Brooklyn College, funded by a grant from the Department of Commerce’s Telecommunications and Information Infrastructure Assistance Program (TIIAP, now known as the Technology Opportunities Program) http://www.ntia.doc.gov and in partnership with four Brooklyn high schools, The City University of New York, and the College Board, has created a unique secondary school learning environment and experience that we call the Learning Café. In this setting, students (particularly those who might be considered at-risk) learn to use the new technologies, explore career options, and get a head start on their college careers.

We use the term Learning Café in an intellectual sense: these Internet-connected facilities are cafés whose menus offer information and academic resources, rather than cappuccino and croissants. And, since technology needs both structure and content the Learning Café combines electronic resources and tools in a program designed to energize and stimulate students about both secondary and higher education.

Brooklyn College assisted each of our high school partners in building its own Learning Café equipped with 34 PC workstations, a server, and T-1 Internet access. We also assembled a quality instructional team comprised of faculty, library, and technical staff, including multimedia designers. As part of developing this dynamic learning environment we have built the following software.

1. Control of the PC desktop. The browser starts when the system boots; it then controls the display on the monitor. Teachers will know how to quit the program, but students will not. This enables the school to protect its systems from abuse or tampering (deleting files or installing extraneous software, for example).

The browser displays Web content as HTML pages without the aid of the Netscape or Explorer interface. The only links available to students are those on the pages themselves, or set in the custom browser. This prevents undirected browsing and the display of material that is not course-related.

The browser also calls up a password-protected screensaver after a specified period of inactivity, reserving the machine for café students only. (This is an optional feature.). This operation also refreshes the display, closing all open windows and returning to a log-in screen.

2. Secure File Input/Output. In order to evaluate the effectiveness of the Learning Café software, instructors will find it useful to collect student data, record test scores, track student progress, and set user preferences (such as bookmarks). However, due to the limitations and security concerns presented by Java and JavaScript technologies, the Learning Café uses Filemaker Pro–a robust, flexible, and secure system for data collection and management.

3. Redundancy. The Café Browser tests for an Internet connection, then checks the connection to the fileserver, then looks for local disks when accessing files.

4. Student Friendliness. The Learning Café custom interface is simpler to use than commercial browsers, in part because it has more directed (and fewer) functions. URLs are accessed by icons, menus, or hyperlinks, rather than by typing them in, and there are no MSN channel options. The interface also provides a set of cross-curricular tools, such as a calculator and a notepad, to assist the students with their lessons. The application also offers help files and tutorials.

5. Administrative Interface. This password-protected interface allows teachers to display quickly student information, such as session time, quiz scores, and lesson history. Teachers can also post messages, review assignments, and grade them. The administrative interface also enables the teacher to change the lesson by typing in new URLs or filenames.

6. Flexibility. The Café browser opens a variety of file types and applications (unlike commercial browsers) and will automatically search for files both on the network and locally. The browser is a hybrid technology, based in equal parts on disk and Internet technologies. This allows for some content to be delivered from a fileserver or from a CD, from which it will deploy considerably faster.

7. Platform Choice. The Browser is configured to deliver the Learning Café curriculum on Windows machines. It has all the requisite files and applications to run stand-alone from the install CD.

The Learning Café database serves two purposes.

1. It stores organizational and transient data for the online courses, including pointers to lesson Web pages and questions for online quizzes.

2. The database also tracks student usage and performance by recording information such as which lesson a student is currently working on, and what grades he or she received on the online quizzes.

Taken as a whole, this database allows the dynamic creation of informative, individualized content and customized quizzes for the students. It also supports automatic grading of multiple-choice quizzes, facilitates the evaluation of individual students and the local Learning Café project, and simplifies the process of adding new quizzes, lessons, and courses to the Learning Café environment.

Brooklyn College has developed two fully self-paced online courses for high school juniors1 which are delivered through the Learning Café browser. High school teachers deliver the courses and grade all assignments and tests.

The sequence of virtual study offered in the Learning Café begins with a course for 11th graders in information literacy. This course teaches the process of gathering, using, and evaluating information; it also teaches students about computers. The information literacy skills students develop as a result of completing this course will help them to navigate any subsequent course more effectively, whether it is offered in an electronic or a traditional learning setting.

The Information Literacy lessons include:

Juniors may then progress from the information literacy course to an online course in writing and critical thinking. This course engages them in building a better grammatical foundation for their writing while expanding their critical thinking and reading skills, familiarizing them with writings by various authors.

The writing and critical thinking lesson topics include:

The content for both courses is richly illustrated with illustrations and animations. It provides numerous online exercises that help reinforce the principles that students are learning. Student understanding for both of these courses is tested primarily through online quizzes, which the students must take in order to progress to the next lesson. Although these consist primarily of multiple-choice questions, most quizzes also have short answer questions that are graded by a high school teacher. Students in these courses also take proctored in-Café midterm and final exams.

The Learning Café Curriculum: The Senior Year

                              First-semester high school seniors explore college choices, then submit college and financial aid applications using the College Board’s ExPan College application software. For purchase and additional information on ExPan, click here:  http://www.collegeboard.org/expan/html/indx000.html

Students may also learn to build their own Web pages as part of this college application process. Upper seniors who completed the Learning Café program were eligible to enroll in Brooklyn College’s Internet-delivered college credit courses. For further information about enrolling students in Brooklyn College’s Web-based courses, contact Professor Miriam Deutch miriamd@brooklyn.cuny.edu

A Learning Café should be outfitted with enough fully-networked Internet-accessible PCs to accommodate a typical high school class.

Server–Minimum requirements necessary for version 1 of software but not required for version 2:

133 Megahertz (MHz) Pentium–compatible Central Processing Unit (CPU)

128 Megabytes (MB) Random Access Memory (RAM)

2 Gigabytes (GB) Hard Drive with 650 MB of free space available

CD ROM or DVD-ROM drive

Windows NT version 4/2000

Static IP address

If you are using Filemaker Pro, it should be at least version 4.

Microsoft TCP/IP or IPX/SPX (for FileMaker Network Sharing)

Workstation–Minimum requirements:

133 MHz Pentium–compatible CPU

64 MB RAM

200 MB free space available on hard drive

CD ROM or DVD-ROM drive

24-bit color monitor, at 800x600 resolution

16-bit sound card

2-button Microsoft Mouse or compatible pointing device

Windows 95/98/2000

connection to Local Area Network (LAN) and Internet

There are 2 versions of the Learning Café software available. Both versions include the Learning Café browser.

Version 1. If you have FileMaker Pro and are capable of maintaining it, Brooklyn College will supply you the Learning Café software, including the browser, on a CD and the URL’s. You can load it onto your server, where the software will interact with FileMaker Pro. Students will be able to take their quizzes online and these will be automatically graded. You will be able to access information about what lessons students are presently working on, the number of times a student accessed the lesson, number of times each student had to take the quiz to pass, and the amount of time the student spent on each lesson. You can also track Café usage and register new students. Student information may be organized by class and section. Mid-term and final exams will be supplied along with the software.

If you do not own FileMaker Pro and would like to purchase it, click here for more information: http://www.filemaker.com/

Version 2. We will give you the URLs as well as the CDs that contain the Information Literacy and Critical Thinking and Writing courses. You can either access the courses via the World Wide Web or locally on the CD. The quizzes, midterm and final exams will be provided to you in paper copy. You will administer the quizzes in print rather than online.

The curriculum comes with technical support literature. Technical support via telephone, mail, or in-person is not available. The system, however, has been fully debugged.

Version 1 is a $1,500.00 one time fee 

Version 2 is a $1000.00 one time fee.

Contact Information

For further information and to purchase contact:

Professor Miriam Deutch

Brooklyn College Library

voice: 718-951-5221

Email: Miriamd@brooklyn.cuny.edu