Rick passed out an agenda and called the meeting to order by saying that there were two main items that needed to be discussed. The first was an update on what has occurred in Common Knowledge during the last year. The second is a discussion about migration and institutionalization.
Rick made reference to the NSF quarterly report he had sent out with the notice of this meeting. Another quarterly report will be compiled within the next two weeks. He asked for questions or feedback. There was none.
Next Rick and Mario led a tour of World Wide Web pages (via an overhead projector, so everyone could see) that have been created by a number of different CK:P sites as a way of demonstrating the accomplishments of the last year. They started with a look at the list of CK:P publications that have been produced by the project. Rick reported that these publications are accessed more by people outside of the CK:P project than from within.
Bob pointed out that the grant proposals from CK:P are all online too. He said that this is a somewhat unusual practice, but feels that these proposals give the public a relatively clear idea of what CK:P is all about.
The group then visited home pages from the following sites: Westinghouse (including the Kennywood home page), Schenley, Phillips, Vann Elementary (part of the Commerce grant), the Liberty poetry project, which is part of Mario's home page. At most of these sites, students (elementary through high school) are learning html and constructing their own web pages.
A discussion took place regarding the possibility of allowing other schools, outside of CK:P, to have access to the resources necessary to have their own home pages. Rick said that he had recently received a request from a senior at Taylor-Alderdice to put their year book on the web. He is not sure if this will be possible, mostly because of hard disk space. Bob suggested that CK:P devote a server to schools in the district that wanted to be able to do some projects on the WWW. They could each be allocated a certain number of megabytes of space.
Members of the committee expressed positive reactions to the work that has been done, and is available to the world via the WWW through the CK:P project. Teachers who were present said that their students were learning a lot from this experience, not only technical things such as html, but also lessons in budgeting their time, and lessons about the creative process.
Rick then said that not everything has gone smoothly this year. Wiring was a major problems at some sites (e.g. East Hills and Frick) and there has not been a lot that has been produced at these schools, through no fault of their own. The CK:P Educational staff is hopeful that all the second year sites will be debugged and running smoothly by September.
A short discussion occurred about TCI and the services they may provide some of the sites (e.g. Carrick, East Hills). Bob said that the delays in getting TCI connections has been one of politics, not of technology. He is hopeful that these issues will be worked out and that connections will be provided. Demonstrations of what can be done with the TCI connection will be a priority once these sites are connected.
Rick reported that a wiring time line was being drafted and discussed that may cut wiring time in the third year sites in half.
Rick then turned people's attention to the preliminary results of the online usage survey which he had asked Gail Futoran to pull together for the meeting. This survey was put online on May 24. Gail was able to compile data from 200 surveys, focusing on three questions having to do with money and time. People are spending a fair amount of time online from school (mean is between 30 minutes at two hours per day), and from home (mean is between 1 and 4 hours per day). Approximately one third of the respondents tallied have spent more than $1,000 of personal money on computer equipment since joining CK:P. Bob pointed out that this is more than $300,000 of personal investment in the project.
Migration of the support services that the educational staff provides was the next topic of conversation. Rick said that a number of working groups have been formed to address issues of migration on the technical side of things, and that it was important for this committee to start thinking about migration of educational support. A question arose about the possibility of continuing to have an educational staff even after the NSF grant is over. Myron reported that the technology plan, now being considered by the school board, has educational support budgeted in. A number of people echoed the sentiment that educational support would be an important thing to continue.
Several members of the committee have been involved with proposals for Chapter I/Title I monies, which can be spent on computers. There was a very short time line for pulling these proposals together. A number of computer vendors heard about the possibility of this money and have been approaching schools individually with proposed packages. Educators at the meeting expressed frustration at the lack of coordination and information available to them in pulling these proposals together. There were questions of compatibility between computers that might be purchased with these funds and CK:P computers. There was also discussion about the need for the district to develop procedures for these kinds of proposals and purchases in the future.
Next Rick brought up the question of publicizing what CK:P is doing to the community and to teachers within the schools. A number of media outlets were mentioned: there is an article about CK:P in the districts newspaper "Public Voices." Other possible media sources mention were the Post Gazette and a KDKA online program. Rick asked if the committee thought it would be valuable to have a video about CK:P? Committee members thought this would be a good idea. He said he thought a quality video could probably be produced by students, and copied and made available to the schools.
Another suggestion made for publicizing CK:P was that the educational staff could do a presentation at the summer institute for teachers. Rick said he would look into this. Another possibility mentioned was teacher in-service sessions at individual schools.
The district's technology plan was discussed. A presentation has been made to the board but the cost is very high and the current question is where the money is going to come from. Several sources of funding are being explored. There is no time line on when this technology plan might be implemented. If approved, it would be phased in over a five year period.
The meeting came to an end at 6:10 pm.