Common Knowledge: Pittsburgh

A Model for Implementing Technology in an Urban School District

Presentations made at:

• The Mid-Atlantic Eisenhower Consortium for Mathematics and Science Education - December 9-10, 1994 (E. Hastings, R. Wertheimer)

• Math, Science and Technology - Tools for Changing Schools Conference - February 17-18, 1995 (R. Wertheimer, M. Zinga)

• NSF/DOE Invitational Conference on Systemic Reform - February 23-25, 1995 (R. Wertheimer, M. Zinga)

• DOE Secretary's Conference on Educational Technology - March 7-9, 1995 (R. Wertheimer)

I. Background Information

Common Knowledge: Pittsburgh (CK:P) is a joint effort of the Pittsburgh Public Schools, the University of Pittsburgh and the Pittsburgh Supercomputing Center. This unique collaboration provides educational, technical and assessment expertise for the project.

• Creating Common Knowledge: School Networking in an Urban Setting
• Original NSF Proposal and Revisions
• Project Goals

II. Educational Architecture

The educational architecture of the CK:P project was developed by teachers from the Pittsburgh Public Schools. It is predicated on the ideas that teachers must have ownership of the activities in their classroom, that they need to feel empowered in the use of powerful technologies and curriculum development, and that ongoing support is necessary for success.

• Institutionalization
  • A Process Model
• Building a Human Infrastructure
  • Issues of Scaling
  • Ownership and Accountability Through a Competitive Process
  • Curriculum Based Action Plans
  • Professional Development and the Internet

III. Technical Architecture

The technical architecture for the project was designed by Robert Carlitz in collaboration with the Pittsburgh Supercomputing Center. It is a distributed architecture that is scalable, interoperable, and cost-effective.

• Network Architecture from the Original Proposal
• Stages of Internet Connectivity
• Issues of Scaling
• Technical Documentation

IV. Assessment Model

The assessment model used by Common Knowledge: Pittsburgh was designed by Janet Schofield of the Learning Research and Development Center (LRDC) at the University of Pittsburgh.

• Assessment as Described in the Original Proposal
• The Assessment Component
• Usage and Participation Reports

V. Products

As a result of our research and efforts at migrating to a production network, Common Knowledge: Pittsburgh (CK:P) has created a number of products that could be of use to educators putting school networks in place. These products are designed specifically for the K12 urban setting. We hope to offer these to other school districts in order to save them time and money - scarce resources in educational settings.

• Products
• The CK:P Gopher
• The CK:P WWW Homepage