The meeting took place in the PSC in Room 411. In attendance were Andy Adams, Emily Becker, Wendy Huntoon, Dave Miller, Bob Taylor, Ted Vero, Rick Wertheimer, Mario Zinga, and Gail Futoran as observer.
Rick provided copies of information pertaining to the PREPnet membership. According to Wendy, the start date has been advanced to February 1, 1995. After the first year, membership will be a straight forward renewal, with CK:P paying for the duration of the NSF extension grant.
Rick then gave a project update. The wiring is started in all second year CK:P sites. Carrick is the only school that has raceway installed but no firm date on wiring. Rick went into some detail on several other sites. For example, Rick and his staff installed five computers at Phillips, and they are now up and running over the Netblazer. A termination party has to be scheduled for FultonÕs Hampton campus as soon as some equipment is delivered. He invited the PPS technical staff to join the CK:P staff in this endeavor. FultonÕs Jancey campus was terminated by the CK:P staff and the computers need installed. Rick mentioned that three new sites will come on board in the spring (RFP competition announcement is April 1, 1995) and he has been working with Cy Tomko to expedite the installation of LANs at those sites.
A key lesson learned, according to Rick, was that at minimum, three walk-throughs of a building are needed: the first with a CK:P technical person, a teacher and the principal to determine where equipment should be located; the second with the person or contractor that is drawing up the wiring specifications; the third with the vendor who has been awarded the contract. Modifications in the plan occur every step of the way, and vendors have been good about making reasonable adjustments. Rick summed up by saying that the good news is that installation procedures are being handled correctly, but the bad news is that it still takes six to ten months for a site to be installed from the time the order goes in to the School Board.
The second part of the project update concerned the PPS central site. Bob said that the LADS line is in. He then asked about the difference in speed between a LADS line and a T1 connection. According to Andy there is no real difference, but Wendy agreed with Bob that performance tests should be conducted to back up that conclusion.
TCI was a topic of discussion, with Wendy providing updates on the progress they are making on testing the channels they want to provide to the CK:P sites. There will be a series of tests this week involving TCI, DEC and PSC; next week there will be a test of ÒrealÓ data transmission to and from Carrick High School. As Wendy noted, there are still some long-term implications of ethernet over cable to be resolved for the school district, and she is in the process of developing a cost comparison for each site.
The February 6 inservice at Woolslair was the next item on the agenda. Rick described how this developed and the tentative schedule for the day. The PPS technical staffs, and anyone else in the school district with technical interests, are invited to the 9:00 a.m. - 2:00 p.m. workshop where Kevin Sullivan will demonstrate how to install UNIX on a PC platform. There was a discussion of machine availability so that participants could practice KevinÕs lessons. Andy said he could provide four 486s that were still in the box (unconfigured), and Emily said she could bring hers to work on. Andy mentioned that DaveÕs equipment is on order: a low-end machine which will serve as a UNIX box which he will take back to his shop after the workshop, and a high- end machine which will be a duplicate of the site user devices.
Rick introduced the next topic which concerned moving from a research-based project (the first two years of CK:P), to a production project (the next three years) and, in particular, migration of technical support for the sites to the school district. Rick said that he and Wendy had been discussing the issue with Myron Lentz, but he also invited comments from the meeting participants. Rick mentioned that there is a question of where to house the two people who will be hired for the extension grant, to be most useful in terms of migration. Dave said that he was concerned with how best to Òcatch upÓ with the technology that CK:P has developed. He suggested that spending some time at the PSC and learning from Gene would be most helpful to him and his staff to prepare them to handle the actual maintenance.
There was a discussion of support for MACs and particularly of mixed sites (MACs and PCs on the same LAN). Wendy mentioned that the latter have been very difficult to support, particularly with regard to printing. There was also a discussion of the compatibility problem between the School BoardÕs e-mail system and Internet e-mail. Gene and Myron are involved in looking for solutions to that problem.
Ted brought up the PPS technology plan and the need for whatever CK:P does to be consistent with that plan. Rick said that efforts are being made in that direction, and he mentioned that Bernie Manning, Myron Lentz and Bob Carlitz are all on the technology planning steering committee.
The next meeting was scheduled for March 15 at 10:00 a.m. in CarrickÕs library, for a Òshow and tellÓ of ethernet over cable. If there are delays in the TCI connection, the meeting will take place at a site that has a high-speed connection.