[Back]Information For Teachers


Also See...

  1. Our Projects page.
  2. Our Resources page.
  3. The Index page.

For Best Results

  1. Use a screen resolution of 640x480 or greater. That's 640 pixels wide and 480 pixels tall.
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  2. Set your display to at least 16 thousand colors. If you have a Macintosh, select "Thousands of colors." If you have a PC, then you should be able to select either 256 colors, High Color (65536 colors), or True Color (16,777,216 colors). In general: The more, the better.

  3. Use Microsoft Internet Explorer 3.0 (or more recent), or use Netscape Navigator 3.0(or newer.). In fact, we'll make it easy for you:


  4. Get a RealAudio player.

  5. Use the fastest possible network connection available to you. See the bandwidth discussion for details.

Some Notes

  1. This web page is not designed to replace existing lessons. It is designed to enrich and supplement. For instance, It's not usually enjoyable to read large quantities of text off of a computer screen, but it's usually fairly pleasant to have the class take turns reading aloud from a good textbook with breaks for discussion whenever necessary. Likewise, our Virtual Tour is probably better off on a webpage than in a textbook. Each media has its own merits and anything by itself will get boring if overused.

  2. Please email us if you like, dislike, hate, love, use, or visit our page.

  3. If you are looking for other Mission resources, please see the Resources page.

Bandwidth

This section is for those of you who want all of this to appear on your screen as quickly as possible.

Technical Brief:

Bandwidth refers to the rate at which your network can transfer data. If freeway speed were measured as bandwidth, the units might be car-kilometers were hour. Network bandwidth is measured in bits per second. A bit is 1/8th of a byte. A 14,400bps modem has a bandwidth of 14400bps. bps stands for bits per second.

In Other Words

If you have a 14,400bps modem, everything will be twice as fast if you upgrade to a 28,800bps modem, or 2.33 times faster if you upgrade to a 33,600bps modem.

Even Better... (technical again)

You aren't limited to 33600bps. ISDN is almost ten times faster than a 14,400bps modem and there are rumors that Pacific Bell will give schools big discounts on ISDN lines. If you're just jumping on the technology bandwagon with your school district, keep visions of ISDN, T-1, and HDSL in the back of your mind. A T-1 line operates at 1.544 mbits, which equals 1,619,001bps or 112 times the speed of a 14,400 bps modem. You can hook up an entire computer lab or school district to one line, too.

If you would like advice or help connecting your classroom, school, or school district, feel free to contact us.