Dear CCTE Students--

Some of you know me by association with the Digital Dante Project ( http://www.ilt.columbia.edu)-a project I began as a research and development effort for my own PhD program about five years ago. I work for ILT and was recently asked by Robbie McClintock, Program Coordinator for CCTE and Co-Director of The Institute for Learning Technologies (ILT), to take responsibility for "cleaning up" the computer lab space of 332 Horace Mann and to cultivate an atompshere of reflective practitioners for students in CCTE as a means to facilitate the sharing of ideas, research and projects among CCTE students-beyond any single course.

I've divided the task into a few primary realms:

1) Hardware, software and network maintenance of the actual *space*--we call it the i designstudio ("i" stands for intelligent, innovative instructional design), 2) An on-line presence, and 3) Programmatic innovations.

For programmatic innovations, I have in mind the formation of something like a law review, i.e., a student-run crit board, devoted to prevalent and emerging issues in education and technology. As I get to know students through their use of the 332 HM i designstudio, it will become more clear what specific programmatic innovations make sense and will support your interests.

Guillermo Creus, a colleague and experienced web designer, has developed a site for students which has basic information about the i designstudio including applications on machines, staff and general information, as well as a discussion group for job postings and academic calendars. We will send out the url (Web address) as soon as we've settled on a server. That should be next week.

The most important stuff--Hardware, Software and Network space: Six new (relatively) computers have been moved into the 332 Horace Mann space. The total now is 18. 6 are Macs, and the remaining are PC's. All computers are networked. (Ray Stewart, your colleague, spent an entire weekend accomplishing this for your benefit!) As is, all computers have the basic Office suite including Word, Excel and powerPoint, a Web browser with internet access (via a T1) plus applications like Adobe Photosophop. At this point, there is an eclectic mix of applications on each computer. I will work with Ray and Guillermo over the next month to order a fuller suite of applications including more Web development applications (Allaire, Adobe, and Macromedia applications).

The computers have been networked and ILT is offering all CCTE students DEVELOPMENT SPACE ON THE NETWORK. What this means is that we will become much more *serious* about enforcing the rule that *NOTHING SHOULD BE STORED LOCALLY TO THE HARD DRIVE OR DESKTOP*. ALL locally stored files will be deleted!

The Network Space is on a Snap server. To access the space and save your work, you should login to the PC's as "student" and your password is "ccte". With this login and password, you will be able to access the Snap server from the Network Neighborhood and Save to a folder in the CCTE Students Directory. I will attempt, over the weekend, to set up individual folders for all students. You should use your cunix login as your folder name. For example, my cunix id is jah39 and my folder should be jah39. For MacIntosh users, you will have to access the Snap server and your network space through the Chooser. Your login and password are the same, however.

All work stored on the Snap server in CCTE Students can be read and accessed by all other CCTE students. It is a degree more secure than the work which has been saved locally on the 332 HM computers deskstops--Only CCTE students have been given the login and password. However, it is NOT a high degree of security. Then again, your colleagues are probably too busy to peruse through folders other than their own. ONLY Research and development work for CCTE should be stored on the network, i.e., it is not for *personal* use. Although, R&D for one's work can take on many shapes and forms, and that is generally expected.

You will have more questions, and I will have more information for you, I'm sure. I hope that most of our interchange occurs on the i designstudio discussion group, and that should happen in the future. Please don't hesitate to contact me, preferably by email.

Best, Jen Hogan jenhogan@ilt.columbia.edu 212.854.7840

-- Jen Hogan (jenhogan@ilt.columbia.edu), February 12, 1999