Hello, and welcome to the partial list of project pages for the UIUC engagement with the Lincoln’s Challenge Academy in Rantoul, IL.  For their official website, please visit http://www.ngycp.org/site/state/il/

Response

Hi everyone,

I emailed Art yesterday asking him for an update and here is his response from today (and my original email). I tried to forward it but the UIUC email has been acting wonky all day, so I had to cut and paste it instead.

Classification:  UNCLASSIFIED

Caveats: NONE

Hello,

I had a really nice Thanksgiving in Maryland with family and friends and enjoyed temperatures in the 70′s in Virginia for a few days. There’s nothing like time off when you need it! The lab is coming along and there were minor issues that we are taking care of. It turns out that some of the hubs were connected together with straight cable connectors instead of cross over configuration in the way the tip was put together. That was something “I” should have caught earlier but I was too overjoyed at seeing it physically completed by your team. We will merely replace the tips with crossover ones.

Computer number 59 fizzled out on us but that is the only hardware failure. 1 out of 60 is pretty good. The kids will be coming in to use the lab later this week. I am connecting Mediacom Internet service to the hubs today and preparing the printer for lab network use.

Nice to here from you. Keep up the good work and I will get you an update next week and possibly some pictures of the kids working on the computers.

BTW, I did remember to remove the blue garbage can!

Art Hughes

Lincoln’s Challenge Academy

Hi Art,

Computer Lab

Hi Art, It’s XXXXXXX from the UIUC networking class. I was curious about how everything was going in terms of software setup (hopefully well)….? And I also wanted to get a brief description of the role the three programs play in the cadets education/graduation, etc.  I know we discussed this many times, but I’m doing a final writeup for class and wanted to make sure I had all the details correct. If you could help me out with that, I’d be very appreciative.  So, any info on the ReadOn, Meeting the Challenge, and GED 21st century programs and their role would be great!

Have a wonderful holiday.

Response

Hello,

The software setups for the legacy programs are still an issue, but I managed to find a way for the critical ones to work on individual  computers . . .correctly. Thankfully, all of you helped us out tremendously with the hardware difficulties.

Meeting the Challenge – This program is designed to help with objectives set at the initial enrollment phase and are required to be completed in their entirety BEFORE graduation or the cadet does not successfully graduate the program.

GED 21st Century – used to aid and develop testing skills and increase the overall body of knowledge that is expected of a high school graduate or above. The success of this skill building program enables most of the cadets to pass critical sections of the GED test cycle.

The program Read On enables the students to develop and sustain skills for reading, comprehension and vocabulary. Some cadets have jumped 3 and 4 grade levels in reading test scores after using this software.

I also sent a FAQ which outlines a few more aspects of the program.

Hopefully this helps you out some. Take care.

Art Hughes

Lincoln’s Challenge Academy

Group communication occurred face-to-face, via Moodle, by telephone, and through a daily log.  All on-site tasks were recorded in the Lincoln’s Challenge Log allowing our team to work in shifts.  Each shift was then able to efficiently relay messages from the site supervisors as well as resume work where the previous shift left off.
Communication with the site was mainly handled in person after the initial site scheduling was arranged via email.  Throughout the project at least one Lincoln’s Challenge supervisor was available on-site seven days a week.  All questions and concerns regarding the project were addressed verbally as the project progressed.  Since completing our task, email has been exchanged in an effort to check on the status of on-going software issues.  All email communication with the site can be viewed below.

Hey guys,

Response

Hi Art,

Here’s a schedule of the times during the week that we are available to come over to Lincoln’s Challenge.

Response

Thanks.

This schedule is fine. Most of the work will take place when the images  are ghosting.

Choose 5 machines as prototypes. These will be the first tested on the network and should be clearly identified as such.

The work Thursday and Friday will consist of removing all hard disks from the machines and tagging them to their original location.

Obtaining electrical surge protection strips from Grissom Hall storage room.

Making sure all machines can power up and their fans are running.

I will try to get a labeling machine for your group ASAP.

Again . . . thanks!!

Art Hughes

Lincoln’s Challenge Academy

Also, Martin (Wolske) will be joining us occasionally, so if you could have an identification card made for him as well, that would be great. Sorry for the delay in sending this to you. We just returned from East St. Louis, where we spent a lot of time discussing how we plan on approaching this project. We have typed up a detailed agenda that we plan on sending to you and Mr. Hughes shortly. Several of us are also planning on coming out Tuesday morning (from 8:30 to 11:30), so if you are free and would like to talk to us about any more details in person, Tuesday would be a good time to do that. If that doesn’t work, we should all be there on Friday afternoon, probably sometime around 1 pm.

To see how the LIS 451 class became involvied with Lincoln’s Challenge please see this September 24 document of correspondence between Martin Wolske and Lincoln’s Challenge.