13.3  USENET AND BITNET IN THE CLASSROOM

There are numerous Usenet newsgroups of potential interest to 
teachers and students.  

As you might expect, many are of a scientific bent. You can find these by 
typing l sci. in rn or using nngrep sci. for nn. There are now close to 
40, with subjects ranging from archaeology to economics (the "dismal 
science," remember?) to astronomy to nanotechnology (the construction of 
microscopically small machines). 

One thing students will quickly learn from many of these groups: science 
is not just dull, boring facts.  Science is argument and standing your 
ground and making your case.  The Usenet sci. groups encourage critical 
thinking. 

Beyond science, social-studies and history classes can keep busy learning 
about other countries, through the soc.culture newsgroups. 

Most of these newsgroups originated as ways for expatriates of a given 
country to keep in touch with their homeland and its culture.  In times 
of crisis, however, these groups often become places to disseminate 
information from or into the country and to discuss what is happening.  
From Afghanistan to Yugoslavia, close to 50 countries are now represented 
on Usenet.  To see which groups are available, use l soc.culture. in rn 
or nngrep soc.culture. for nn. 

Several "talk" newsgroups provide additional topical discussions, but 
teachers should screen them first before recommending them to students.  
They range from talk.abortion and talk.politics.guns to 
talk.politics.space and talk.environment. 

One caveat:  Teachers might want to peruse particular newsgroups before 
setting their students loose in them.  Some have higher levels of flaming 
and blather than others, not to mention content that some might not 
consider appropriate in a school setting.  Some schools have developed 
"contracts" that students are required to sign that set out acceptable 
Net behavior. 

There are also a number of Bitnet discussion groups of potential interest 
to students and teachers.  See Chapter 5 for information on finding and 
subscribing to Bitnet discussion groups.  Some with an educational 
orientation include: 
 
biopi-l     ksuvm.bitnet        Secondary biology education
chemed-l    uwf.bitnet          Chemistry education
dts-l       iubvm.bitnet        The Dead Teacher's Society list
phys-l      uwf.bitnet          Discussions for physics teachers
physhare    psuvm.bitnet        Where physics teachers share resources
scimath-l   psuvm.bitnet        Science and math education

To get a list of ftp sites that carry astronomical images in the GIF 
graphics format, use ftp to connect to nic.funet.fi. Switch to the 
/pub/astro/general directory and get the file astroftp.txt.  Among the 
sites listed is ames.arc.nasa.gov, which carries images taken by the 
Voyager and Galileo probes, among other pictures.