Date: Sat, 24 Feb 1996 12:03:00 -0500 To: John.Moore@vt.edu From: fox@vt.edu (Edward A. Fox) Subject: idea for CS FDI, CAC, ... Cc: carroll@vtopus.cs.vt.edu, abrams@vtopus.cs.vt.edu, janlee@vtopus.cs.vt.edu, williams@vt.edu, Tom.Head@vt.edu, kriz@wave.esm.vt.edu, ribbens@vtopus.cs.vt.edu John, I have an unorthodox idea. If it is crazy, just say so. But I thought it might be worth mentioning. This summer a number of CS faculty will participate in FDI. I just read over the survey form that is designed to help pinpoint what we would like to have covered. Frankly, not much on the list seems to be in the (large) set of things I am not reasonably knowledgeable about. This makes me feel uncomfortable regarding participating, wasting resources, etc. At the same time, there has been a moderate amount of discussion in conjunction with the Computing and Communication Resources Committee, and inside CS, where we have advocated having CCRC and CS work with your group and CEUT on a "Computing Across the Curriculum" (CAC) initiative (modeled after the Writing Across the Curriculum effort). I think it would be of great value for Virginia Tech to have a CAC initiative. JAN Lee in CS is willing to play a lead role in this. Jack Carroll has indicated that CS would be interested in this too. One problem is getting started. Part of that deals with having funding. I spoke with Terry Wildman informally once and he was interested in further discussion, indicating CEUT might be able to help. But more time and resources will be needed. I think a proposal to some outside group (Annenburg? SCHEV? NSF?) might eventually help with this. But it would be better to have some initial progress toward the idea before submitting a proposal. Given all the above, please consider the following idea: * Some of the CS people slated for FDI spend our 4 days in a different fashion from normal. This could still count as FDI if that is desired. However, we carry out our training in a different manner. This would likely be in a different place (maybe the new Sun lab that will soon go into McBryde?). * In particular, our 4 days becomes the first CAC meeting. The CS folks mentioned above would coordinate development of the agenda with your group, as usual, but also with CEUT. We spend our time launching the CAC initiative. This might involve adding in another 10-15 people who are leaders regarding the use of computing and educational technologies in departments around campus. It could be viewed as an advanced FDI session if you like. We might talk about how to share courseware around campus, how to develop the "minor in graphics" that Ron Kriz is suggesting (and maybe learn some about advanced visualization, Java programming, ...), figure how departments can collaborate to ensure "information literacy" as well as computer literacy in all Virginia Tech undergraduates, etc. I believe this is enough to convey the general idea. If you think it merits pursuing, please advise. If not, please just say so and I'll look into accomplishing the aims of CAC in a different fashion. Many thanks for your time and attention. Regards, Ed Edward A. Fox, fox@vt.edu, http://fox.cs.vt.edu/ Professor, Dept. of Computer Science +1-540-231-5113, FAX -6075 660 McBryde Hall, Virginia Tech, Blacksburg, VA 24061-0106 USA Associate Director for Research, Computing Center +1-540-231-3046, FAX -7413 1700 Pratt Drive, Virginia Tech, Blacksburg, VA 24060-6361 USA