000,” he says.

“It’s the cutting edge. Distance and location really don’t make any difference anymore.”

Nguyen attests to that. He uses the web to get information on school reports and says the resources are definitely worldwide.

“It’s better than looking in a library book,” he says. “This is graphics and sound.

“If you want to learn about a country, the best way is to connect with it directly.”