The subject of Y2K Preparedness is a subject of great personal interest and concern, so I have chosen to do my first web-based research project on it.

I began with a Netscape search using "Y2K." This generated more than 56,000 responses. The first one looked promising, since it claimed to have links to other Y2K sites. I followed that link to a page that offered "Y2KNet" as a link, and when I followed that link I found a site that allowed me to subscribe to a newsletter and a survival guide, which I did. This site linked to another that had "Twelve Steps for Y2K Preparedness." I followed this link to see how they explained each step. They are as follows:

1. Avoid an identity crisis-This page refers to having vital, pertinent documents like birth certificates, medicare, social insurance, tax returns, deeds, university diplomas, etc. stored on hand in a safe place

2. Drinking water-This page tells you how much water to store per person, how to store it, and how to make sure it stays pure.

3. Stockpiling food-This page offers advice on how much food you should store, how to decide your needs, and what sort of food stores best and longest.

4. Protect financial assets-This page talks about what happens if you are unemployed for a long period of time. You should first determine how much money (and assets) you have, and how much you will need to live on. If you live hand to mouth, it recommends saving 10% of your income, and even getting a second job to put aside extra money in case the banks shut down or your account balances get mixed up. It recommends getting paper printouts of all your account balances.

5. Clothing for protection-This page reminds you that for half the world, Y2K begins in midwinter, so you should be prepared with extra warm clothing and sleeping bags in case your power goes out for more than a few hours at a time.

6. Emergency medical goods-This page instructs you on what sort of medical goods you should have in a first aid kit. It also recommends that you take a first aid course, and have on hand some things that you might not normally put in a first aid kit, like a medical encyclopedia.

7. Heating and lighting-As you would expect, this page advises you to purchase a wood stove, flashlights, batteries, candles, and gasoline.

8. Emergency library-This page is a source of links to amazon.com, totalsurvival.com, and the Library of Congress, among other places.

9. Communications system-On this page, it tells you the benefits of buying a battery operated radio, a short-wave radio, or a CB radio.

10. Disposing of waste-This page is not very helpful, but it does remind you that if water or power goes out, or there is a disruption of municipal services, there will be no means to dispose of human waste and garbage. This is something we don't think about often, since much of our waste removal occurs without much visible fanfare.

11. Consider relocation-This page was very helpful, as it contained links to The Cassandra Project page, which is a page I consider to be a very important source of data.

12. Defending your family-This page talks about how, once having dutifully stocked up and stored away, to defend such stores, yourself, and your family.

(As an aside, when I went back one day later, and used the same terms and search engine, my search resulted in more than 64,000 matches. The means that in one day, more than 8000 sites were added!) I tried to refine my search with "preparedness" to screen out technical sites on computer repairs, but instead it increased the number to 79,000 sites. I added the option of "fema" to my list and got 86,000 hits. This led me directly to FEMA's home page regarding Y2K safety and preparedness (www.fema.gov/y2k/) This site gave me a toll-free number to call, 1-888-USA-4-Y2K, to get consumer information regarding the Y2K computer problem. What this means to me is that if an organization such as FEMA feels the need to create a web site and hotline to deal solely with the topic of Y2K preparation and safety, it has the potential to be a serious concern, as FEMA does not deal with small problems.

I then tried the same search using Lycos as my search engine, but I found this engine to be much less user-friendly. It did not tell me how many sites it had located, only gave me the option to go to the "next" sites. This does not tell me how many sites it has found for me, only that there are more. Whether or not I would want to search through an unspecified number of pages or sites is another question. I think it would depend on how much, or how little information I had found in other searches. My conclusion here is that Lycos, for this search purpose, is inferior to Netscape.

I then went to the News Search search engine. My identical query here led to only 394 matches, a fair amount less than Netscape's 64,000. However, they tended to be technical sites relating to personal computer fixes. The only site that interested me was one that claimed "Y2K Food Shortages Not Expected." I followed this link to a Detroit news article. This article turned out to be a short, soothing spiel which advised consumers against stockpiling food. The source quoted in the article, Agriculture Secretary Doug Glickman, USA, only admitted that "there will be some glitches that could cause minor market disruptions." How minor is minor? It doesn't say. This search engine seems to seek out articles of the style of "USA Today"-short information bites designed to appeal to the attention span of the average citizen.

In conclusion, it would appear as if no one search engine is sufficient to rely on for all of one's research needs. I found Netscape to be the most comprehensive, bu with 64,00 sites to choose from, the results could be quite unwieldy. Lycos was nearly useless in this case, as it could not tell me how many sites I could potentially have to sift through. News Search presented me with a shortlist, but the contents of these sites left something to be desired in the context of the object of my search.
 
 

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Web-based Research #2

I decided to research this topic after a friend told me that orange scent helps if you are depressed or need energy. Since I am very busy and am usually short on energy, I thought I'd try it. I can't honestly say that I've noticed any difference, but they do smell wonderful when you're cutting them, so there may be something to it after all. I wanted to find out two basic things from this research:

1. How does aromatherapy work? Does it work?
2. What is the particular effect of a given scent- which scent helps reduce stress, lessen headache pain, or promote sleep?
 

I began my search with AltaVista, using the search term "aromatherapy." My search resulted in 247,410 matches. Using "related terms- aromatherapy oils." gave a more manageable list with only 1905 sites to look at. I looked at the top twenty first. Fourteen of the top twenty were links to companies which sold aromatherapy items. This was not what I wanted. (It is necessary that I first find out the particular effect of each scent before I consider purchasing them.) Three more linked to wiccan/pagan sites, one went to a computer company, one promised a list of links to other aromatherapy sites, and one offered the opportunity to sign up for an aromatherapy listserv, which I did. If you would like to as well, the URL is:

http://galen.med.virginia.edu/~pjb3s/Aromatherapy.html

I was going to follow the link to the page offering links to other sites, but when I went to the listserv page I found they had what I wanted in terms of reference material. I found one page which lists in detail more than 50 common scents and their effects. This URL is:

http://www.sun-angel.com/articles/aroma.html

I found in my travels a very technical site that seemed to be intended for aromatherapy merchants-it listed various products using their formal scientific names and had details of how they were to be mixed or prepared, and presented. This might be good if I were to begin selling oils, which is a topic that I was only marginally interested in.( However, my friend had mentioned he wanted to try making scented oils to sell, so perhaps this would be of use to him.)

Following the link to the site that offered links to more sites, I found one link that asked "Is All The Hype True?" Since one of my search parameters included the question"Does aromatherapy work?", I went to that page. The article didn't do much to convince me, since it did not discuss the effectiveness of aromatherapy. It merely warned about potential hazards such as allergic reactions, and warned the usual at-risk groups such as pregnant women, asthmatics, and epileptics that certain essential oils should be avoided.

I then used AltaVista advanced search option, with "aromatherapy, authenticity, effectiveness" as my parameters, I found a site called the "National Association for Holistic Aromatherapy." This turned out to be the "constitution" of a group whose purpose was to begin setting up guidelines for ethics, safety, and industry standards for aromatherapy. Nice, but no information on the actual effectiveness of aromatherapy.

I then decided to try Netscape using "aromatherapy health benefits" as my search terms. This led me to a site titled "Aromatherapy: A Healing Facilitator."

http://www.hhnews.com/aroma_healing.htm

This article was very good. It explained in greater detail how aromatherapy works. Apparently, our sense of smell has a more direct path to the brain than any other sensory system. From there, aromas diffuse to our brain through the limbic system, which is not under our conscious control. Certain aromas can help produce a feeling of peace and security while the patient is working through a healing process. This had not really occurred to me before, but it does make sense. How many people out there could feel more relaxed if they could smell their mother's apple pie or their father's aftershave again? ( It is possible to bring back bad memories with smell as well-I use these as personal examples only) Very often it is possible for a person to remember how something smelled long after the memory of how it looked or sounded is gone.

I think that many people have used aromatherapy all of their lives without really knowing it. How many of you reach for a steaming cup of tea, hot chocolate, or chicken soup, and before you drink it, simply sit and inhale its aroma for a few moments? Does spraying on a bit of CK1 or Chanel No. 5 "pick you up" on your way out the door for the day or evening? Maybe it would make you feel better at home if you spritzed a bit of it into the air while lounging in front of the television.

In conclusion, my searches were successful on both fronts. I found an explanation of how and why aromatherapy works, and several sites listing specific scents. I now have enough information to go ahead and experiment on my own. For stress, try orange or pettigraine. Insomnia-use lavender or thyme. Headaches-use cinnamon. Whether you prefer to get your aromatherapy from scented candles, oils, skin lotions, or edible products like an actual orange or cinnamon toast is purely personal. My advice is to breathe deeply and enjoy.

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Key Concept Report #1

This is the question that many web page designers ask before beginning any work. The design of any web page depends upon its function. Web sites generally fall into one of three categories: commercial (which exist to sell the viewer products or advertise for a given company), educational/informative, (which exist to educate the learner or inform the viewer) and personal (which are created to tell the world about you, your family or interests).

Load-time Difficulties

In my experience with the Internet, short pages are better than long ones when one considers the amount of time it takes to load a page. If a page is long, it may need more time to load, especially when the page contains graphics. The Internet is by no means a stable entity. Everyone knows that while using this medium one is often disconnected peremptorily due to server overloads, telecommunications breakdown, or flaws in your operating system. The more time a page takes to load, the greater the danger is that it will fail to load completely, or at all.

Attention Span of the Viewer

You must keep in mind who will be looking at this page. The casual web-surfer does not want to invest a great deal of time in waiting for your page to load, or looking at it once they have accessed it. If your page is too long, the viewer/learner/customer could lose interest or patience, and thus be lost. If your data is of a serious nature, it would be better to have one short page with links to the rest of it, than to have one long page that the web user may fail to read completely.

Updating Your Page

Having a short "cover page" with links to other pages and files allows you to update your site with greater speed and ease. On my personal web site, for example, should I wish to update my resume, I merely need to make changes to an eight-kilobyte file, and upload it to replace the existing one on my server. This takes far less time than uploading my entire web site of more than one megabyte. Given the weaknesses of the Internet as mentioned above, it could be tricky and impractical to emend the entire web page every time for the sake of changing my telephone number, or adding a link.

Cosmetic Concerns

Having several small pages as opposed to one large page allows you to have greater creativity in design. This makes it possible to change backgrounds from topic to topic. A style or background that suits one segment may not suit another. If you want one particular section to stand out, the only way that this is feasible and esthetically pleasing is to have separate pages.

Commercial Applications

For commercial purposes, a long page may appear sloppy and unprofessional. It could appear to the viewer as though your company was not up to par with others in technology. This may also be detrimental to your sales. Displaying prices for a product on the same page as your product could discourage buyers. This is a simple marketing technique-to sell a product, one must first 'sell' a product, then inform the consumer of the cost. It is this psychology that causes stores to place price tags on the back or bottom of the item, because the seller knows that once you have the item in your hand, even if you are only looking for the price, you are halfway to being "hooked." To sell things on the Internet, one should have a page that extolls the virtues of your product or service which the customer must pass through in order to get to the order form and price list.

Information Applications

If your web site has been created for educational purposes, to put too much on one page can cause 'information overload" in the learner. The learner can be made to feel defensive, as if too much is being required of them. If, however, you provide
a short page with links to other pages, the learner feels more in control of the learning experience, and therefore should accomplish more. If a student, for example, has to wade through a one-megabyte web site where all of the data is found on one page, this can cause confusion. It may not be possible to digest all of the information presented in one learning period, and the learner will then have to waste instruction time upon their return to find their place on such a page. If instead the information is presented over several pages, the learner should then be aware which files or pages they have completed and can easily find their place upon their re-entry into the classroom. If your site has been created for information purposes, such as a government service site, valuable time may be wasted and errors made if the viewer has to scroll through many lines of data to get to the section pertinent to them.

Personal Web Pages

If your web page is for purely personal use, such as communicating with friends and family, a long page is fine. It may suffice then for all of your data to be in one place. You must consider though, that even friends and family will hesitate to look at your web site if it "costs" them too much time in terms of Internet usage.

In Defense of Long Pages

Long pages can be useful if one wishes to preserve something intact, such as the text of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. They can also create a sense of continuity if one maintains the same text style and background through several related concepts. It also eliminates the dreaded "404-File not found" error, since there are no other files to access. Once you "have" that page, you are in possession of all data pertaining to this web site.

In conclusion, it would appear as if short pages are the better choice for most applications of HTML web sites. They appear to be more user-friendly, and allow greater creative freedom in design. They allow you to organize your data neatly in separate categories, and are much easier to maintain.
 

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Key concept report #2

One of the biggest problems facing rural students today is isolation. They are separated geographically from opportunities regularly offered to students in urban and metro areas. Students in rural schools generally cannot simply hop on a bus to the museum, or walk with their classmates from school to a public facility such as an arena or employment center. They sometimes feel cut off from the real world and are deprived of the chance to interact with a great variety of peers. Some rural students attend school with the same group of classmates from kindergarten to graduation, which can also mean that they never leave the same school building. While this can give the students a sense of continuity and security, it can also foment boredom. This creates a completely different set of difficulties for rural students. However, measuring the difference in dropout rates or achievement scores between rural and urban schools can be difficult. There seems to be no conclusive evidence that rural students suffer greatly as a result of their separation. There are many other contributing factors, such as nationality, language, and economic conditions, as well as student body population. ¹ Studies have shown that smaller schools tend to have fewer choices in elective course offerings ² , and rural schools generally fall into the category of small schools. School departments generally have set a minimum number of students choosing a particular course before they can offer it. If there are only 19 students in Grade 11, for example, nearly all of them would have to want to take Visual Arts or Calculus before the district could justify running the course. It is also more difficult to attract specialty teachers to rural areas, and as a result there can be no one in the school qualified to teach the desired electives. Rural students can thus be unwittingly deprived of the same opportunities as their urban counterparts, while superficially maintaining the same curriculum.

As a result of these concerns, many states and provinces have set up special programs aimed solely at rural students. Some of the best ones I found were: Minnesota New Country School ³ , the Lake Butler Middle School Technology Program ⁴, and Wapato High School ⁵ . There are companies that exist solely to provide educational resources to rural schools such as SEDL ⁶ , and entire networks devoted solely to providing support to rural learners.⁷

In addressing the problem of a deficiency in the availability of specialty courses, technology is being used to bring those otherwise-unavailable speciality courses such as Physics and Statistics to rural Kentucky schools using the Star Channel system. Classes are beamed in, and students even get to talk back to the teachers. This is accomplished at a fraction of the cost of hiring a teacher to deliver the course to the two students who signed up for Statistics and the seven who signed up for Physics. (EBSCO-Technology Review, 1991 "Education by Satellite")

Many initiatives exist to encourage teacher and community training in the use of technology in the rural classroom.⁸ Teachers and parents have formed charter schools to keep their schools open and their children at home in their community. ⁹

This is not limited to students in the public school system. In some areas, technology is being used to bring distance learning to the adult population as well. In Shropshire, England, a group called the Rural Broadnet Team is bringing education and training in Information Technology to the farmers and other community members. This is being done because studies showed that "..participation rates in 16+ education is low and levels of out-migration at this level are high.." (EBSCO-Adults Learning, January 1998 "Rural Outreach"). In the rural, economically depressed area of Christopher, Illinois, parents and other community members were trained in computer literacy so that they would be able to help teach their children to cope in a high-tech world. (EBSCO-Educational Leadership, May 1998 "Tapping into Technology in Rural Communities").

Technology may therefore be helping to support and even bring back the one-room schoolhouse. Many rural schools that would otherwise have been closed because the government could not guarantee an adequate, high-quality education to the students have been kept open with the use of technology and distance education. Technology is bringing the world to people without taking them away from their homes.
 

Footnotes

1. http://www.ed.gov/databases/ERIC_Digests/ed289658.html
2. Elliott, 1991 http://www.sedl.org/rural/atrisk/why.html
3. http://mncs.k12.mn.us/
4 http://www.afn.org/~tigers/tech.html
5 http://weber.u.washington.edu/~rural/index.html
6 http://www.sedl.org/pubs/
7 http://150.216.8.1/schofed/rei/rei1.htm
8 http://www.ruralchallenge.org/HTML/funding/ptt.html
9 http://www.ruralchallenge.org/HTML/aboutus/rmspring98/spring07.html
 

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