Hello, and welcome to the partial list of project pages for the UIUC engagement with Morning Star Missionary Baptist Church in East St. Louis, IL. For their official websites, please visit http://www.facebook.com/pages/Morning-Star-Missionary-Baptist-Church/141594249196506 and http://www.msmbcestl.org
Dear Pastor Kaitroy,
We should be arriving around 12 on Friday to set up the computers. We’ll be arriving around 9 on Saturday and will probably need around half an hour for final setup. We can stick around for testing basically as long as is needed. We would like to meet with you for a bit at the end (Martin’s offered to supply Pirtles for said meeting) to reflect on the weekend and talk about the plan of action from there.
A couple more questions for you: what peripherals (mice, keyboards, speakers, etc.) will you have there, and what should we definitely find before we come next week? Also, what age groups do you expect to have for testing? We have a fun software package set up, including Bible software, educational materials, and educational games, as well as the requisite web browsers and office suites; but we would like to target the software as much as possible to the testers.
Response
In regards to the ages of the testers, expect from 10 to 60. I have enough mice, keyboards, and speakers for at least 8 computers. Looking for to seeing all of “Team Linux” next week.
Pastor Kaitroy
Pastor Kaitroy,
Our team’s been hard at work these past couple weeks getting these computers ready, and we can’t wait to try them out at Morningstar! Two questions: how many people do you think will be around on the 15th to test out the different Linux versions, and what sorts of programs do you think they would like to try out – music, word processing, web browsing, multimedia editing, educational, games, etc.?
Response
Everyone here at Morningstar is excited as well about this project. I expect to have five members from the congregation to help with the testing of the new computers. The main programs of interest would be educational, web browsers, word processing, multimedia (video editing, sound recording, etc), as well as educational gaming programs.
Again, we are all excited and look forward to working with you all next weekend.
Sincerely,
Pastor Kaitroy Hubbard
Dear Pastor Kaitroy,
Greetings from Martin Wolske’s LIS451 class! We’re the five students who will be working with you to set up Morningstar’s computer lab.
We’re sorry to have missed meeting you and seeing the church during the last ESLARP trip, but hopefully we will be able to get a lot done communicating with you via phone and email before the next trip on November 14 – 15. Our hope is that on the 14th we will be able to set up the computers for the lab and get a few different versions of Linux running on them so that your church and community members might try them out on the 15th and see what version they find works best for their needs. We will then install the Linux terminal server and the rest of the software for the lab when we return during the final trip in December.
If you have any thoughts, questions, or concerns as we head into this project, please let us know. For your convenience, we have attached our email addresses at the bottom of this letter. It would be helpful for us if you could give a sense of what the user community is like at Morningstar and what they will likely be using the computers for, as well as a description and/or pictures of the physical space where the lab will finally be located. We would also love to know more about Morningstar Baptist Church – its history, mission, congregation, and vision, particularly for the computer lab.
We look forward to working with you on this project!
Response
Hello, and thank you all for your interest in working with Morning Star on this much needed and much appreciated project! I look forward to meeting with you on November 14th and 15th in setting up the systems and getting the users input. I will be forwarding you the requested information soon so be on the look out for it. Again, thank you all for your continued support.
Pastor Kaitroy Hubbard
3/16/o6: Sent MSMBC first email confirming objectives for computer lab. Received response from Kaitroy Hubbard approving of the plan.
3/24/06: Received email from Pastor Hubbard asking 3 questions about their current computer lab. Responded on one of the questions, forwarded other two to Martin for answer.
3/29/06: Emailed questions to Pastor Hubbard about the layout of the computer room to determine the number of switches we needed, the number of other computers in the church that we would need to network, and to confirm that one of the computers we brought would be designated as a server. Aside from the confirmation that one computer would be a server, the rest of our email was never directly answered.
3/31/06: Responded to Pastor Hubbard about the tech classes and the computer giveaway; waiting to hear back from him about the layout of the computers ALREADY IN the church that they would like to network
4/3/06: Discussed the tech classes with Paul Adams over email, he planned to communicate with MSMBC’s staff about the next opportunity to participate.
4/6/06: Received email from Pastor Hubbard with his confirmation of a server and requesting a tentative date on which we would be bringing the computers and setting them up.
4/11/06: Replied to his email with a run-down of our schedule for the final visit and lab implementation. Received an email the next day confirming.
5/8/06: Received a phone call from Pastor Hubbard regarding the date of return for the computers we brought back to Champaign with us to fix. Talked with team and emailed Vicki Eddings to confirm that she would be able to bring them back to East St. Louis on her next trip (5/22/06).
5/9/06: Received an email from Vicki – she will bring the computers back with her. Completed installations on the computers – they are ready to go. Called Pastor Hubbard to inform him of the return date. Replied to Vicki’s email confirming that the computers are done and waiting at Prairienet.