ThinkQuest and Internet2
Imagining the Future
by D.W. Hyatt
Accessing the ThinkQuest Site
In order to participate in the ThinkQuest project called
Imagining the Future,
students will need an account on the ThinkQuest server at:
www.thinkquest.org
It is probably best to do this from home since we have some awkward
problems with the Internet filter here at school. Working around
the problems associated with the filter will be described in more detail below
but all students who will be participating in this experiment
will need to get accounts on
My ThinkQuest.
From a web browser, go to the ThinkQuest server and create an account
for yourself
by clicking on the the navigation tag called My ThinkQuest.
Mr. Hyatt's account
on the ThinkQuest server is dhyatt and Mr. Latimer's is
rlatimer.
Using a familiar name on the TQ server is recommended so that other
people can easily recognize when you when online.
You will need to choose an appropriate login name and fill out
additional information, and there is also a place to have your
parents approve, so ask them if you can participate too.
Participation is not required for this course, but there will be
some exciting opportunities for those that do.
Once you have selected an ID on My ThinkQuest, let your
teacher know so we can send those ID's to the staff at ThinkQuest
so they can give you additional access to the Internet2 activities
and conferences that will be available to the participants in this
project.
Gaining Access to the ThinkQuest Page for Our Class
It will be easier to do much of the interaction on the ThinkQuest site in
the evenings or on weekends from home. The schools involved are in many
different time zones, and thier students are not in class when we are.
When logging in here from school, it will
be necessary to change the proxy configuration which is described in the next section.
To connect to the ThinkQuest site, use the following URL:
www.thinkquest.org/future
Go to the bottom of that page and select the link for Students.
The type in the student account name "ITFfuture" and password. See your
teacher for that password. This will allow you to see the first level
of the online ThinkQuest information including
a time line for project development, useful links,
glossary of terms, and more. Check it out.
To get to some of the special capabilities of the ThinkQuest site, you
will also need to login
using your individual My ThinkQuest account name.
Changing the Old Proxy Configuration at TJ
Since TJHSST has been experiencing problems with the new FCPS proxy
called "bigbrother.tjhsst.edu",
we need to go through the previous proxy server we had which
will allow cookies to pass through to your computer here at TJ.
The reason for this is that the ThinkQuest site sees only one
person at TJ because the cookie identifying the user is stored on
the proxy server and not on our local machines.
The procedure is not difficult. On the Netscape browser, select Edit
and then Preferences, followed by Advanced and then
Proxies.
View the Manual Proxy Configuration, and change the HTTP Proxy entry
to "extranet.tjhsst.edu" and port "8080" instead of
"bigbrother" and port "8002". After that, you should be able to
logon the ThinkQuest server and continue with registration and
server access.
When first accessing a site via the new proxy, it will require that
you authenticate through the LAN. Be prepared to click through
a few screens and enter your password before getting out to the
Internet. If you follow all of these steps, then you can make
the ThinkQuest server see you as a separate entity.
Important Things to Do
- Fill out the ThinkQuest Questionnaire:
-
ThinkQuest Questionnaire
http://www.thinkquest.org/mytq/itf/questionnaire/
- Form a Team (3 to 5 Members) before February 12, 2002
-
How to Form a Team (Using the ThinkQuest Site)
ThinkQuest has set up some special Internet utilities for our group that
should help us contact students from the other schools.
There are six participating schools in this project, so try to form collaborative groups with some of the students. The TQ site has a chat room
set up for team collaboration, and you will be able to communicate via email
that goes through your ThinkQuest account. After your team is formed,
ThinkQuest will give you space and resources on the ThinkQuest server too.
Check out the home pages for these schools, and interact in the online
discussion forums that TQ has set up for us.
The Participating Schools |
1. Benton Harbor High School, Benton Harbor, MI
|
2. Emerson High School, Union City, NJ
|
3. Moanalua High School, Honolulu, HI
|
4. Plano Senior High School, Plano, TX
|
5. Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology, Alexandria, VA
|
6. Wylie E. Groves High School, Beverly Hills, MI
|
- Learn More About Internet2
To try to make a project that will be appropriate to high speed
bandwidth available in Internet2, it will be good to learn more
about the field and see what people are doing at the university level.
-
Internet2 Home Page
Internet2 Applications
- Talk with Experts
See when ThinkQuest has arranged for us to meet with guest lecturers
who will be talking with us live from remote locations
using some teleconferencing capabilities. They will help us
learn more about the leading edge of this technology.
- Create your team project and submit it by May 15th, 2002.