CyberU Rockfort to Renovate Community Training Center

Training in skyBuilders tools (a well as basic computer training in typical office skills) will soon be available at CyberU's community training center at Rockfort.

David Pearson of Shawmut Education in Boston, Mass., a leading test site for skyBuilders.com, is coming to Jamaica on 12 December to modernize 10 to 15 of the computers at Rockfort. With the help of Shereece Williams (and any other volunteers), he will install in each machine:

• 64MB additional RAM (to 80MB total)
• Network Interface Cards (NICs)
• Ethernet Cables
• Networking Hubs to form a LAN
• Modern Browsers
• Internet Explorer 6
• Mozilla 1.2
• Two machines will be equipped with wireless PCI NIC cards
• connecting to a wireless hub as a demonstration (with DHCP) of the new WiFi connectivity.

David will also bring a skyBuilders skyServer (mini-tower) which will:

• serve web pages and multiple virtual web sites
• have pages quickly accessible over the LAN for teaching
• (with an Internet connection, sites will be visible anywhere)
• have an LCD projector as monitor, so the whole room can see the main operating interface, although it also can be administered over the web
• Modern Browsers
  • Internet Explorer 6
  • Mozilla 1.2
• have Terminal Services to allow maintenance from the US
• provide a file server environment for shared files (images and other media)

Educational/Technical Objectives:

• Teach web page and web site creation, with new browser-based tools from skyBuilders
• Teach word processing, presentations, and spreadsheets, with low-cost browser-based tools
• Build a support community for users web pages (skySupport)
• Teach how to create multiple web sites (web server administration)
• Teach web business tools like e-commerce, online catalogs and shopping
• Teach Events Calendars and Resource Management over the web
• Teach how to make Forms for Surveys, Polls, Questionnaires, Quizzes, online training (e-Learning)
• Teach how images, sounds, animations, and movies can be added to web pages
• Stream media at rates unachievable on the Internet for years
• Demonstrate an intranet teaching environment
• Demonstrate a miniature ASP (application service provider) environment running in a small room for training
• Prove the concept that this advanced technology is capable of jumping across the digital divide to teach the most advanced web tools in the most remote corners of Jamaica.
• Establish that the system is scalable enough to provide one web site per school and a few web pages for every student, so all can participate with these 21st-century communications tools.

Community Objectives:

• Reach out to other institutions that would like to teach in such an environment. Let them share this space.
• Exhibit the minimal costs needed to change a computer learning center (with isolated desktop computers) into a modern network to support information workers on the web.
• Provide a working demonstration to guide government planners in Information and Communication Technology.
• Allow schools considering such installations to visit, get trained, and actually run a pilot class (and build a web site) to prove that it will work for them.
• Current partners
  • Reverence for Life
  • Tech School Jamaica

 
David Pearson with the stacks of hubs and NIC cards, and the sky Server (on floor) Cards and hubs packed into the luggage (right).

 
Desmond's IBM laptop (left) and the Panasonic laptop.

Contact Desmond Green at jamgems@jol.com.jm

Contact Shereece Williams at sawilliamsnet@yahoo.com