In attendance at the first meeting of this committee were Bob Carlitz, Liz Healey, Carol Hicks, Wendy Huntoon, Ruth Martin, Mike McCafferty, Phil Parr, Ralph Roskies, Barbara Rudiak, Mary Lou Ruttle, Linda Savido, Judy Weinberg, and Mario Zinga. Gail Futoran was present to represent Janet Schofield and also to act as recorder. Members of the committee who were unable to attend include Marilyn Barnett, John Barry, Lloyd Briscoe, Richard Fellers, Myron Lentz, Bernie Manning, Karen McCintyre, Ernestine Reed, and Mary Shields.
Rick Wertheimer gave a brief background on the formation of the committee and its purpose, which is to get input from the various constituencies on K-12 network technologies in the Pittsburgh Public Schools. He asked for feedback on the Mission Statement. Judy Weinberg suggested two changes which will be incorporated and the revised statement sent around to the membership. Regarding committee membership, Mike McCafferty suggested having parents and students represented, and Rick said he would look into that.
Mario Zinga reported on the status of the first year sites and projects. McCleary has made good administrative use of the network for telecommunication (staff notices and discussions) but the curriculum project has lagged, partly due to equipment problems and partly due to the Vision 21 program going on at the school. At Schenley the project is in the Foreign Language Department. Students use the International Studies (IS) computer lab to exchange electronic mail (email) with overseas pen pals. Schenley students have restricted Internet accounts (email only) at this time.
At Westinghouse the project is in the SAM Program. The original focus was on students reaching their mentors at Westinghouse Electric Corporation. This shifted once students discovered that resources on the Internet could be used in their laboratory research projects. There has also been some restructuring of the SAM Program to take advantage of the Internet: juniors and seniors work together and share resources on separate but related research projects.
Woolslair, the Beta Site, has been well used in the past year. In addition to the inservices for first and second year network teams, the many visitors have included people from PPS School Support and various schools; nearby school districts; the Voyager Project; Mon Valley Consortium, Manchester Youth Development Corporation, the Hill House, Manchester Craftsmen's Guild, the Kingsley Association, Senator Wofford�s office, the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, the Carnegie Library, WQED, the Pittsburgh Freenet, and numerous others. The facilities are also available to students in the building. Two projects developed this spring as elective courses include a weather project and a �Surfing the Internet� project where students learn to explore the resources on the Internet.
The Art Project involves putting images of District-owned art online (CK:P gopher and WEB servers). Those involved with the project - including students at the Pittsburgh High School for the Creative and Performing Arts (CAPA) - are developing a searchable template that should be completed during the coming school year. The Library Project will be using similar technology to put student-generated book reviews and book illustrations online. Judy Westerman�s staff and four school librarians are working on this project.
Mario finished his review by describing the number and kinds of CK:P accounts. He also described the rule of thumb used by the Education Project staff to handle requests from teachers for student accounts in non-CK:P schools. Teachers are required to describe a curriculum usage and a rationale for why the student needs access. Mike asked about accounts for parents, and Mario said parents at several first and second year sites do have accounts and those are being used to support student access.
Mike also asked about community organizations such as Hill House that work with students, and Rick agreed that after school access is a major concern. Mario said that requests from community organizations are being evaluated in terms of what they can contribute to CK:P for the students. Wendy Huntoon noted that one problem with these other potential connections is that they would be dial-up, and that means severely straining the CMU and Pitt modem pools.
Wendy then reported on the technical lessons learned in the first year. The first major lesson concerns external connectivity for the schools. She briefly described the technical architecture, starting with the Central site (Pittsburgh Supercomputing Center; PSC). Buhl Foundation money for user devices at the first year sites became available late October, 1993. The Heinz Foundation money for the second year sites should be on hand shortly.
She described in detail the lessons learned about voice-grade connectivity versus dedicated data lines, in terms of speed of access, type of information that can be accessed, and cost effectiveness. She detailed some of the talks the technical staff are having with various providers - Bell of Atlantic, TCI, and fiber companies - to find better, more cost-effective ways of support K-12 Internet connectivity.
Wendy described some of the problems with getting the sites wired, especially in old, large buildings such as Westinghouse. User devices were another issue. Some sites (McCleary) had all new equipment that failed at a frequent rate. Others had old equipment (Tandy 1000s in Schenley�s IS lab) that was usable for limited Internet access. However, the staff effort involved in preparing and maintaining that equipment was not cost-effective.
Wendy described the DEC/TCI grant and that the technical staff will be evaluating DEC user devices for possible purchase for the schools. These are being offered at a substantial discount. This will be an experimental service, so she plans to put back-up connectivity into those three schools to support curriculum projects if needed.
The second major technical lesson concerned collaboration between the PSC and PPS technical staffs. Since this project will eventually migrate to the School District, it is important for the two organizations to work closely together.
Gail Futoran reported on activities of the Assessment group during the first year. She described the basic research methods used and some of the kinds of information that have been collected: classroom observations, copies of email, interviews with network team members, and the like. She mentioned a paper Janet Schofield presented at the Annual Meeting of the American Educational Research Association dealing with some early lessons from the project. That paper should be available on the CK:P gopher soon.
Rick showed some other, early �products� of CK:P, including the CK:P newsletter and several papers that Bob Carlitz co-authored with Mario and Gene Hastings. Rick also referred to the CMU student project directly by CMU professor Jon Peha that looked at some of the CK:P sites.
Mike expressed a concern about evaluation of the project, and Rick acknowledged that is a key issue. Rick had been attempting to contact School Support and Joann Eresh who is an expert on assessment in order to get their input. He has also invited School Support specialists to attend the summer workshops where the first and second year sites will be planning for the fall. Mike suggested that the end of summer might be a better time for the School Support people than the beginning of summer, and Rick said he had one day scheduled in August they could attend.
Barbara Rudiak described how she measured success in her school - one step at a time. She said she understood the need for District-wide assessment of the project, but at the same time each school building will be different in significant ways from every other school building, and they should be looked at individually. Phil Parr mentioned the Arts Propel project as an example of assessment tailored to a specific project.
Bob then reported on three grant proposals submitted recently to continue support for and expand CK:P. The two NSF grants (Extension Grant and Teacher Enhancement) appear to have a reasonably high probability of being funded, but nothing will be known until this fall. On a related note, Phil described the current status of the School District�s technology planning, including the timeline for the strategic plan.
Rick described the mailing list for the group - wg-advisory - and that email to that address would reach all the members of the group. He said the next meeting will take place sometime in the fall. He thanked everyone for their efforts and adjourned the meeting around 5:45 p.m.
Please send any corrections or additions to Rick Wertheimer.