This article was first published in The Examiner Newspaper on 21 October 2009.
POWER PLAY (#11) – by Paul Lennon
The decision by the Rudd Government to roll out the first stage of the National Broadband Network (NBN) in Tasmania is a major coup. The coup was made possible because of the decision by the State Labor Government some years ago to fund the cost of optic fibre in the natural gas trenches when that project was under construction. It is this fibre that has now become the key piece of infrastructure that will deliver the benefits of the NBN to Tasmanian business and households. It is history now of course that when the decision was made to provide the funding that there was the usual howls of protest from opposition politicians. Indeed the short-sightedness of the Liberals under Rene Hidding was such that he promised to sell the infrastructure had he won the 2006 election.
Had that happened then we would not be on the verge of the opportunity to take advantage of the leading edge technology that the NBN will give us access to. An opportunity provided by access to bandwidths of up to 100Mbps that the NBN will deliver. But it is just that – an opportunity.
It is up to us as a community to make sure it’s doesn’t become an opportunity missed. Bandwidths of up to 100Mbps mean significant new social and economic opportunity is on our doorsteps. One such opportunity lies in the area of education and there are excellent examples around the world for us to study and learn from. The London Grid for Learning is one of these. And there is a Tasmanian connection to it which I’ll come back to later.
After I learnt of the London project I asked for and recently received details about it from the Department of Economic Development.
What they sent me was of such interest that I thought I’d share it with you. So here it is just as they provided it to me -
The London Grid for Learning (LGfL), one of ten Regional Broadband Consortia covering England, is a collaborative initiative by the 33 London Local Authorities (clusters of schools) to provide broadband connectivity, managed services and on-line content, and to serve the education community throughout the London region.
The network is 100 per cent optic fibre and 100 per cent Ethernet; in these characteristics and in its scale, the network is a leader in its class, and almost certainly unique.
In addition to infrastructure and connectivity, the LGfL also provides a wealth of on-line educational content, accessible to over a million teachers and students through the LGfL Portal (www.lgfl.net).
Currently over 99 per cent of London schools are connected to the LGfL network at bandwidths between 2Mbps and 100Mbps. Work started with the largest schools and hence an estimated three-quarters of London’s one million pupils are already served by the LGfL.
The LGfL portal provides for the individual authentication of users, together with a suite of facilities including email, conferencing, special interest groups and on-line communities, notes, calendars, web creation tools, access controls, and 100Mb of personal storage for every user, accessible from school, home, library, UK On-line centre, overseas etc. This allows pupils (and teachers) to compile their own portfolio (rather like a virtual hard drive) of own web content, application files, presentations etc and play material anywhere in the world, with an Internet connection.
The development and acquisition of on-line materials is directed by an Editorial Board supported by a full time content manager. The Editorial Board is made up principally of Local Authority professionals, and has a substantial annual budget.
The LGfL also provides a range of managed services, mainly concerned with maintaining security and ensuring safe use of on-line systems; these include URL filtering, email scanning, web, email and DNS hosting, and network management and security.
At the present time LGfL is developing a pan-London video conferencing facility, which will allow extensive use of one-to-one and one-to-many conferencing across the region at no cost to schools.
In developing a content strategy for the London Grid for Learning, the following principles have been kept in mind:
• To share good practice across the London educational community
• To encourage and support teachers and London Authorities to develop and share material across the grid
• to ensure that any commercial material is high-quality, makes the best use of broadband content and represents value for money
• to emphasise that all content should have relevance to London schools, topics and priorities, where possible
• to support and encourage partnerships within the broader educational community
• to work with other Regional Broadband Consortia to avoid duplication and maximise cost-effectiveness and relevance
Over the last five years, through the LGfL, much has been achieved to bring about a change in the way ICT has been integrated in London schools. Developments include:
• The establishment of true broadband connectivity to London’s 2600 maintained schools, populated with 65,000 teachers and one million pupils set in an area of 620 square miles. Currently over 99% of London schools are connected to the LGfL network at bandwidths between 2Mbps and 100Mbps.
• The LGfL provides a Virtual Learning Environment (VLE) for all staff and pupils, at no additional cost to the school. The VLE enables pupils and teachers to use and create: 25Mb of personal web-space; e-portfolios; safe email suitable for year 3 upwards; discussion boards; online polls; course websites; school and personal websites ; online resources for Interactive Whiteboards; resources anywhere there is internet access for use at any time. Access is available from internet enabled computers, at school, at home, or indeed anywhere world-wide.
• Video conferencing to enable a class to see, talk to and work with another class anywhere in the UK is available through the LGfL. In the future, uses of video conferencing will go much further and include opportunities for a school wishing to offer a subject it does not have the resources to offer, partnering with another school, using video conferencing to enable pupils to take part in the lesson.
Benefits delivered to schools include:
• Improved learning performance
• Better procurement and economies of scale
• Closer collaboration with colleagues
• Improved standards of teaching and learning
• Trusted reliable source of content
• Improved home/school access
• Safety
• Security
• Administrative Efficiency
• Local flexibility
Comprehensive detail about the London Grid for learning is available at:
http://cms.lgfl.net/web/lgfl/about
Tasmanian online content developer Roar Educate has been developing online educational content for the LGfL since 2006 after they met at an Economic Development organised Tasmania exhibition stand at the British Education Technology Transfer (BETT) in 2005.
In its first project, Roar Educate collaborated with Brent LA, Havering LA and LGfL to produce a new online interactive learning resource for Physical, Social and Health Education Key Stage Four and Citizenship in Key Stage Two/Three curriculum areas. Featuring 32 activities the content looked specifically at issues relating to cultural diversity, identity, personal and media stereotyping and migration and is accessible by pupils and teachers from home or school.
Roar Educate uses a range of styles and media to engage both teachers and students. Students can create their own personal profile, which can be shared at a teacher’s discretion with other students from around London, celebrating the diversity of London’s wider school community and encouraging learners to reflect on their own position inside this community.
Roar Educate, a wholly owned subsidiary of nationally recognised local film and documentary maker Roar Film, completed its second project of online modules in conjunction with teachers from the London Grid for Learning in 2008. The latest modules provide highly interactive student activities in the area of esafety, esecurity and responsible use of the internet.
Roar Educate is bringing out Stewart Smith one of the Directors of LGfL in February 2010 as part of its ongoing collaboration with the LGfL to develop new online education resources. Mr Smith is a leading authority in the UK for broadband in education delivery and regularly delivers a two-day workshop which centres on exploiting high bandwidth and ICT in education. According to Roar Managing Director, Craig Dow Sainter, there would be an opportunity to leverage his visit to Tasmania by delivering workshops in Hobart and in Launceston.
Projects like the London grid for Learning can now be a reality here in Tasmania because of the bold decision taken six years or so ago to invest directly in optic fibre infrastructure.
It’s now up to the current political leadership to make sure that further bold decisions are now taken to make sure that the maximum benefit is gained from the opportunity that has been created.
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[The author Paul Lennon, was Tasmanian (Labor) Premier for four years. He quit politics earlier this year after 18 years in State Parliament]
