Common Knowledge: Pittsburgh
Common Knowledge: Pittsburgh
Lloyd W. Briscoe
Pittsburgh Public Schools
Robert D. Carlitz and Janet W. Schofield
University of Pittsburgh
Pittsburgh, PA 15260
Michael Levine and Ralph Z. Roskies
Pittsburgh Supercomputing Center
Pittsburgh, PA
A Proposal to the Buhl, Frick and Heinz Foundations
Supplementing a Proposal to the National Science Foundation
May 21, 1993
Funding is requested to supplement major project funding from the National
Science Foundation. The proposed project will implement important changes in
the teaching environment of the Pittsburgh Public Schools through the
installation of an electronic data network that will ultimately be available to
all students and teachers in the school district. The proposed network will be
novel in its distributed architecture and distributed administrative structure.
Teachers and students will use the network to access information and people
outside of their classrooms. These new resources will be incorporated into the
curriculum, and the network will be used as a tool for the development,
implementation, evaluation and dissemination of new curriculum components.
SUMMARY
The project will develop a set of curriculum-based network activities and provide a framework in which such activities can be implemented throughout the local school system, tested, evaluated and made available to other school districts around the nation. The project seeks also to establish mechanisms to institutionalize the use and maintenance of network technology in the Pittsburgh Public Schools. The model that will be developed for the Pittsburgh Public Schools will be readily applicable to other urban school systems, and materials generated in the course of the project will be immediately available for the use of other school districts via district's connection the the Internet. The project thus offers a test of the educational utility of wide area networks for the national K-12 community.
The present proposal is a joint effort of the school district, the University of Pittsburgh and the Pittsburgh Supercomputing Center, which itself was jointly founded by the University of Pittsburgh, Carnegie Mellon University and the Westinghouse Electric Corporation. The proposed activities will build coalitions involving these groups and many others across the local community. Within the school district the project involves cooperative activities which will include students, teachers, instructional specialists, administrators and the Pittsburgh Federation of Teachers. The proposed network is the key element which will allow these groups to work together efficiently and smoothly. It is also the key to significant changes in the structure and quality of education in the Pittsburgh Public Schools and, by extension, in other school districts across the country.