The meeting took place in Woolslair room G-8. In attendance were Andy Adams, Emily Becker, Priscilla Franklin, Gene Hastings, Wendy Huntoon, Mike McCafferty, Dave Miller, Bob Taylor, Cy Tomko, Richard Wertheimer, Mario Zinga and Janet Stocks as observer.

Rick handed out a copy of an agenda and started the meeting by saying that he had recently reviewed the minutes from last monthÕs meeting which contained a number of action items. The CK:P Educational staff has been busy working on these action items during the past month.

As an update on the status of the second year sites Rick reported that all the wiring is done, and the networks are at various stages of running.

Rick then handed out a draft copy of a wiring timeline that Myron Lentz, Ted Vero and he had been working on. Members of the committee expressed their appreciation at seeing this document, they thought it was valuable, and they would like to see this kind of coordination come from other departments within PPS. Many times the needs of different departments must be taken into consideration as plans proceed, and the communication it would take to put together this kind of timeline, considering the needs of all the relevant parties, would be useful. Rick suggested that this timeline piece, as well as other documents coming out of the Common Knowledge project, might be useful for other districts that are trying to put LAN toplogies in plkace. The goal is to eventually put the document on- line.

Rick then reported that the third year sites were progressing pretty much as this timeline indicated. Cy has provided floor plans for all of the sites. As walk-throughs of the buildings are done, wiring sites are being marked on the floor plans as well as on the walls of the schools themselves.

Mike then initiated a discussion that concerns Allegheny and Frick which are both participating in a pilot for a project called Integrated Learning Systems. These schools will be getting computers from this project, and some of these computers will go into of the same rooms where there are Common Knowledge devices. There were questions of wiring and interoperability with these new computers. Mike would like there to be a meeting of the appropriate people to work out the details of coordinating these two projects. After some talk about the particular specifications of the systems from this new project, it seemed that some coordination would be possible. Committee members expressed their interest in seeing how the coordination between the two projects works out. Wendy suggested that there should be a separate meeting scheduled to work out some of the networking and software details.

Cy asked if progress on the third year sites was proceeding as the draft-timeline would indicate. Rick reviewed what he expected to be done by June 1. Within each school there will be places chosen for wiring, with these places marked both on the blueprints and on the walls of the school with an X. Questions being dealt with now, have to do with where to place the hub within each school and the specs for the hubs. On June 1 the Education staff will be able to hand Cy a list of the rooms within each school that will be wired. Cy had a question about the equipment that will be used, brand names and specifications of the machines. Gene stated that the computer market is not sufficiently static to choose any particular type of equipment and have that be standard throughout the system. Cy then asked if it might be possible to get specifications (e.g. amperage) on ÒtypicalÓ pieces of equipment (computers, printers, etc.). Gene said this would be possible and he will do it.

Rick then moved to the next agenda item which was working groups. The working groups are for getting issues that need to be considered on the table and to start working them through.

There is a modem pool work group which includes many of the people who are on the technical advisory committee. They have met once. The modem pool discussion has started, and more meetings will take place. The goal for this group is to get a pilot going and to start purchasing equipment by June. During this meeting they came up with three possible plans for how to proceed. Since then Rick added a forth. A draft of these plans was sent out via e-mail. The group looked at existing modem pools, routers, the budget in developing these models. One model would be to purchase a whole new system. Another would be to take existing routers and configure them to do added tasks. The group is working from a set of assumptions about the needs of this modem pool: teachers and students should be able to access their accounts from home; users must use a password to access the server; users will be timed out after x minutes of idle time; there may be a hard time out; would provide SLIP access; should be easily administrated; and should be expandable. Some of the possible models would require more money up front, but would be easier to expand at a later date. Others would use existing equipment but run into problems over time.

Rick met with Myron yesterday to discuss phone lines, and what might be available for the modem pools. Some of the existing phone lines are off-limits, but there are others that might be used. A number of issues came up about use of phone lines during different periods of the day, competing uses, etc. Rick said he did not want to get into a great amount of detail at this meeting, but it was interesting to see all the considerations that were emerging. There was some further discussion about security issues, use of the network infrastructure and network links.

Rick stated that the modem pool work group and the central site work group have a lot of overlap. Wendy will chair the central site work group. The work group on the PPS MAN will not be constituted until after a decision is made about the PPS technology plan. Wendy will begin the central site work group sometime this summer.

Next there was a TCI update. An e-mail message from Bob Carlitz had been sent to a number of people, but not everyone at the meeting had received it. Rick distributed a hard copy for people to look at. Gene reported that the link between Carrick and the head end has been very stable. It has survived people turning it off. There is still some labor involved in bringing the fiber link up. Gene believes that TCI has all the hardware in hand to do this. Rick asked Gene about the amount of money this has cost TCI. Gene stated that some of this they were adding anyway for purposes of their own. These cables can be used both for computer connectivity and for cable TV access. Rick said that the agreement with TCI is that they will provide connectivity for one year minimum, which hopefully means all of next school year. There will be a demonstration once it is up and running.

Gene reported that he had been at East Hills yesterday and discovered that there is an TCI cable in a custodial storage closet. This is not next to the library. He will check with TCI about getting a signal between where this cable is and where it will be useful to the school.

Next there was a discussion about the Bellefield service center. There has been some trouble getting the netblazer to work in the low-price mode preferred. Gene will work more on this in the next week. There was a short discussion of running a small LAN within the Admin building (a very small one already exists) and internet access. This will be worked on more.

Rick requested that the tech advisory committee meet one more time before the end of the school year. It was agreed that the meeting would take place Thursday June 15 at 10 AM in Oakland (location to be confirmed at a later date). The next modem pool work group meeting was set for Thursday June 1 from 1 to 3 PM in room 225 of the PPS building in Oakland.

The meeting ended at 11:30.

Action items:

1. The Education staff will put the wiring timeline online after it has been finalized.

2. A meeting will be set up with appropriate people to talk about the coordination of the pilot project (Individual Learning Systems) in Allegheny and Frick, and Common Knowledge.

3. Gene will develop spec. sheets on ÒstandardÓ equipment used in the project for Cy.

4. Rick will have locations for wiring within each of the third year sites for Cy by June 1.

5. The modem pool work group will continue to meet to work through the various issues raised.

6. A central site work group will start to meet this summer.

7. Gene will contact TCI about providing a signal in a useable place in East Hills.

8. Rick will arrange for a demonstration of the TCI connection once one is available.