Present:
Fernando Armstrong-Fumero,
Mary Ellen Birkett, John Brady, Eric Brewer, John Davis, Gary Felder, Jamie
Hubbard, Thomas Laughner, Eric Loehr, Herb Nickles, and Roisin O’Sullivan
Absent: Tarja
DeSoysa
Introductions
and Welcome – Herb Nickles
Herb welcomed the committee members back
for a new year and everyone introduced themselves. New to the committee this year are Fernando
Armstrong-Fumero, John Brady, Gary Felder, Jamie Hubbard, and Roisin O’Sullivan.
History
of CET and review of the CET charge – Herb Nickles
The committee was given copies of the CET
charge which can also be found at https://www.smith.edu/deanoffaculty/code/code32.html
and Herb gave a brief history of the committee’s formation, its duties, and
explained the budget. He noted that the
chair of CET also sits on the ITCC meetings and reports to/from CET to the
ITCC.
Election
of CET Chair
Mary Ellen Birkett nominated Jamie Hubbard
to chair the CET; he accepted the nomination and with no other members being
nominated the committee voted unanimously to elect Jamie as this year’s chair.
Review
of guidelines for CET technology grants – Tom Laughner
Tom Laughner reviewed the grant initiative
process and guidelines with the committee; the committee still feels that the
section which discusses software upgrades needs further consideration. He explained that John Davis can provide
information regarding departmental equipment budgets and also can provide
insight into other available funding sources.
Grant
initiative requests
1)
Laura
Katz: Laura has requested funding for 2 Macs and 1 wireless hub for an informal
learning space in
2)
Michael
Barresi: Michael has requested funding for recording equipment and software
licensing for the ECHO 360 which will make it possible to record voice and
on-screen computer drawings for student review outside of the classroom. Tom said that students can access these files
via Moodle, iTunes, iPod. The committee
felt that this was a very interesting initiative and approved funding $5,790.00
for the hardware and $4,995.00 for the software. The software costs would be paid on a
one-time only basis; any renewals will have to be funded by the department.
3)
James
Drisko: James has requested funding to upgrade his Dell monitor to a 16 x 9
format widescreen LCD. John Davis said
that this does not meet the criteria for a CET initiative request and the
committee agreed. The request was
denied.
4)
Randy
Frost: Randy has requested funding for AMOS software to do structural equation
modeling in his Psychology classes. The
cost for 7 licenses and maintenance contracts is $5,096.00. The committee asked Tom Laughner to research
the possibility and costs of a site license and report back to them prior to a
decision being made on this request.
Request placed on hold.
5)
Giovanna
Bellesia: Giovanna has requested funding
to purchase 1 copy each of Inspiration and Dragon software to be used in class
preparation and teaching of 7 sections of elementary and intermediate
Italian. The cost of the software is
$195.00 and the committee approved this request.
6)
Chris
Gole: Chris has requested funding to
purchase 3 Parallel computing add-ons to our existing Mathematica site
license. The committee agreed that this
should be a departmental expense and denied the request.
Demonstration of SnapStream –
Tom Laughner
Tom began a demonstration of SnapStream, an appliance that turns your PC into and DVR allowing you to capture programming from cable TV stations and download the recordings onto a PC. Because it was 4:30 PM the demonstration had to be cut short and the committee was encouraged to get in touch with Jeff Heath at the Center for Media Production if they wanted to set up an account and begin using SnapStream.
The next meeting will be October 21st in Stoddard Hall G4 conference room.
Respectfully submitted,
Constance McGinn, recorder