Get Connected - Fall 2007 - (Page 5)

Don’t Miss the 25th Annual Tennessee Educational Technology Conference, “Advancing a Culture of Learning” November 28–30, 2007, Nashville Convention Center Preparing all students with a 21st century education requires new knowledge, skills and learning environments. The 25th Annual Tennessee Educational Science and Technology Conference (TETC) will offer over 200 concurrent sessions and 50 labs and workshops covering innovative topics such as Web authoring, social collaboration sites, podcasting, wikis and blogs, imaging software, networked technology and data integration, all skills and information critical to 21st century learning. Information, media and technology skills are no longer optional, it is essential to providing children with the skills they need to compete in a global economy. For a $99 registration fee, teachers and administrators will receive valuable experiences and hands-on training on topics ranging from classroom instructional tools to the latest networking techniques. Whether your technical skills are minimal or advanced, this conference has something for you. The labs and workshop sessions are designed to get participants engaged in new and emerging technologies and excited about integrating technology into core subjects. K-12, higher education and technology presenters will deliver hands-on experiences and tools that you can implemented right away. An estimated 1,500 teachers and administrators will be attending this year’s conference: make sure you are one of them! The conference will be held at the Nashville Convention Center in downtown Nashville. To obtain more information or to register for the conference, visit www.state.tn.us/ education/tetc. This year’s TETC will be a learning opportunity you don’t want to miss! 5 She continues. “We see ourselves in two ways: a community gathering place and an institution of lifelong learning. If people can’t come to the library and learn and discover to their satisfaction, if they don’t have at their disposal the technology they require to learn and discover, then we’ve failed on both counts. So we went to ENA and soon had the burstable DS3 solution.” Thankfully, more patrons then ever before use her library’s connectivity to further their educations. Consequently, when Johnson County recently decided to open a new library building, part of the construction mandate was that it be a state-of-the-art marvel. “We want video conferencing, VoIP [Voice over Internet Protocol, the routing of telephony over the Internet] and plenty of high bandwidth connectivity for future functionality, so ENA is going to install a high-speed fiber WAN,” explains Martin. People have asked her why the staff committee meetings need to be over video conferencing. “They point out, ’You’re only 15 miles away from each other,’” she says. “But that’s a total trip of 30 miles, a 45-minute drive, multiplied by the number of staff members. That adds up to a lot of wasted time and, hence, wasted money.” Seamless service at a cost-savings Martin’s long-term goal is to stay on the cutting edge of technology and save money in the process. She knows it’s a tall order, but she’s remarkably resourceful and innovative. And she’s confident in ENA, her network service provider and business partner. Her library system currently services 100,000 people over a 300-square- mile area and the steady influx of new residents continues. Despite the rapid population growth, the library system’s operating budget is constrained by the statewide tax-levying freeze to a fourpercent growth limit. “An enormous boon to me is the help we get from ENA with our E-Rate application process. With their guidance, we are getting our connectivity partially paid for through the E-Rate funding process.” “With ENA, we’re pursuing our aspirations of seamless service,” Martin says. “Whether our patrons are at home, at the office or physically at the library, they’re going to enjoy a pleasant, productive, problem-free experience and we’re going do it at a cost-savings. We qualify for E-Rate and it’s the only way that we could do it. But in the long run it will prove to save us money. Through ENA’s managed network solutions we’ll manage our network from one central location, we’ll cut down on server rooms in each building, we’ll save money in labor and staff. That kind of enhanced functionality will more than pay for itself just in labor and staff time.” “With ENA, we’ve hit gold” Martin is enthusiastically candid about her reliance upon ENA. “We couldn’t do it without ENA,” she effuses. “We’re working with highly trained experts that see the big picture—our big picture. I can’t say enough about the area service managers and engineers at ENA. I can’t afford to bring employees onboard with ENA’s degree of expertise. Of necessity I must outsource that expertise to fill the gap and with ENA we’ve hit gold.” http://www.state.tn.us/education/tetc http://www.state.tn.us/education/tetc

Table of Contents Feed for the Digital Edition of Get Connected - Fall 2007

Get Connected - Fall 2007 NSBA Social Networking Study A Letter From the President Network Services for Libraries 25th Annual TETC Conference Partnership for 21st Century Skills E-mail Archiving Social Networking 101 Ramp Up for E-Rate Season News From HECC Notes From the CTO

Get Connected - Fall 2007

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