
As with any first-time program, a number of lessons were learned.
- To increase enrollment, it may be necessary to promote the camp beyond
the WSHS feeder-school pyramid. To obtain the best pool of applicants, we
will target a wider variety of audiences. To some extent, the camp may be
self-promoting due to increased name recognition and the high visibility
of the Camp T-Equity Home Page.
- Promotion of the camp needs to start earlier (Camp T-Equity '95 was
promoted most heavily in March, April, and May 1995).
- Planning/preparation time is considerably greater than anticipated
(approximately one week per week of instruction). Two major factors
contributed to this problem:
- No common computing platform was available--Macs and PCs of all types
and configurations were pressed into service. Consequently, a great deal
of time was spent configuring hardware and software, loading applications,
etc.
- This is cutting-edge technology-based instruction--there is little if any
classroom-ready curricula available in the areas we covered. Curriculum
development/field testing takes time!
- Eight simultaneous Netscape sessions can "swamp" a 56 Kbits/s Internet
connection. Our short-term solution to this problem: divide the
participants into two groups concurrently working on different online and
offline activities. Our long-term solution: for next year, we plan to set
up a caching proxy server which will store frequently-referenced documents
(e.g., the current surface weather map) so that repeated accesses don't
require multiple network accesses.
- Need to develop more computer-based "offline" activities for those times
when Internet access is down (e.g., image processing, scientific
visualization, etc.).
- Need to make greater use of dial-up information resources such as the
WRC-TV 4-WINDS weather network, the Accu-Weather Accu-Data database, etc.
- Need to integrate more math-related activities.
- Need to find a provider for an Internet newsgroup feed.
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T-Equity Home Page]
Walter Sanford, wsanford@wsanford.com