Network for Learning

Last week the VLN Community met with Marg McLeod, Acting Group Manager, Curriculum Teaching and Learning, and Eddie Reisch from the MOE to discuss the proposed Network for Learning.
‘The Network for Learning, available progressively from 2013, will provide schools with affordable, safe, ultra-fast internet access as well as a range of online content and centrally-procured services.’
It was great to see such a good turn out from the VLN Community, including many Principals from various clusters, to listen to Marg and be involved in discussion and consultation prior to the development of this initiative. As Marg discussed with us, here in NZ we have a more devolved approach to elearning developments compared to many other countries that push things through from the top down and the VLNC has an important role to play as early adopters. So now is the time to make sure you are involved in the consultation process, beginning at Learning@School and following up with regional seminars in 2012.
The following are some notes from Marg’s presentation":
UFB in Schools – Strategic Issues:

• Use of ICT in classroom teaching and learning
• Changing patterns of educational provision
• Formal and informal learning
• Supporting learning networks for professional practice
• Public engagement on education issues
• More informed parents, communities, and then general public

Expected Benefits:

• more equitable access to online learning opportunities
• more effective sharing of resources and knowledge
• reduced ICT complexity and cost
• increased operational efficiencies
• improved connection and collaboration between learners, teachers, school leaders and school communities.
• opportunity to move to more modern learning environments that support 21st Century education delivery
• lift in student achievement through greater engagement driven by innovative approaches to teaching and learning

Why UFB in Schools?:

• Online world now integral to students’ lives
• Increasing evidence that learning in online environments can significantly enhance engagement and lift achievement.
• Particularly effective for students who are underserved by traditional teaching methods
• Potential for increasing collaborative learning opportunities can particularly suit preferred learning styles of many Māori and Pasifika learners

What the MoE is Currently Doing:

• Providing information and support for schools pre, during and post UFB connection
• Supporting schools in upgrading internal network infrastructure to be ‘UFB-ready’ via SNUP
• Providing hardware and software
• Supporting schools in building e-Learning capability
• Establishing a Network for Learning to optimise the Government’s investment in UFB to improve outcomes for learners

KAREN & the NEN trial?:

• Ministry currently undertaking trial with 102 schools, using REANNZ’s KAREN network as backbone
• Trial investigating issues and opportunities for schools in accessing online content and services over a dedicated network
• Findings are informing planning for development and implementation of the Network for Learning
• KAREN’s role in the Network for Learning will be determined as part of procurement process

A N4L for NZ Schools:

• Progressively available to schools from 2013
• Intention is all schools will be able to join
• Not mandatory – therefore benefits need to be clear and compelling
• Network will be the channel for education content and service delivery
• Major implications for the way the Ministry and other agencies deliver content and services to schools

Light at the end of the Broadband tunnel?

This release from Minister Joyce's office today gives us hope that we are soon approaching the light at the end of the tunnel for a level internet playing field for all of our schools.

"the remaining 60 schools that are located in very remote places will have access to improved terrestrial or satellite wireless broadband services...Contracts for the remote schools are expected to be entered into progressively over the coming months so that these 60 remote schools have access to the improved services by the start of the 2012 school year"

Wahoo :-) our online classes will work for us so much more effectively from 2012 if all goes as promised...

Rural broadband: virtual teachers?

An interesting concept ‘virtual teachers’! A time for the VLN to come out into the light and show people there are Virtual Teachers & students & we have been here for some time…

http://www.stuff.co.nz/the-press/technology/3461382/Rural-broadband-virtual-teachers?

Have your say. Good to see some elearning students and eteachers commenting on this article :-)

“In the industrial age we went to school…
in the information age school comes to us”

C4 Student Connecting with Adobe

This is a crosspost from http://taranetc4.edublogs.org/ 

St Mary’s students led today’s C4 VC. They were running a Jeopardy Quiz game they had created for the other students using Adobe Connect to host the Quiz & provide the communication medium for other students to respond with their answers to the Quiz.

Challenges were the ability to see the chat box (with incoming answers) while we were sharing our desktop. We overcame this by using two computers to manage the game. One which the QuizMaster controlled the game with and the other to manage the communications (our team of ‘adjudicators’).
Bandwidth was also a huge problem and reduced the fairness for all because of the varied response time. Coastal was the worst affected so we tried to balance this by allowing Coastal to contribute their answers through VC & making the Quiz available on VC as well as Adobe Connect.
It was lots of fun & a great example of student driven learning – once i had help them set up on the technical side of things it was a ‘teacher free zone’ and they were away laughing (literally).

Fibre Rollout Announcement

Finally THE announcement we have been waiting for that will get the ball rolling!

http://www.med.govt.nz/templates/ContentTopicSummary____41902.aspx

http://www.med.govt.nz/templates/MultipageDocumentTOC____41865.aspx

“ Key highlights

Key highlights of the government’ proposal include:

• An open, competitive partner selection process.
• Government investment will be directed to an open access, passive fibre network infrastructure.
• A new Crown-owned investment company ('Crown Fibre Holdings') will be operational by October, which will carry out the government’s partner selection process and manage the government’s investment in fibre networks.
• Crown Fibre Holdings will establish with private sector partners a 'Local Fibre Company' (LFC) in each region, to deploy fibre network infrastructure and provide access to dark fibre products and, optionally, certain active wholesale Layer 2 services.
• The Government is open to national proposals and proposals aggregating any combination of LFC regions.
• Expansion from 25 to 33 candidate coverage areas based on the largest urban areas (by population in 2021).
• LFCs will be required from day one to be open networks facilitating access to their infrastructure on an equivalent basis to all users.
• LFCs cannot be controlled by any party who also operates as a telecommunications retailer.”

So for rural areas (all of our TaraNet schools) which are not represented in the candidate areas (Hawera & New Plymouth):

“It is important to note that the absence of a population centre from the list does not mean that investment proposals covering those centres will not be considered. As discussed above, CFH will have the flexibility to consider economically rational proposals that include other population centres. In addition, the government is releasing a separate strategy for improving rural broadband. In general terms, it is not intended that the government’s UFB Initiative funding will be directed into rural areas.”

So is this the separate strategy? Time to go back to the drawing board & revisit our earlier discussions?

The official release with some Q & A

“Key: 'hundreds of millions' needed for rural broadband”

The 75/25% split for fibre rollout just won’t cut it for the rural sector (which includes most of the schools on the VLN). John Key shows this concern too – hopefully a glimmer of light for getting fibre to where it’s most needed!

Turbo-Charge TaraNet

“How good would it be?”….

There has been lots of conversations here in the last few weeks about a local initiative to bring broadband/KAREN to all Taranaki Secondary Schools. I have been working with the group who have been developing this proposal to link & consult with schools and to try & gain a school’s perspective for the proposal. You can read about these conversations at our Wiki. My thoughts are that any proposal that is going to enable all of our Secondary Schools (as opposed to New Plymouth schools only) has got to have some merit and needs to be investigated. I have reservations whether a KAREN connection is going to provide the services our schools will need & wonder if it will make it more difficult instead of easier to maintain our VC connectivity with the wider VLN Community. I know for sure that schools would jump at increased bandwidth but am wary about the data costs that may result. I know that there has been a lot of work done by other regional ‘loops’ and that we need to tap into their expertise as we work towards fibre connections for our schools. We are all waiting…. and waiting… to hear what the National Strategy will be that is to be announced anytime soon about the mechanism for fibre rollout & how schools will be supported with this.

Oh really – for many schools getting it to the gate is not the challenge (see our Taranaki broadband map). Getting it connected & into the school is the trick!

Broadband – the Last Mile

http://www.broadbandmap.govt.nz/map/
The blue line is the Telecom Fibre Optic Network – the icons are our schools.

With recent announcements about the investment in Broadband infrastructure & MOE funding for schools infrastructure there has been much discussion recently regarding the equity of access to broadband for our rural schools. There are a great number of our school’s in Taranaki sitting on this fibre network. How can we afford to go the ‘last mile’ & tap into it, who is going to pay for the substantial costs involved in making it available. Cities and large towns will have the numbers to justify Telcos investing in bringing fibre online – what about the rest of rural New Zealand?

More on School Zone

Found the School Zone Wiki here is the blog:

Ramblings from the School Zone

An interesting article that explains the Qos that School Zone offers & the difference between SZ & ordinary Broadband - especially important for VC schools.

Wiki Schoolzone

School Zone now has a wiki site with all the information you need about managing your School Zone connection:

At Learning@School they announced some upcoming changes to how School Zone services will be 'unbundled'. No news on the wiki site yet but the plan as described to me was to split the services into three separate areas and to change the pricing structures.

A new School Zone will see services split into Connectivity (including Video for VC), Security (Sina blocking & filtering) & Web Services (Email & My Desktop).

This is good news for schools who have balked at switching to SZ just to gain the VC connectivity.

Also promised was improved speeds by the upgrading of copper circuits & enabling of fibre. The bad news is that fibre connectivity still has a huge price tag attached to it approx. $1500 a month.

The promise of improved connectivity must be linked to the investment in infrastructure by the Government.

A local loop here in Taranaki would be great - we know the fibre is there - just the cost of tapping into it is huge - who will pay???

3G? We'll see...

I joined the 3G network today with a Telecom Mobile Broadband connection. I have watched the other ePrincipals use these devices (either Telecom or Vodafone) & seen how easy it is for them (in most places) to be connected anytime anyplace. I have had trouble in all of my schools working through their networks to get a reliable, fast connection to the internet and on top of this been frustrated by the filtering of sites. I am often working in all sorts of places outside of my kitchen table office. Telecom have a good deal on at the moment that lets you trial for a month (fully refundable) so what a great opportunity to try it out :-)

Tandberg Content Server

A group of ePrincipals has been meeting to discuss Protocols around the use of the Tandberg Content Server. (TCS) the TCS records video conferencing sessions, stores them on a server, where they can be edited and made available for others to view. We talked about it's purposes for use and the management of this tool. It could be used for:

• capturing generic lessons such as demonstrations, practicals, interviews with experts;
• students can use it to catch up on missed lessons;
  
• eteachers can use it in their appraisal process; capturing sessions for teacher pd;
• authenticating student work such as oral language presentations, & practicals that can be performed in front of VC
  

Issues surrounding its use and management were to do with how long to keep the content, archiving & deletion. Access to logons & passwords - only ePrincipals have access at the moment, booking recording time with Asnet who currently manage the TCS, recording with the knowledge & authorisation of all those in a VC, how to allow access to the intended audience without logons & passwords. (This one was solved pretty easily by Trevor who discovered that individual recordings can be passworded - thereby all you need is to provide your audience with the URL & the password to view)
I think this is a great tool for our online learning toolbox but still a little ahead of our time for seamless operation with our still limited bandwidth. The biggest barrier is the huge files sizes - a 2min clip is about 35 mb. A typical VC is likely to be an hour.... you do the math.
Asnet will copy recordings to DVD & post out to schools but to realise the full potential we should be able to stream or download quickly on demand - still away off for us who in the rural remote areas (which is most of the VLN schools) are a long way off joining any high speed loops anytime soon.