A major goal of CK:P has to do with the process of institutionalization of the use of networking technology. Coincident with the establishment of the first CK:P sites in the fall of 1993, the Pittsburgh Public Schools formed an Instructional Technology Task Force with the goal of developing a long-range plan for technology implementation in the school district. This planning process has now been merged into a larger Strategic Planning effort. The Strategic Planning Task Force, which was set up in January, 1994, seeks to guide the district's educational policies over the next five to six years. Technology is one important component of this effort, and appropriate technology will be adopted in response to curricular needs across the school system.
Teachers who have worked with CK:P have naturally gravitated toward significant roles on the committees which are developing the district's Strategic Plan [12] and Instructional Technology Plan . The Strategic Planning Task Force is working to align the district's policies and programs with the new "Chapter 5" outcomes-based standards recently adopted by the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. The Pittsburgh Public Schools have chosen to be in the first phase of school districts seeking to implement these new performance standards. The district's attitude is that the new legislation is an ideal vehicle for efforts at educational reform, and the Task Force is seeking to incorporate this ideal in the policies it develops.
The present timetable for the Strategic Planning Task Force is to present recommendations to the School Board in the fall of 1994. Once adopted, these recommendations will be implemented for the 1995-1996 school year. Accompanying the general recommendations will be a set of specific recommendations in the area of instructional technology. Possible scenarios include Local Area Networks at all schools in the district, a Metropolitan Area Network linking the schools to the Internet, and educational applications of the type that have been pioneered through CK:P. One can thus see technology being developed and the service of educational reform, with specific CK:P activities moving out of the project's research environment and into the school district's standard practice.