Here's a 3 pg summary of BST for the archive.
For over eight years, Big Sky Telegraph (BST) based at Western Montana College of the University of Montana, has strived to create an online educational community supportive of grassroots innovations and experimentation focused on 'Real Benefits for Real People.' BST functions as a service to the college, and all Montanans, providing free online resources and training to reduce the risk of creating rural information have-nots, or know-nots. BST offers free access, and free online lessons, to anyone, anywhere, anytime.
BST demonstrates how an educationally-focused community network can support K-100 lifelong learning. BST will customize its services to support grassroots innovations and projects.
BST no longer offers Internet access subscriptions due to widespread availability of flat rate Internet offered by multiple sources, but continues to offer and develop online training opportunities and resources.
Big Sky Telegraph's World Wide Web home page is http://macsky.bigsky.dillon.mt.us/ from which our interactive BBS is accessible.
Big Sky Telegraph promotes teleliteracy for rural citizens for self-directed online lifelong learning by offering free public access to a summative clearinghouse available to anyone, anywhere, anytime via dial-in modem and direct Internet by either Telnet or WWW.
Serving as a Public Interest Network Testbed, BST advocates citizen teleliteracy and lifelong learning by providing a clearinghouse for the best Internet resources for:
- Internet training lessons, tutorials and courses
- School technology planning guidelines
- Community networking resources, models and studies
- Tutorials and resources for web page design and development
- Parenting, kids and home learning resources
Apple Computer has donated a Macintosh web server and Macintosh workstation to support BST's transition to Internet multimedia distance learning delivery.
Big Sky Telegraph has been cited for excellence by the White House's 1992 Agenda Report on the National Information Infrastructure and by the former Congressional Office of Technology Assessment's report "Making Government Work; Electronic Delivery of Federal Services." BST is featured as a model educational and community network in dozens of books and publications and enjoys a widespread reputation as an innovative bottom-up grassroots network.
The BST PHILOSOPHY: Value bandwidth and human bandwidth will ultimately prove more important than volume bandwidth. By demonstrating how all citizens can be both learner and teacher, we're demonstrating how ongoing knowledge access skill training, and citizen evaluation of highest value resources, can become a vehicle for rehumanizing and revitalizing communities of all descriptions.
BST is currently conducting the following major national collaborative programs:
1. The Electronic Model Congress (TEMC)
Funded by the U.S. Dept. of Education is a "K12 Electronic
Model Congress" project including 80 High School teachers from 19
states, supported by 23 congressional offices. This project
dovetails with a Salmon Fisheries Environmental project
including 60 teachers from 19 states, Finland, and British
Columbia. These two projects will be collaborating around
environmental debate, electronic information gathering, and
advising our elected leaders on policy issues,
electronically....the exact same skills all citizens will need to
acquire if they are to participate in an electronic democracy.
One hundred forty teachers were trained via BST's online course,
mentored by a talented teacher in Oklahoma.
This project is the result of BST's longstanding partnership with the Columbia Education Center, of Portland, OR, which has worked with over 450 rural and small town teachers.
2. Reach For The Sky
Funded by the Annenberg/CPB Math and Science project, and the
US WEST Foundation, BST's "Reach for the Sky" rural telecomputing
project has demonstrated how providing rural teachers with
laptops, and online training, can produce teleliterate teachers
able to integrate many components of the Internet into their
curriculums. The 20 first year trainees mentored an additional 80
teachers across a five state region demonstrating a scaleable
"teacher mentoring" program suitable even for the most remote
rural teachers. The economics and ergonomics of this project
are of national significance, as are the methods used to teach
telecollaboration. The original 20 teachers stand ready to train
others, and can speak to the effectiveness of this project.
3. BST, in partnership with the Big Horn Network formerly operating in Cody, WY, offered a online High School course in Chaos Theory taught by a professor from MIT. As a direct result, two Cody HS students are now at MIT.
Executive Summary Of Bootstrap Coalition Proposal:
In 1995, as part of the process of gathering information on
community networking, Big Sky Telegraph prepared and submitted
"The Bootstrap Coalition," a grant proposal (unfunded) for the
National Telecommunications Information Agency that articulates a
plan for support of community networking.
The Bootstrap Coalition is a detailed plan to create measurable optimal collaboration models between multiple networking projects, using a decentralized workteam, to include selected experts, in the creation of a Rocky Mountain clearinghouse to engage and support small local rural citizen, school, library, medical, and community telecommunications initiatives.
For copies see the Bootnarratives file available via anonymous FTP at ftp://192.231.192.1 Directory:/u1/ftp/pub/franko
Director's Biography:
Originally from Cody, Wyoming, Frank
received a B.A. in Psychology from the University of California,
Davis, in 1974, then worked in Wyoming as an oilfield roughneck,
independent carpenter, and dude ranch manager until receiving a
Master of Science in Instructional Technology from the University
of Wyoming in 1984. Frank has been an assistant professor of
computer education at Western Montana College since 1985, where
in 1988 he founded Big Sky Telegraph, an online educational
community network.
BST was created primarily through the efforts of Director, Frank Odasz, who wrote a small grant to establish the system in 1987, and continued to write successively larger grants as the project demonstrated real benefits. Western Montana College received the grant funds and utilized BST for preservice teacher training as well as inservice training, via modem, for K12 teachers in the field. Big Sky Telegraph is one of the oldest and best known rural networks in the country and is a unique Internet resource and vocal advocate of rural telecomputing.
For more information search the World Wide Web for:
1. Big Sky Telegraph - 50,000+ citations
2. Frank Odasz - 500+ citations
My prime personal goal is to create a center focusing on providing ongoing online training and technical support for citizens, first in Wyoming, and potentially worldwide, with an emphasis in entrepreneurship and multiculturalism, potentially in a guest ranch environment.
Essentially, I believe our country needs a 'Camp David of Rural Community Networking Strategy,' serving as a leadership teleliteracy training center, a high level thinktank, and hosting a free public access web site offering the best self-directed learning opportunities on the Internet. Big Sky Telegraph is a working prototype: http://macsky.bigsky.dillon.mt.us/
** Note the international trade training links in the 'Community Networking' clearinghouse, and the many online courses listed under the 'Self-directed Learning' section.
Recent Conference Presentations:
For the past five years I've been averaging three national
conferences a month. During the past year, I have presented
keynote speeches on community networking for the following
conferences;
Last year I presented on "Leveraging the Public Good, Electronically" (presenting visions for lifelong learning, community networking, and electronic democracy) for:
BST has a demonstration school/community networking clearinghouse up at http://macsky.bigsky.dillon.mt.us/ (Including pointers to the best self-directed Internet training materials.)
BST is lauded as a pioneering network for K12 online instruction
and community networking by the following books:
Chapters on BST are included in:
Other Publications;