Students David Moore, Ben Krefting and Ivan Askwith, from left, confer about Blair High School's Web site, which the three designed last summer. (Sarah L.Voisin/For TWP)

By Julie Rasicot
Special to the Washington Post
Thursday, May 14, 1998; Page M01

If the bell rings before Dolores D'Angelo finishes questioning her English students in the Communication Arts Program at Montgomery Blair High School, she doesn't consider it a lost opportunity.

Instead she logs on to her computer, taps into the program's Web site, enters an interactive classroom and poses a question such as,"What would Walt Whitman say to Alan Ginsberg?" When D'Angelo logs on the next morning at the Silver Spring school, she often finds that students have carried on the class discussion through their home computers.

Extending discussion beyond the classroom is one of the benefits of CAPonline, a service using the Internet that was developed by three Communication Arts Program students to promote better communication among the program's 600 students and teachers and parents.

Using passwords, students can access class schedules and assignments, teacher handouts, announcements, and lists of other resources that address class topics. They can e-mail classmates and teachers about the day's lesson or access a discussion forum on a class topic.

Parents can look up program news, e-mail their children's teachers or join discussion groups with other parents. There's also a place for program alumni to post news and catch up with students and teachers.

"I like it because it offers an opportunity to continue discussion from class," D'Angelo, who is the program coordinator, said of the service. "In the space of 40 minutes, not everyone gets to express their opinion on a subject. Now they can log on at night."

And CAP students are logging on. Available only to students in the four-year honors-level program, the Web site has logged more than 635,000 hits since it was launched in late September, an average of nearly 2,900 each day.

That's good news for senior Ben Krefting and juniors David Moore and Ivan Askwith, the three who set out to design a service that would make information more accessible to students without requiring much technological know-how.

Krefting conceived of the idea during his sophomore year, when a project required him to choose something in society that he wanted to change. He decided to make use of the school's Web site to develop a service that students could use easily for free anytime without having to memorize the commands required with the existing system.

"What we saw was that people who knew how to use the Unix system here were able to work much more efficiently," Krefting said. "We wanted to see: How can we streamline this?"

Through trial and error, Krefting developed the concept with Moore, a student in Blair's math/science magnet who did the programming, and Askwith, who wrote the text and created the graphics. They used software available for free on the Internet. The three began working in April 1997 after securing $2,000 in funding from the school system to buy a computer. Throughout the summer, they e-mailed each other constantly as they revised the service.

When users log on, they access a page directing them to separate sites for students, teachers, parents, alumni and CAP news. There's also a site for WBNC, the school's TV station, which is an integral part of the CAP program. The student sites are customized for each grade level and include pages for nearly 20 CAP classes. Students can find classmates' home addresses and phone numbers in a student directory or by clicking on an icon that appears by a student's name when that student has accessed a forum or chat room.

Sophomore Grace Santos, a technical assistant for CAPonline, said she initially used the service to check class schedules and assignments. Now she helps keep tabs on the interactive classrooms, and often participates in the discussion forums. "Sometimes we're in class and talking about an issue, and we want to continue it outside of school. The discussion forums help with that," she said.

Santos said students also use the service to keep up with assignments and check for handouts they may have missed while absent from school.

"They don't have an excuse, really, because it's right there," she said.

The site is maintained by Krefting, who serves as director, Moore, Askwith and a few other students. Students who don't have computers at home can use Blair's computers to access the site before and after school and during lunch periods.

The three plan to provide access to all Blair students once the school moves to its new home on University Boulevard next fall. Each classroom will have a computer, making it easier for students and teachers to use the service. But the students are concerned about classmates who don't have Internet access at home, so they're exploring the possibility of working with community groups to set up computer centers at places like the local YMCA.

The students have started looking for corporate sponsors to donate hardware needed to make the service available to all students. They also hope to package the service and make it available for free on the Internet.

"Since we used all free software in developing it, we didn't want to alienate that community" on the Web, Moore said.

D'Angelo said the availability of a computer in every room at the new Blair school should also help teachers reduce inhibitions about using the service, because it will be more convenient than it is now.

"We're trying to break down barriers for those who are more resistant," she said. "When it's at your elbow, I think it will be a lot easier."