Date: Sat, 27 Mar 1993 16:50:55 -0800 From: Yvonne Marie Andres To: Multiple recipients of list COMMUNET Subject: How to Set Up a FrEdMail BBS and Internet Gateway What Exactly IS FrEdMail and How Can I Set One Up? ================================================= Al Rogers, Executive Director Yvonne Andres, President FrEdMail is a telecommunications network consisting of several hundred independent, locally owned and operated electronic mail centers (EMC). Each EMC is an easy-to-use dial-in electronic bulletin board which delivers Internet electronic mail to as many as 300 teachers and students. FrEdMail's unique features include: 1. "Attached files" permit you to send lengthy files of student writing including graphics, databases, and spreadsheets, to your correspondents. 2. Your computer makes one long distance phone call in the middle of the night, when rates are lowest, to receive the lastest network content. Teachers and students can browse through the new content at their leisure for no additional charge. (Many EMC's have established relationships with local universities and gateway directly into the Internet, thus eliminating all long distance phone calls.) 3. Each FrEdMail user has his or her own Internet email address, which means your students can participate in projects with classes in Estonia, Finland, Spain, Argentina, England, Australia, South Africa, and dozens of other countries... free of online or connect charges. 4. The FrEdMail Network delivers hundreds of content-specific, instructionally sound learning projects that involve students in concrete learning experiences. FrEdMail is a powerful writing tool which can be used effectively at any grade level and in any subject. FrEdMail delivers real audiences and real purposes to motivate writing and learning! Most FrEdMail activities grow out of teacher-developed projects and are implemented through teacher to teacher contacts. Students collect data, build databases and spreadsheets, and write, away from the modem, away from the telephone line. A well-designed project uses the phone line only occasionally, when batches of student writing are transmitted wholesale, quickly and efficiently. This relieves the need for expensive dedicated phone lines, which enlarges the audience of potential teacher-participants. HOW TO GET STARTED USING FrEdMail ================================= If you have a FrEdMail EMC nearby, you can begin networking activities right away. These suggestions will help you become involved in telecomputing projects on your local FrEdMail EMC: 1. Be a WRITING TEACHER. You don't have to be an English/Language Arts teacher. If you teach science, social studies or any other discipline which employs writing, you can use FrEdMail to involve your students in networked learning activities. Collaborative activities can involve cultural exchanges, statistical data collection and analysis (surveys, questionnaires, demographics), science experiments and observation (astronomy, geophysics, weather and climate, pollution), and any other activity which creative minds can invent. 2. Have access to computer(s) on which your students can write (Apple, IBM, Commodore, Mac) 3. Have a compatible computer with modem and a phone line someplace (home, school [lab, workroom, principal's office, etc.]) 4. Have telecommunications software which will support XModem (Apple: Talk is Cheap, Mouse Talk, Point to Point, FrEdSender, etc.; Mac: Red Ryder, MS-Works, etc.; IBM: ProComm, Cross Talk, etc.). 5. Have some time (spare or otherwise) to learn some new concepts during the startup phases of this operation 6. Use your telecommunications program and your modem to dial up and log onto a local FrEdMail bulletin board and set up a new account. Use one of the nodes and telephone numbers listed in the latest FrEdMail Newsletter. (Send in the coupon at the end of this document to subscribe to the Newsletter.) 7. After your account has been validated, you'll be ready to begin networking with other teachers. Begin by entering the ail section of FrEdMail and browse through the CALL.IDEAS section. This is a public message area where projects are advertised, collaborators solicited, and activities discussed by participants throughout the network. Look for an activity in which you can participate the first time. 8. Recruit other teachers to join you in a project. Post an announcement of your project in the CALL.IDEAS section of your local FrEdMail bulletin board. This announcement will automatically be posted on every other local mail center in the entire network. The FrEdMail Foundation provides helpful examples of online projects to get you going. HOW TO SET UP YOUR OWN LOCAL FrEdMail Electronic Mail Center ============================================================ If there are no FrEdMail EMC's nearby, you can set up and operate your own. One Electronic Mail Center will bring all FrEdMail Network activities to you and three hundred other educators at no additional cost. HARDWARE REQUIREMENTS for setting up your own FrEdMail EMC Computer: 128K Apple IIe, IIGS, Mac LC (with IIe emulator) Disk Drives: 10MB or larger hard disk drive. Modem: a. External Hayes Smart modem-compatible 2400. If you have an Apple IIe, you will also need a Super Serial Card (IIgs computers have a built-in modem port). b. Internal Modem: Applied Engineering Datalink or Hayes internal Smartmodem c. Intel 9600EX modem (both IIe and IIgs require super serial card). Contact the FrEdMail Foundation for other compatible 9600 bps modems. Cable Adapter: If you use an external modem, you must have a cable adapter or a custom- wired cable. You may purchase a cable adapter as listed below. Or, if you are handy with a soldering iron, you can configure your own custom cable according to the instructions in the installation manual. Clock Card: If you have an Apple IIe, you will need a clock card (example: TimeMaster by Applied Engineering). The IIgs has a built-in clock card. Time The software is designed to be set up and operated by teachers with no special technical skills. If you take your time and follow the detailed, step-by-step directions which are in!luded with the software, you should have no problem installing the bulletin board yourself. Once the software and hardware are properly installed, you should have little trouble sysopping it yourself. Plan on spending 1-3 hours per week sysopping the board. THE NETWORK CONSORTIUM SUBSCRIPTION =================================== The FrEdMail Foundation is a non-profit corporation which functions as a cooperative consortium. Member sites on the network share the cost of network-wide long-distance connections and other value-added services (including technical support). When you join the network and begin receiving intersystem network message traffic, you will be billed for your annual subscription fee. These fees are determined by membership vote. The annual fee for 1993-1994 is $199. Contact the FrEdMail Foundation for details. INTERNET GATEWAYS ================= Every FrEdMail EMC gives you Internet email access. The FrEdMail Foundation provides direct utility grade Internet access in San Diego. Unix software is also available to connect your FrEdMail EMC directly into a local college or university host computer, which gives you a local Internet gateway and eliminates long distance phone calls. Contact the FrEdMail Foundation for details. The FrEdMail Foundation is a California non-profit corporation. Its purposes are to: 1. Promote the development of effective reading, writing, and communication skills in students at all grade levels; 2. Promote the development of geographical, cultural, and socio-political understanding on a global scale; 3. Promote articulation between all segments of the community (such as schools, universities, community health agencies, community service organizations, and others), and to bring those agencies into a closer working relationship with the schools; 4. Promote a better understanding of telecommunications technologies, and encourage and promote their responsible and effective use, in schools and classrooms across America; 5. Promote and foster the development of a low cost, community-based, distributed electronic data communications network owned by public agencies such as schools, libraries, cities, and other community service organizations, with the goal of providing all citizens equal and free or low-cost access to the basic tools of information access, retrieval, and transmission that are so important in our age of information. Order Form ========== FrEdMail Software for Apple Computer $149.00 Modem Cable Adapter (for external modem) $ 20.00 FrEdMail Simulation $ 25.00 TeleSenations: The Educators' Handbook to TeleComputing: $ 34.00 The perfect how-to book for planning, integrating, and using telecomputing across the curriculum. T'nT: Teachers and TeleComputing. $189.00 Comprehensive instructor's syllabus includes everything needed (three VHS videos, overheads, handouts, simulations) to teach a district telecomputing workshop for teachers. Written by experts to make your job easier. FrEdNews: Quarterly newsletters filled with successful $10.00 telecomputing project summaries, classroom managment strategies, sysop insights and the latest directory (subscription is four issues) ********************************************************************** ** FrEdMail Foundation Order Form ** ** ** ** Your Name:_____________________________________________________ ** ** ** ** School:________________________________________________________ ** ** ** ** District:______________________________________________________ ** ** ** ** Mailing Address:_______________________________________________ ** ** ** ** City/State/Zip:________________________________________________ ** ** ** ** Position/Grade Level:__________________________________________ ** ** ** ** FrEdMail Software: ____ copies @ $149.00 each = $___________ ** ** ** ** Modem Cable Adapter ____ @ $ 15.00 each = $___________ ** ** ** ** FrEdMail Simulation ____ copies @ $ 25.00 each = $___________ ** ** ** ** TeleSensations: ____ copies @ $ 34.00 each = $___________ ** ** ** ** T 'n T Syllabus: ____ copies @ $189.00 each = $___________ ** ** ** ** FrEdMail Newsletter ____ copies @ $ 10.00 each = $___________ ** ** ** ** Subtotal = $___________ ** ** ** ** Calif Tax (8.25% San Diego Co; 7.25% elsewhere = $__________ ** ** ** ** Shipping ($3.00 or 3%, whichever is more) = $__________ ** ** (foreign shipping = $10.00 or 10%) ** ** ** ** Total = $__________ ** ** ** ** Mail this form with a check or purchase order to: ** ** FrEdMail Foundation ** ** P.O. Box 243 ** ** Bonita, CA 91908 ++ ** 619 475-4852 ++ ********************************************************************** NOTE: Address all requests for further information to: arogers@bonita.cerf.fred.org <<*>><<*>><<*>><<*>><<*>><<*>><<*>><<*>> Yvonne Marie Andres, Program Coordinator Oceanside Unified School District 823 Acacia Avenue, Oceanside, CA 92054 Director of Visionary Learning Applications FrEdMail (Free Educational Electronic Mail) Foundation " Linking Students and Educators Around the Globe" +1 619 757-6061 or/619 439-0914 FAX/619 433-1409 andresyv@cerf.net <<*>><<*>><<*>><<*>><<*>><<*>><<*>><<*>>