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thin client grant

Page history last edited by PBworks 15 years, 7 months ago

 

PROJECT DESCRIPTION: (left justified 12 pt. type with 1” margins, not to exceed 5 double-spaced pages. See Guidelines for Proposals, p. iii, for details.)

 

 

 

PROJECT OVERVIEW:

 

 

 

Scholar and technology advocate Cynthia Selfe argues in Technology and Literacy in the Twenty-First Century that we must pay attention to the omnipresence of technologies and the resulting economic and digital divides. Many people falling through the rift of the so-called “digital divide” already have valuable skills, technological and otherwise, but no resources for developing them into life-long learning practices in technological contexts. Given Selfe’s premise, the Co-PIs recognize the importance of providing access to inexpensive, self-sustaining, open source technology to area schools and propose to systematically examine the role of distributed technology and emergent rhetorical strategies of community-building already percolating in Pinellas schools. The benefits of an inexpensive data processing network that can run a modern graphic user interface and perform the vast majority of academic computing functions using antiquated hardware are difficult to overstate in the political climate described by Selfe. Any technology that can sidestep the expensive site licenses and constant hardware upgrades that currently dominate IT budgets ought to be explored.

 

 

 

In select cases, Linux Terminal Server projects and similar open-source solutions have recently enfranchised a technologically underprivileged demographic of students in districts and schools that simply cannot afford new equipment. While most of these success stories are on a small scale, the case of the Atlanta Public School system demonstrates scalability. APS, an urban school system with nearly 100 school campuses, took its cue from two parents at Brandon Elementary who installed a small Linux Terminal Server lab with little effort. APS implemented a large scale pilot K12 LTSP for use by K12 students for the 2006-2007 school year. Even though this project reached 4400 students using 2200 thin clients across 233 classrooms, only 31 dual core, dual processor AMD Opteron servers were required—each school utilized between 1 and 5 of these servers, which can maintain between 70-120 computers. Co-PIs propose creating a similar network in Pinellas County. Of course, the project director and Co-PIs must first investigate feasibility of design, implementation, and maintenance of small wireless networks, including the negotiation of the precise long-term relationships between USFSP faculty and students and the students and teachers learning everyday at community lab sites. By the end of Spring semester 2008, with the connections of this civic and rhetorical “software” in place, the spectrum of potential outcomes broadens considerably.

 

Each faculty Co-PI will design, and, in Fall 2008, teach outcomes-based, writing-intensive multimedia composition courses that will provide students with the opportunity to directly investigate the capacities of connected computers as a technology of community-formation and communicative performance. Students enrolled in these writing courses will learn how to initialize small thin-client labs at local schools, where they will then collaborate with students, teachers, and administrators, host workshops, organize colloquia, and design research methodologies that address the political, technological, and pedagogical dimensions of the cultural shift, now underway, from vendor-supplied to open-source software.

 

Indeed, in order to participate in and help generate such a paradigm shift in the way K-12 institutions handle IT, a generation of educators must be trained to be conversant with the relevant technologies and their implementation. This proposal is a step towards USFSP’s role in that larger goal. This project accompanies a shift in pedagogical values from consumption to production. In such an environment, educators and English majors will learn the necessary skills to effectively be their own network administrator, allowing them to take the lead in introducing similar programs in their own environments as they begin their careers.

 

 

 

METHODS:

 

 

 

Building on existing research and implementation already conducted by Conner and Havasi, all Co-PIs will orchestrate assignments and exercises enjoining USF students in an effort to pilot a model lab at USF, with technical documentation and proposals for duplication. Havasi will present findings at the Undergraduate Research Symposium here at USFSP and help Conner, Gresham, and McCracken select qualified research assistants before he leaves the project in August of 2008. These pilot experiments and user-tests will provide a space for Co-PIs Conner, Gresham, and McCracken to share and revise plans and data concerning the revision of the Writing Major at USFSP. Three aspects of this larger project will come under consideration by means of this lab work:

 

 

 

1. the potential role and specific potentials/constraints of community outreach and civic engagement in the new curriculum.

 

2. the potential role and specific potentials/constraints of open source technology on the USFSP campus.

 

3. the potential for scaling the pilot lab up into a larger multi-platform and multi-purpose communications laboratory that would be opened to the College of Arts and Sciences and other interested Colleges on our campus.

 

 

 

OUTCOMES:

 

 

 

In May 2008, Co-PIs Conner, Gresham, and McCracken will share narratives and data pertaining to this project at the Computers & Writing Conference in Athens, Georgia, “Open Source as a Technology and a Concept” (http://www.cw2008.uga.edu/cw2008/). Because the conference is attended by writing professors and will take open source as its theme, the Co-PIs expect to garner feedback of immediate value to the outreach phase of the project (Fall semester 2008).

 

 

 

In the Fall semester of 2008, Co-PIs Conner, Gresham, and McCracken will teach courses on a client-based model: Students in these courses will establish duplicate laboratories at three local Pinellas County schools and produce research instruments and narratives documenting the specifics of each case.

 

 

 

By the conclusion of this final phase in the funding period, we will

 

 

 

  • know more about how technology factors in the communicative performances of the next generation of students and submit our findings to flagship journals in our field.

 

  • work with liaisons and focus groups to collate data concerning computer literacy and the multimedia practices of teachers and administrators in the school system.

 

  • create technical documentation and learning modules for the maintenance of Linux Terminal server projects.

 

  • incorporate feedback and research in efforts to pilot and culture open source technology for a planned college-wide communications laboratory.

 

  • use collected data to develop community-based writing courses focused on teaching with technology.

 

 

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