Tech+Update+from+Concord

Jan 14, 2010 This is a brief report of progress at The Concord Consortium over the last month. Although Lincoln and Johnston do not seem to be experiencing delays, if these schools wanted to they could "subscribe" to the installer as well. Contact Ken. As we begin to prepare for Cohort Two schools, we need to inform their IT folks about the possible need to install the RITES software. Full information about how to test whether the installation is needed and instructions for how to do it can be found at [] The problem is that our universal probe software that is used in RITES was designed some time ago for a different project. It was quite an effort, but we managed to get seven lines of probes made by five different vendors to work interchangeably with our software. No other software can accommodate comparable sensors from any vendor. Since we created this software, PASCO has come out with several wonderful new lines of probes, but only recently released drivers for some of them. At this time, there is Mac and Windows support for the new PasPort USBLinks (2100A) and the PowerLink. There is Windows-only support for the SPARK and Xplorer GLX. The SW500 is a problem, since PASCO has upgraded this to work with a USB converter but our software uses serial ports only. We cannot support this until PASCO provides a software driver—we recommend purchasing a USBLink instead. You can see the full breakdown and latest information in the accompanying PDF or at [] We made all these available to RITES last year and then “hid” them, because it was too difficult to find the gems amid the junk. We are planning to make these available to the working groups so they can save time by using these activities in their RITES Investigations (or simply promote the best as RITES investigations). We will provide search functions and some form of rating or comments to simplify access. We have not set a deadline for this yet, but it will be our next software task after finishing reporting, so count on it in March.
 * Speeding up with “installs” ** . Scituate, Coventry and Cranston schools were having unacceptably long times to load RITES software because of low-bandwidths and required student log-ins. We have now fixed this in Scituate and Coventry (and Cranston next week) by permanently installing the RITES software on the computers where applications are saved, so they need to be installed only once. Ken has checked each school on-site and had great cooperation of the IT school leaders who need to install this software on all computers that RITES teachers may use. The installation can be done by downloading the software from our servers or by using a USB memory stick.
 * PASCO Probes. ** Some RITES schools cannot use their PASCO probes with the RITES software. We are working on this, but progress is slowed for a number of reasons, not the least of which is that we have no budget for this work. There is one other active project at CC that has similar needs, so we are sharing some of the costs.
 * Serving: ** We are now providing all the server functions for RITES, and are prepared to continue doing so for this academic year. When teachers and students sign on and use the RITES software, they are using servers at the Concord Consortium. This is not a long-term solution and was not in the original plan. As an R&D organization, we have not planned our server support operation to be as reliable as service outfits must. Our IT staff is on-site only during working hours, although they can fix most problems remotely. We also have redundant, fail-safe equipment for most functions, so we can expect good coverage as use grows during the coming semester.
 * Coming soon: reporting. ** Right now, teachers do not get an electronic report on student progress as they work through RITES activities. As students use RITES, all kinds of data are generated and archived that could be used for reports (and research), but we do not yet have a teacher report. We plan to have reporting fully functional by Feb 18 and to be sufficiently far along to describe it to the curriculum working groups at the kickoff on Feb 11.
 * Coming soon: ITSI activities. ** RITES is built on our ITSI project which generated hundreds of short activities using probes and models. Our staff made almost 100 excellent activities and then invited teachers to create their own versions. This resulted in hundreds more, some of which are even better, but many of which are trivially different, with “sand boxes” and abortive attempts mixed in.
 * Support. ** Check out the CC RITES page at [] Teachers and tech directors should go there first if they have questions or encounter problems. That page links to a FAQ page that answers many of the questions that we have heard: “Where is my summer work?” “How do I get started?” and “What Investigations are available?” This is being continually updated. If you have questions that you anticipate teachers might ask, or you have heard asked, send them to Ken and he’ll post answers. This work should make it far easier to support subsequent cohorts.
 * Curricula. ** Our curriculum experts have gone through all the investigations to insure that there are assessment questions for use in the research and evaluation effort. We are also fixing bugs as we find them.