Progress Report: Brown University Instructional Computing Laboratory

An instructional computing laboratory, consisting of about 60 high-performance, graphics-based personal workstations connected by a high-bandwidth, resource-sharing local area network, has recently become operational at Brown University. This hardware, coupled with an innovative courseware/software environment, is being used in the classroom in an attempt to radically improve the state of the art of computer science pedagogy. This paper describes the current state of the project. The hardware and courseware/software environments are described and their use illustrated with detailed descriptions, including sample screen images. Some comments are included on our initial reactions to our experience to date with the environment and on our future plans.