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Most of the information presented in this paper was collected on the Internet. Both CMC services and information retrieval tools were used. The World Wide Web was used to access both web documents and on-line versions of otherwise published material. Newsgroups were consulted to find information about the Internet's spread in public schools, in addition to locating contacts. Personal communication conducted through e-mail also assisted in acquiring information both in terms of additional references, or specific information.

The World Wide Web makes a vast amount of information available to users, but no affective organizational method has yet been implemented for all these data. Search engines serve as helpful tools in guiding the user through the myriad of resources. ProFusion and AltaVista were the most commonly used search engines in this research projects. Searches were run for such words as ‘web,' ‘Internet,' ‘school,' ‘classroom,' ‘teach,' ‘student.' Search engines usually recognize boolean expressions and so more specific searches can be run through the use of the ‘+' symbol.

Usenet was also consulted for information. Although most search engines offer the option of running searches on Usenet as opposed to the Web, there is one website that specifically caters to newsgroup queries; Deja News. A query on similar words as mentioned above resulted in posts that offered some contacts, although were often irrelevant. It proved more useful to run down the list of newsgroup names looking for group names that had words in them related to education and technology. Since newsgroups are constructed hierarchically, this process proved much less complicated than may seem judging from the fact that there are thousands of groups available on Usenet. The group 'bit.listserv.edtech' proved to be the most helpful in providing contacts and information.

Personal communication was used where the available on-line resources pointed to more relevant information, but were not accessible directly. I contacted some people whose messages I had read on the above mentioned newsgroup. I also wrote to the authors of an article I had found on the Web. In all but one of the cases I always received prompt responses with additional information. Such personal communication also allows for access to documents that have not yet been published. A school teacher from Switzerland sent me a copy of a related article he had written that will not have been published until after this project was due. Initial contact was established with him because his elementary school classes have a web presence and I was interested in exploring some international comparisons.

Some traditional modes of research were also used, although they were a result of on-line methods. A researcher from the California Research Bureau of the California State Library sent me a copy of his report through regular postal mail since the web version was not due out until later. Nonetheless, initial contact was made with him through electronic mail when I read a relevant post from him on one of the discussion forums administered by the CyberTimes section of The New York Times on-line. Otherwise, face to face discussion with peers and faculty was also used in discussing my project, although these were also sometimes supplemented by electronic discussions.

Eszter Hargittai,
The Pros and Cons of
Implementing the Internet
in the Classroom