    Notes from 2/27/98 Crosstalk meeting
    ------------------------------------

    The topic was New Models of Student Computing, and how they might
    affect the environment for teaching and learning.

    The discussion focussed around the questions:

    - WHAT do you do now with regard to use of computing in your
    classes?  What parts of the current environment do you use?  What
    could be different?

    - WHAT would you like to do in the ideal world?  What is already
    there?  What needs to be added to the current environment?

    Where the word "WHAT" in the previous sentence = both CONTENT
    (e.g. hardware, software applications) and PROCESS (e.g.
    communication, connectivity, ubiquity, etc)

    Vijay started by pointing out that the Environment is defined by:

    	- Functionality provided (software, communications, support, ...)
    	- Location of the machines (e.g. dorms, clusters, ...)
    	- Type of machines (e.g. Intel, Mac, UNIX, ...)

    and also by Ownership:

    	- Centrally owned
    	- Departmentally owned
    	- Student owned

    Opinions about the current environment and possible changes to that
    environmentthat were expressed during the discussion included the
    following.  Opinions varied, but the general consensus was that we
    need to increase the heterogeniety of the environment while
    maintaining its stability, robustness, and support.

    - Faculty need help in producing Web-based materials for teaching.
    Faculty should be focussing on content and pedagogy, not production.
    There needs to be a support structure on the department level, but
    also going beyond that.

    - A centralized system leads to a more uniform interface, which is
    better for students.  This can also lead to cross-fertilization
    between departments.

    - What's good about the current environment is projection in the
    classroom, network connectivity in the classrooms, and electronic
    classrooms.  What's lacking is the ability to get at stuff from home.
    Need to support MediaOne as well a Tether, DHCP, etc.  We need to work
    on getting student licneses via MediaOne to software they use at
    school.

    - We should shift expenditures away from a large public computing
    environment toward student ownership and specialized clusters for
    things such as visualization.  We should be looking at PC software as
    our base, and Project Pismere is a good step in that direction.

    - The current cost of maintaining PC's in a lab setting is very labor
    intensive.  The PC is not robust enough.  Athena boxes take care of
    themselves and we're very happy with them.

    - The value side of NT is the options it gives for software applications.

    - The PC is more maintainable in a private ownership/single user model

    - We can't expect every student to license $1000 worth of software for
    their PC.  The big question is "how do we provide affordable, reliable
    software in a distributed model with self-ownership."

    - We'll never have a "one size fits all" model.  We need the mix of
    back end heavy duty machines, a mix of public machines (both high end
    and read-your-mail use), and student owned machines.

    - What's needed is something that preserves the benefits of  Athena:
    	- Stability
    	- Infrastructure
    	- Software licensing and support

    - The big question is "How do we provide an increased level of
    heterogeneity without sacrificing the consistent, reliable service
    that we currently provide?".

    - The price that was paid by Athena is that MIT went one way and the
    rest of the world went another (e.g. no Microsoft Word on Athena).  We
    need a front-end suite of tools that are world standards.

    - Laptop ownership will increase as the cost goes down.  There is now
    a laptop that sells for less than $2000.

    - We need network drops in all sorts of informal places, as well as in
    the Libraries.  The socialization aspect is important to having
    computing more integrated into the student environment.  People in the
    Rotch Library already ask for group study spaces with network drops.

    - The fact that MIT is in an urban environment is an impediment to
    laptops because of physical security aspects.  (What happens if it
    gets known that MIT students carry laptops across the Mass Ave bridge
    at night?)

    - We need to continue to have our infrastructure (e.g. central
    servers, central filespace), and broaden the multimedia
    representational aids.

    - The Foreign Language faculty have been developing materials that are
    currently delivered in the Language Lab.  They need to be accessible
    across campus and beyond the physical campus.  To do this, we need
    high speed access so that we can deliver digital video over the
    network.  Students need to be able to use these materials and
    collaborate wherever they are, not just in the Language Lab.
    Developers also need to collaborate for production and development of
    these materials.

    - Faculty need to know what are IS's plans as far as timing re high
    speed network access for things such as digital video.

    - Servers need to play more of a role than just storing the data,
    doing some amount of computation and letting the user bring over just
    what he needs to display.

    - Do we have or need a program to teach students computationsal
    skills?  Answer - our students do OK with computational skills.  What
    they need is more within the information skills arena.