Dr. Don Nix

Among the hands-on workshops offered at the conference were "Technology Serving Job Seekers, led by Emily Hacker, FEGS' Director of Learning Technologies; Technology Serving Beginning Readers," led by Don Nix, Ph.D., a veteran researcher at IBM and Gunizi Kartal of Teachers College at Columbia University; "Technology Serving Basic Education Students", led by Maura Donnelly and Sarah C. Kowal of the Adult Literacy Media Alliance; "Technology Serving Adults with Special Needs" led by Babette Moeller of the Center for Children and Technology and "Integrating the Internet Into ESOL Instruction" led by Jana Sladkova, Coordinator of Instructional Technology at the Literacy Assistance Center.
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The keynote address at the "Technology Serving Literacy" conference was delivered by Nix of IBM, who has decades of experience designing and putting into place cutting edge learning software in schools in low-income communities across America that has helped children achieve dramatic gains in reading competency. Nix is now developing similar literacy software for adults, which is already being used at the FEGS BEGIN Center and the six other agencies participating in the IBM Adult Literacy Initiative.

At PS 92, Dr. Don Nix, an educational specialist on loan from IBM, has been using multimedia tools to teach 2nd and 3rd graders.By combining video, graphics and text the students have designed several interactive multimedia presentations that are so impressive - some of the teachers and parents had to be convinced that it really was the students own work.

Telecommunications and video teleconferencing will allow us to bring training and educational resources more directly to the people.The Harlem Churches for Community Improvement is currently exploring plans for using computer networks and teaching methods as an extension of their educational and training programs.

The Schomberg Center for Research in Black Culture, one of the world's foremost research facilities devoted to the collection, preservation and interpretation of materials documenting black life, is actively involved in computerizing the library and exploring ways in which the library can use the I-way to work more closely with students and community residents.
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At PS 92, Dr. Don Nix, an educational specialist on loan from IBM, has been using multimedia tools to teach 2nd and 3rd graders.By combining video, graphics and text the students have designed several interactive multimedia presentations that are so impressive - some of the teachers and parents had to be convinced that it really was the students own work.

Telecommunications and video teleconferencing will allow us to bring training and educational resources more directly to the people.The Harlem Churches for Community Improvement is currently exploring plans for using computer networks and teaching methods as an extension of their educational and training programs.

The Schomberg Center for Research in Black Culture, one of the world's foremost research facilities devoted to the collection, preservation and interpretation of materials documenting black life, is actively involved in computerizing the library and exploring ways in which the library can use the I-way to work more closely with students and community residents.

Don Nix has worked for over two decades in system administration, currently for the Information Services Division of Southwestern Bell in St. Louis.He recently talked with UniNews and offered a unique, hands-on perspective on today's system administration and the importance of midrange systems in a massive environment.
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Don's career is a perfect example of this evolution from basic mainframe tending to high-level system administration in a client/sever environment.He began working with IBM 360 and 370 mainframe computers in 1974 at what was then part of AT&T.In a short time, he was promoted to weekend supervisor for the mainframes.

Don says that working with mainframe environments was especially valuable because it broadened his technical knowledge, particularly in the area of communications and networking."I worked in our network control center for the mainframes, so I was familiar with VTAM networks, IBM's Systems Network Architecture [SNA] and Token-Ring local-area networks," he says."A lot of sysadmins these days might have worked on maybe one UNIX machine, but they have no idea about communications.That knowledge is critical."

Early UNIX

Don was next promoted to full-time UNIX administrator, working on some of the early UNIX computers.In fact, he mentions that he had responsibility for the very first AT&T 3B20 processor running UNIX in a production telecom environment."I remember thinking that this was the fastest machine I had ever logged onto," he recalls.He also remembers that the computer was a far cry from today's integrated hardware."When you opened the back, you could see that almost everything was tied together.It actually had removable circuit cards."

The 3B-20 machine was chosen in part, Don says, because its UNIX platform permitted rapid development."The developers said that they could do it [with UNIX] real fast, and they did it, and everyone was amazed."Application development was especially important to a telecom company in the predivestiture days, Don says.
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As someone who has worked with both mainframes and midrange, client/server environments, Don is in a good position to compare the two technologies.He doesn't feel that mainframes are going away, simply because there are so many currently installed.At the same time, he doesn't feel that they are going to regain the importance they enjoyed in the past."I don't see growth in that area."

In contrast, the midrange world at Southwestern Bell is booming."Every two or three weeks, someone around here is talking about moving their applications from the mainframe to the client/server environment," says Don.At the same time, he admits that midrange systems can be a challenge to manage because they are based on open platforms."I find open systems so nonstructured," he says.
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For Don and his colleagues, the solution includes revamping the help desk functions so that certain people have responsibility for only certain areas.In the past, he says, sysadmins were assigned to one machine and were responsible for everything associated with it."Now you really have to specialize."His team also is looking into distributed system management tools, including alarm monitoring and possibly even distributed sysadmin functions."We need a platform that will allow a central help desk to do a lot of the repetitive tasks," he says.

Telecom Reform

As a long-time telephone company employee, Don has seen many changes in the industry, which have affected his career and the technology he maintains.When Don first signed on as an AT&T employee, he had the option of moving among a variety of divisions, such as Bell Labs, Western Electric or local telephone operating companies.After the divestiture of AT&T, he became an employee of the San Antonio-based SBC Communications, Inc.

In addition, the recent telecommunications reform bill is having a major impact on Don and his work.
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Don is happy that the "midrange open-systems client/server-everything kind of world" is finally getting due respect.As he puts it, everyone used to think: "What can that little box sitting over there actually do?"
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To deal with these unexpected arrivals on their doorstep, Don and his team now present a budget for system administration when other departments present their business case for new procurements.That way, sysadmin costs are built into the budget before implementation even begins.

"I think that's one of the most overlooked things in midrange systems today," Don says."Namely, what it costs to run them day to day."With the growing complexity and importance of midrange systems, companies will be taking careful notice of these systems and the employees like Don who keep them up and running.