only connect - progress - SOFTWARE

I'm using the term 'software' here is a fairly loose sense. What I mean by it is pretty much any part of the systems we used that isn't hardware - so it includes ISPs, virtual learning spaces etc. as well as stuff like wordprocessors.

			AOL

The AOL user software and system has turned out to be a very important factor in the project. Whilst I had originally chosen this because I thought it presented the friendliest face for new internet users by combining browsers, chat, mail and other features into one package, I had not really considered that it would have a practical application if such a project were rolled out over a wider population. However, it's become clear that AOL has many advantages in this situation and that those I had seen as transitory look far more important now (about halfway through the project as I write). Mail The mail system in AOL 5 is still maybe not up to the organisational capabilities of something like Outlook, but it certainly provides most of the facilities one would get in a standard package. However, its ability to use a range of familiar formatting commands, the drag and drop inclusion of links (favourites) and so on create a very rich compositional environment without the complexities of actual HTML based mail. The down side is that mailings between AOL and other systems are not able to take advantage of all this, but if we aim to create what is, for learning purposes, a closed community of students and teachers, they would all be on the same system and could take advantage of it. Chat The chat system has worked very well so far. Students on line can use the 'buddy list' to identify other members of the group who are also there. They can then communicate one to one using instant messages or easily set up their own temporary chat area that only those invited can enter. This is plainly useful socially but the ability to save the contents of a chat room also make it very useful from an educational point of view as conversations can be reviewed. Parental Control This feature of the system is one of the main attractions of it. It provides an extremely flexible set of controls that can be used to set up a graduated set of access levels. For instance it is possible to restrict incoming mail to specific addresses or domains, allow the use of chat or not, restrict available websites and so on. There are huge issues surrounding the use of the internet as a communications channel between LEA employees and students - this is doubly true if the LEA is actually supplying the whole system. Simply put this comes down the the nightmare headline 'Derbyshire Provides Kiddies With Porn'. This issue, and the specific effect it has had on one student, is discussed elsewhere. The restrictions AOL offers are exactly the sort of facilities that will prevent this sort of thing - though, of course, that will only work while students are connected via AOL. Support and Reliability If such a project as Only Connect were to be rolled out further the choice of a service like AOL would look in the first instance like a very expensive option. However, throughout this project its overall reliability and the access to an 0800 helpline that the students can use has probably saved me a lot of the kind of support time I would have expected to provide had I had to assemble the same facilities and provide them via one of the 'free' ISPs. This has implications in terms of cost-effectiveness for future projects that greater minds than mine would have to consider, but set against the cost of tutor/technician time it's certainly worth exploring.

			TagLink

TagLink was seen as a very important part of the project at the outset. It was to provide a 'virtual building' in which to gather together all the aspects of the students work, as well as being a communication centre for the tutors. However, it really hasn't turned out that way. There are many reasons for this and few of them are directly due to the nature of TagLink as an application. Mail We decided not to use this from the start, it was simply easier to let students make full use of of the facilities in AOL. Conferencing We soon abandoned the chat function in TagLink, again for the greater convenience of AOL. We have begun to use the asynchronous conferencing system however. At this point in the project I don't feel we have exploited this area as anything more than a place for students to post work. In an attempt to at least expose the students to the idea of asynchronous conferencing I will set up a couple of conferences that will ask them to discuss which soap is best and which football team is best. While this is unlikely to produce huge educational results it might at least get enough use by the students that they will be able to comment on the nature of conferencing by the end of the project. Web Publishing In many ways it's hard to comment on this. TagLink provides an area in which students and tutors can publish HTML based materials. The editing and uploading facilities seemed to work well enough, but there was, at the time we were using it, a rather complex menu system for classifying and locating the pages which none of us really felt confident with. Having said that, we didn't really try that hard as it became clear early on that students were unlikely, within the projects run, to get to a point where they would use this facility a great deal. Again, those that have thus far been interested enough to give that a go have found the use of AOLPress a lot easier. Links Library It seems likely that in a longer study or a sustained roll-out this would become a very useful feature, though perhaps we might have ended up making more use of the web-publishing for pointing to resources. As it has been thus far we have not found ourselves getting deeply enough into the use of the web as a resource to really look at the advantages of this. MORE TO COME....