K20 Advisory Committee Meeting Minutes
April 21th, 2008
Spring Internet2 Member Meeting, Washington D.C.
In attendance:
Bob Collie ENA, TN
Ed Morrison, Barrow County,GA
Bill Corddiaegs, MORnet, Missouri
Matthew Conforth, NJedge.net
Carla Hunt, MCNC, NCREN, NC
Tim Poe, MCNC, NCREN, NC
Merle Gruesser, ENA, TN
Teresa Raymond, Merit Network
Jon Monahan, AKDEC, Alaska
Indika McCampbell, Kanren, KS
Jeanee Weber, East Suffolk, boces
Catherine Mc Kenzie, Cenic, CA
Stephanie Conch, Cenic, CA
Bob Wolffe, Bradley Univ, IL
Pat Sine, Univ of Del
Ann Zimmerman, OSC-net
Carol Willis, TETN, TX
Kim Owen, EDUTCH, ND
Heather Weisse, MAGPI, PA
Robert Lahr, PASSHE, PA
Marcia Mardis, Wayne State Univ, MI
James Werle, Internet2 K20 Initiative
Louis Fox, Internet2 K20 Initiative
Randy Stout presiding
Randy: How many is this your first meeting? 6
Randy is a collaborative technologist involved with K-12 and community colleges. What can we do to bring together the K-20 community and what are the opportunities to pool our resources - licensing, digital media assets, with Community Colleges and public universities, libraries, and state governments.
Randy asked folks to introduce themselves and their affiliation.
Carla Hunt --- MCNC
K-20 and performance initiative and network augmentation
Matthew Conforth: Director of Educational Technology at State Valley College in NJ
Bill Giddings - Missouri Regional Education University -- MOREnet --- a service provider for K-12, higher ed and public libraries that are tax-supported.
Ed Morrison - Director of Technolgy for Brookdyne (??) schools, GA
He is looking for the best Internet2 has to offer for K-12 educators.
He's here collecting business cards and looking for partnerships.
James Werle - Internet2 K-20 Initiative
Louis Fox - Internet2 k-20 Initiative
Bob Collie, ENA
Marcia Mardis--- Wayne State Univ - also worked with National Science Foundation on K-12 issues. Her interest is from the cyberinfrastructure perspective - She wants to be part of that and work primarily with school librarians. I also have small faculty appointment at the school of Information at the Unviersity of Michigan in Ann Arbor. She ran a teacher network at Merit Network - and was affiliated with the Michigan Virtual University as well.
Robert Lahr - PASS higher education; acutally formed the first SGPE in Pennsylvania
Heather Weisse - Educator Coordinator at MAGPI
Do occupation support for them; what do they want to do with it
Kim Owen - North Dakota - K-12 but now K-20 collaboration and is connected to state-wide network - Indian villages, Dakota (new dinosaur that has been found) and very interested in collaborating with others at this meeting.
Carol Willis - state-wide network in Texas -consortium of universities that serve to improve student performance. She is very active in the conferencing world and is working on the TETN project to upgrade their infrastructure with connections. Any kinds of programs ---they're doing a lot of video conferencing --- if you have any great ideas, it's good to share them here.
Ann Zimmerman, OSU net - which provides Internet2 to junior colleges in Ohio and are trying to get k-12 on-line with Internet2.
Pat Sine - Univ of Delaware - she coordinates the SGPE for K-12 schools and working with getting more involved with teachers to use Internet2.
Robert Wolffe, Bradley Univ in Ill --- trying at the state level to develop networks and uses of high bandwidth in K-20.
Catherine McKenzie of Cenic_:_ Representing California Community Colleges
Dan Gross - here for the free meal; put together these workshops and the direction of the K-20 groups in Chicago and Milwaukee - and runs a small program between the two. Is the Chair of the K-20 work program for State of Wisconsin and does consulting work for museums and zoos.
Jeanie Weber -- East Suffolk boces and is the CIO for Suffolk County Schools - she is all things technical to all schools.
John Monahan -- distance education consortium at Univ of Alaska and trying to find solutions. Just to get bandwidth out there and figuring out what to do with it once they get it.
Indika McCampbell, Kanren, KS - the Kansas educational system --- helping the network operational center help end users with their problems - if they get the right equipment, what do they do with it
Judy Graves Library of Congress:
Worked with a number of groups represented here; has been on Internet2 about 4 years or so and have been coming to these meetings. She runs a video conference distance learning program and offers programs free of charge to K-12 educators, librarians, and also the university and community Colleges and lifelong learners. The operative word is "free." Her latest request is from a new group of people --- the "active adult communities around the country." The Library of Congress has a digital library of 13 million cultural items and coordinates the video conferencing.
Teresa Raymond, Merit Network - is the K-12 library and outreach coordinator. Their mission is to connect all public libraries in K-12 and teach them how to leverage their network.
Randy:
- Want to bring more people into active participation in the leadership of this organization
- Social networking side through MUSE
- Gadgets and widgets typically referred to as web 2.0
- Want to spend some time with this group to learn how to engage folks into this area
8 people in audience are part of MUSE
Randy: anyone have question on how MUSE can be used ??
Question: What's on the roadmap for MUSE and how does K-20 fit into using resources?
Another question: We're very interested in identity management. Just came from an InCommon meeting and find that there is very little interest in engaging K-12 programs. I'm curious from this audience on how they plan on managing identity?
Randy: one of the ways is through MUSE that you can connect with other people in the community and network with them to solve some of these issues. One of the difficulties and challenges that come up with federated identity - it is a subject that takes some degree of knowledge about how authentication occurs in a community.
What do we need to do to take that understanding to the next level? This is the perfect place to strategize with it.
Audience Comment: Not a single hand went up when I asked the InCommon (meeting) audience how many were interested in getting the K-12 community involved.
Louis Fox: I recently met with Ken Klingenstein - he is committed to involving the K-12 program and finding funding opportunities
Judy Graves: What I would like to see in MUSE---I received a communication from a little itty bitty town in California - this group wanted to do oral interviews about the first gold rush in their community. And I found Cenic -connected them with their local Community College which was on Internet2. This band of little people was given training on how to do oral interviews. I get on-line with groups and figure out how they're connected to Internet2 and work with them to get connected. I would love to hook them up with their state level Internet2 person. Would like an easier way to identify them.
Randy: There are some steps that MUSE can take in that direction. That is one of the ideas that we're hoping to have in the connectivity section
Judy: I would like to be able to direct them on MUSE to find that connection themselves.
James: MUSE went from a static site to a networking site. Version 3.0 is MUSE and we've learned a lot in the last few years about what people need so it will work better for them.
The goal is to try to connect teachers, faculty members, and librarians, and museum folks who have great content and great programs. Want to make it a place where people can describe their work and find each other and collaborate together. You will then find out who else is doing what you want and make that connection and communicate more.
The first thing to do --- sign up on MUSE and list your interests.
Our challenge is now that we have this tool, we need to compel people who have other tools and resources to come onto the site and describe it. One source has been to use MAGPI as an example and find their projects and see how it is being done.
People are super busy and it's not terribly exciting to advertise your wares --- it is a challenge to encourage folks to log on and register with MUSE, and to utilize our site for networking.
Question Tim: is there any interest in just building one presence that might go across all the others. We have too many social networking sites like LinkedIn and FaceBook.
Dan Gross: Are there any social widgets you're interested in? You can use the source right now. We don't want it to be a resource that our teachers can't get to. We have to be careful that we don't start getting blocked on their web sites.
James: We don't want to be flatfooted on being able to offer a cumulative list. We think we have an answer and know it won't be easy - we're asking people to send us a list in the names of the school districts and the bit rate in which the school districts are connected. When we actually get it, here's what we can do. [demo by James on utilizing the MUSE map]
Randy: We sent out a survey to everyone in the past [in the SEGP (Sponsored Education Group Participant)] and hope people will put that information in a survey. Right now we're only collecting the bit rate at the institution level. We're working on and doing a survey - the raw data is coming in today from the survey.
James: a lot of other folks are working hard on this. Gave a demo on Washington State - utilizing a Google map in a GIS layer to designate county boundaries --
Audience Question: We're looking for state-wide applications for instructors - what is possible and what is underway ?
James: Harvested data from National Institute of Educational Statistics - you tell us the name of the district, library, museum, science center and give us a bit rate and we'll dump it into the system and within 5 mins. of receiving that data we can have it available on-line.
Any user on MUSE - can get demographic information on the school systems in a state - their projects, their initiatives, what institutions are involved.
Question Carol Willis: this is really cool. For us, the poverty issue is not focused there - - we're not focused on lack of bandwidth. For example, a school might have the bandwidth but they don't have the computers.
What I would love to be able to communicate to the FCC and anyone else who will listen is "how bad it really is out there" -- -I don't want to misrepresent a real situation.
James: what you put in is what you get out.
Carol Willis: Urban vs rural bandwidth is really huge.
James: if you get into the state - maybe we should make it the average of all the institutions in your state and it will glow on the map accordingly.
Ed: Can we get a list out of MUSE? Can we get a list of what we can't have? The list changes as the bandwidth changes -is it a barrier to expanded education?
James: Just a matter of getting the data on how it can be used.
Dan Gross: There's a problem with that - every state is divided differently. There is another piece of it that's a possibility -- bandwidth per person. We're hoping that we can say what bandwidth the average (per person) can expect to have.
James: we can actually get K-12 libraries and students served. That's the potential.
Dan: There is a limited intermediate factor that will keep us from running the application -
Stephanie: for me the school level data is important to be accurate, is there any way that ??????
James: There's a top down approach; there is value in the group up approach, too. If they have the information, we want anyone to be able to provide it. Log into MUSE and give your institutional profile, you will be able to enter your bandwidth there too.
Stephanie: in creating programs, finding partners - there are so many other factors - is that the right school to work with and the person I need to contact. The state guide would really help.
James: and it would help Judy's problem as well. So when you connect with that person, how well schooled they are in technology, you will know.
Stephanie: it reinforces this group so we can talk to each other over time
Dan: some of that information is on the site - if you click on one of the region sections --- you can identify and highlight that content in there. It may not be on the heat map but the information is in MUSE.
Randy: with the NCIS identifier the user can use that as an identifier and correlate the bandwidth at a particular institution -
Ed: it would seem to me that if this was all done in Kansas and it's all worked out - the value of this k-20 software vendors would benefit tremendously from this. Maybe this is marketable - how many districts have it, etc.
Comment: service provider
Disclosure of information beyond this user group --- some companies are predatory so we will have to be careful. We hope the data will not be sold and provided only to those that have a "need to know" in the community.
James: how to protect customers; the best we've done is the notion of providing the data, they own the data, worried about poaching customers - we worried about how to get the data from users; triple password protected on Internet2. We have it for the aggregate displays but "for bandwidth" information, please contact.
Comment: only those members logged into MUSE would have access to the data. It's not bullet proof......
James: a lot of the sites already have it on their web site - so it's a balancing there.
William: to enable legislators to view it --- most of that information is hidden.
Dan: collecting the data but hiding the sites so that it's just at the county level.
James: I'm certain we can find a compromise on the data. I'm sure we can find out how to make it useful to theK-20 program. The more it is used, suddenly it becomes restrictive. Some states will allow and others will confine it. This is just my way of looking at it and it's been great to jot down your thoughts. Please spend some time with it and send me information on how to make it better. If you have insights, please send them to me.
Randy: allowing you to look at this in progress - I hope it shows you how valuable it might be to you. Whoever collects that data in your area, please make contact with James Werle and we're ready to start loading up the data.
James: this has turned out to be a nice community project. We're coming to you soon in your State if we haven't already. I think we have a much better sense on individual institutions and we have more accurate data like we did back in 1996. We'll be able to move forward the data sets from before and predict the future.
Randy: one thing I found useful was to be able to pick up a trend line and make a slide out of it. This is much more interactive, is live, and much more dynamic and accurate.
James: I'll serve as the lightening rod for this.
Randy: we want to come back to the discussion of MUSE - any comments or suggestions in engaging more of our colleagues and networking. Does it seem like something this group would like to provide input on? How can we use this to bring more organizations into it and engage with Internet2?
James: take the 'take away' sheet on each table. It's one marketing approach we thought of that you could use. (Shows the sheet)
Louis: while nothing is forever - we've been at this for 6 years and it's a community that has sufficient momentum --- nothing has a sense of where this is going unless Internet2 is going away?
James: it's a staffing issue --- a lot we would like to do but it's a human constraint.
Suggestion: might make it valuable to the state - list the SEGP level at the state and it might help make it more valuable to them and bring in resources.
Dan: we spent a lot of time on the heat map - as we create the regional communities, we can always send out newsletters and very simply send out emails about the projects or how you can be a participant in the project. There is a capitol idea of the newsletters with an email control to send out the information to that group
Randy: Here's a perfect opportunity to implement Shibboleth to access resources. It makes sense to the extent that an engineering crew is ready to do that - we're in the perfect position to do that and it makes it possible for all the members in this community to share all the resources and the level of sharing as well.
Dan: the tagging and posting and blogging, this group has the ability to do scrapes of the Internet2 and another opportunity to use this information and aggregate all those videos and projects and blogs and have a whole string of tags.
James: the newsfeed could be the tags and the string of tags to whatever content we want to bring in. It's real easy to bring in content from other sites and display it in MUSE.
Randy: are there folks in the room who would upload the resources - media - sharing that activity
Bill will --- seems like it might be worthwhile to consider as next steps.
Dan: you may not necessarily upload them in MUSE but if you tag them properly then we'll be able to use them
James: here's my feed and I want it imbedded on my account and the feed will go directly into your world. So we if we don't catch it- if people don't put it in their field - we might be able to find it and tag it. Instead of making the endless pitch to have people do something they don't want to do.
Tim: content is very straightforward in confluence - might be limiting.
Dan: web 2.0 stuff is all around. How many people feel we should put together some specialized training for web 2.0 in the summer or fall. Or are you pretty much following the speed of this meeting? Get together like in Kansas City - for a block of time ---
Tim: especially if we could invite people that it was relevant to -- -would you be willing to help us mentor a group of people.
Suggestion: A webinar would be much better -
Comment: There is a session on web 2.0
Randy: we have multiple channels for getting that kind of training out. Maybe New Orleans. As these things occur and they do around the country - if we could capture it and spread the word around the country.
EMILIE'S SIDE NOTE: would the k-20 initiative (Dan??) be willing to speak with NITLE and have them incorporate a plug into their training segments to encourage colleges, libraries, museums to register on MUSE???
James: is this a good idea to promote as an intenret2 tool and intimately involve the Internet2 community in MUSE --- do we want to start throwing Internet2 members and SEGP members on the heat map. If you have the Internet2 membership visible - does it enhance the ability of the community/individual to communicate on Internet2?
Marsha: it wouldn't be unhelpful.
Tim: if we have the ability to segment it and expand to the community, then it would be good.
James: not a technical barrier as much as a human element minefield.
Tim: Opened up all the issues that we would like to have this become a part of their everyday lives.
James: If the U.S. then why not international ?
Louis: if it's associated with MUSE information and project-related activities across the globe (??)The whole notion of the k-20 program is the intersection of Internet2 and the broader community. The information is useful -
James: it's the people you wouldn't expect, that are signing up to MUSE
ED: The network can be very fast but you can't escape time -- dealing with the time zone barrier might make it nice on an international basis.
Tim: There are opportunities to bridge with the UK and across the pond.
James: it was built for that --- K-20 internationally. There are a lot of people from the international community that are in MUSE. We're limited in the terms of the accuracy of the dots by the quality of the address. If the address is dubious then the dot may not be accurate.
Louis: not going to do a connectivity survey for international --- draw a line in the sand.
Dan: I'll take Antarctica
Randy: We did find a way to convene in between the smm and fmm - Bill Giddings in Missouri helped in that regard. There's been a great deal of excitement in doing that again. Want to take the opportunity now to plan another meeting like that. Put that question out to the group and open up conversation to the group on schedules for a focused session on what are some of the steps we need to take to the organization in the direction we want to go. Any input on that at this stage?
Bob will host in Nashville
Randy: what are summer schedules like?
Dan: I was advocating for it in Kansas we had two full days of focusing on it. It was great -- in this venue we only have a few hours. It's hard to come to this conference, DC is not cheap, but you come for the other things on Tuesday and Wednesday as well --- I think we should not meet at the member meeting but would rather have it at a site that's less expensive and an intense working meeting-with no other sessions going on. Would be fun to do something where the cost of the hotel is $100 a night or less.
Randy: Middle of August ? - we can continue this conversation on conference calls. Open up to ask folks what venue we might choose and what we might put on our agenda. Nashville is a great place to go.
Louis: Montana is nice in August and the hotels aren't that expensive even in the summer. All these places would be better sooner or later.
Tim: one item I'm interested in - K-20 resources and the piece as far as trying to develop a state-wide resource - are the solutions there? What are other states exploring?
Randy: group project - bring our contributions from the folks that participate in K-20 together and the idea of getting some work outlined and solicit some support from a funding resource. We've heard from another funding programs throughout the year - IMIS today --- this organization can bring to their resources ---
National community service organization is a federal government program with many states. They have a commission or state education commission, internship kinds of activities - this particular RFP is for precisely using social networking tools to enhance the reach and the breadth and depth of training for students in those programs. That's' one option - there are other options. Would like to brainstorm what we might do together and figure out how to get resources to do what we need.
We have a confluence and a wiki - tools to work together. What in particular are folks interested in pursuing together? Is t around video conferencing, learning object repositories, any ideas ???
Stephinie: strengthening STEM to K-20 -Internet2 serves the higher ed community that mandates that. I have yet to see a comprehensive effort to target on the schools with the greatest diversity with the biggest bandwidth. Would be interested in working together on STEM programs with organizations/schools that need instruction on how to use the bandwidth.
Catherine: internet2 could be the bridge to pull groups together - have two groups that don't know how to bridge the STEM group with the MUSE group.
??: New Jersey K-20 initiative is trying to put together programs that ----w e come up with model programs but the problems we run into are the bureaucracy between higher ed and K-12 and the things you have to deal with. We have scientists in higher ed that want to do projects - the university is doing us a favor - like asking favors from universities to use their video conferencing. Struggling with (simple to put the model program together) but we're asking if you're experiencing the same thing in your state - compare some notes and prepare some strategies on how to deal with it.
Randy: we should define the challenge that we share.
Judy: I'll piggyback on your comment. We tried to do a video conference in St. Mary county and contacted the internet2 connection who connected us to the Community College who was really willing to do it. The bureaucracy in the K-12 environment would not let them go.
Tim: it's called K-20 - there is no K-20 overseeing organization that we can turn to. How do you start to build what isn't there?
Comment: you're talking about a political landscape in each state that is very different. We're not the people who should contribute to those kinds of problems. We can voice our opinion but it's not something I want this group to try to tackle.
Jeanne Weber:-I think you're talking idealistically but there is a practical reality that we all have to deal with. I'm not hearing that part of the conversation that we need to gravitate to.
Randy: what is the K-20 initiative about - the K-20 reform or helping teachers, educators learn about capabilities of the tools that are out there. Our state recently commissioned a K-20 council but their focus is policy questions and ways to use the branches of government to support the schools. What we do in this organization is to deliver some solutions to help them do what they want to do.
Tim: a lot of things that are going on technologically - a lot of the boundaries between K-12 and community colleges and universities is geographically restraint. If we can introduce technology to be able to address those things to help them have some successes with these --- it feels like uncharted territory
Pat: our problem is to get more people to use Internet2 - a lot of us are here because our state has a membership and that's not the problem of the people who use these services. Most of the time the use of the services comes at the classroom level.
Tim: our problem ultimately is that we want to include student outcomes. I wouldn't be here if I didn't think that Internet2 was a solution to solve that.
Marcia: Building 50 different video depositories in 50 diff states. We need to collect that information and create a tool kit on creating a depository - it would be an enormous contribution.
Randy: what's our biggest challenge? -- In terms of collaboration across the community. Finding the people to collaborate with - MUSE is the tool that is a great start to answer that challenge. What learning objects and media objects that can help focus that collaboration activity. And so......I'm listening to the group and hearing a two step approach to finding the challenge: developing a way for the network to do this kind of collaboration and the other is to find a way to purposely share the objects, files and federated access to these resources.
Is this what I'm hearing?
Comment: My challenge is collaboration across K-12, Community Colleges, and research universities. Teachers are in K-12, connection with industry is a good example of tools/resource in the community, and I have a specific challenge to access those unique but complimentary resources to move to the next level. I'm going in that direction whether they are going in this direction or not.
Judy: We're all seeking to know who has the answer to our question. We wouldn't be here if we weren't trying to network. Validation in the collaboration standpoint. In terms of learning objects - I did a search for the library of congress - there is only one site MERLO that does learning objects for higher ed. Those are just text based - if you think of electron microscopes, sensors along the faults in the ocean, and all sorts of things that Internet2 can do that you can't do elsewhere. I know for the higher ed folks there's nothing out there. There are people collecting different learning objects for K-12 - there's an opportunity not to duplicate efforts that are going on around the world. But to concentrate on the efforts of what this group is capable of offering.
Ed: I like what Judy is saying but NASA released hundreds of photos for the first time in space -- NOAA has the same. Something that we could do is take that information and create a play list for use in K-12.
Randy: to the extent that we can have out project activity focus on bridging making that set of learning objects and collaboration utilities address the continuum of the entire educational system, it's more in keeping with the mission of this organization. And more in keeping with answering that gap that we have been identifying --- the bureaucracy of K-12 and higher education. To the extent that we can address that lifelong learning initiative, -- we should continue.
We should create a working group and I hope I can count on a handful of folks that would join and give feedback on this.
Before we break up, I would like this group to bring to the discussion at the strategic planning session - make mention of that. It's 2:00 to 3:00 in Salon E, F, G 3:15 to 4:15 in F, G and again at 4:30 to 5:30. Step in on one of those sessions and bring some of the insights into that conversation.
Louis: great meeting and I like the idea
Underscore on the summer meeting - -last year we had 20-25 people that came together and thought about the structure of it. A fruitful meeting and it would be helpful to have a couple of meetings like that. Sent an email out, current executive directpr of on-line learning - have a meeting in Phoenix in the fall - WETC??? Another group that gets together. Is there some inter-session between that group and this one. If enough of us end up at that meeting, we might get together for a short meeting.
Good things for the strategic planning committee to hear. Do make sure you make it into that process.
Next phone call: Advisory Council on May 7th 2:00 eastern time. Will send out an email blast to cover it.