Kids broaden their horizons

This article explores a programme that brings fast broadband to all 86 schools in the Telford and Wrekin borough (Shropshire, England). The programme's purpose is to help otherwise geographically isolated children interact with the broader community, at the same time enabling teachers to share scarce resources.

This initiative, which the author claims "may prove to be nothing short of a revolution in teaching" involves the introduction of real broadband at 155Mbps, which is 310 times faster than BT Telecommunication's asynchronous digital subscriber line (ADSL) offering. No servers were installed in the schools themselves; instead, there are nodal points around the towns. This means that schools do not have to pay for technicians, content, or licences. All schools are connected by hard-wire cable, and all receive a broadband connection to their desktop.

This real broadband makes videoconferencing possible: children may interact with peers at another school many miles away, enabling them to make friends and share ideas. For example, two groups of children in very different environments - one at a rural school in High Ercall and another at an urban school - were having a lively debate on the day the author visited about the national media ignoring rural communities. As a teacher at the rural school enthsed, "There's not that breadth of community here and some kids are not streetwise. The ability of a rural school to communicate with the wider community is very powerful."

Children are also able to use "smartboards", which are large digital boards linked to the network that function like computer screens. When a student answers a question, he or she touches the screen - which one teacher claims makes learning fun, "as in a computer game". Students with many different kinds of learning styles can apparently learn quickly through this kind of technology.

One official quoted in the article noted that schools needed some convincing to pool their resources to invest in this kind of project, rather than to buy individual computers for their students. Now that the network is established, schools are using their funds to support the continued development of their teachers. Teachers can also share resources on a particular topic, saving time and money.

"You really enjoy doing it," said one 11-year-old of communicating with peers through the videoconferencing technology. "It's not something where you're just writing it down. You can relate to what they're saying and it's interesting to see what they think."

Click here for the full article on the Guardian site.