Communications Crossroads - Summer 2008 - (Page 17)

for RIF’s large network of volunteers who span the nation. “As broadband continues to penetrate learning environments across the country, particularly in low-income urban and rural communities, RIF is able to cost-effectively extend its reach to children, teachers, parents and volunteers by providing meaningful and immersive literacy experiences online,” says Benedict, who adds that the organization’s highest priority remains delivering books and literacy resources to the children who needs them most. “We would especially support providers’ efforts to make broadband more affordable across the country.” Tom Rolfes might agree. “It would be helpful [for carriers] to be empathetic to the plight of the economically challenged districts,” he says. “In rural areas, it’s often said that if you lose the school, you lose the town.” Rolfes is the Education Information Technology Manager for the State Chief Information Ofﬁcer and Nebraska Information Technology Commission in the state’s capital of Lincoln. In Nebraska’s smaller, more rural locations, he says, the Internet and IP videoconferencing have become lifelines for a school’s survival. “There is some justiﬁcation for companies to use preferential individual-case-basis pricing to make sure that schools can maintain their high bandwidth transport and to remain viable through the services that the network infrastructure provides.” Distance learning has been an organized effort in Nebraska since the early 1990s when a collection of school districts and their counterparts in higher education—through grass-roots efforts—built a structured program for the purpose of sharing video classes throughout high schools statewide. These days, aided and upgraded progressively through lottery grant funds and money from the legislature, the small initiative has given birth to Network Nebraska, which pulls to- gether all the schools, public and private, from kindergarten through 12th grade, and exists under the watchful eye of Rolfes and his colleagues at the ofﬁce of the State Chief Information Ofﬁcer. “The schools use statewide clearinghouse software to advertise and register for all synchronous and asynchronous distance learning opportunities,” says Rolfes, “as well as controlling all the videoconferencing codecs using the same software.” Distance learning classrooms are being used an average of 55 percent of all class periods, he says, and that number is growing as districts begin to recognize video’s incredible shrinking bandwidth. “They’ve been adding additional mobile carts so that some high schools have as many as seven or eight simultaneous course offerings in and out of their school, every period, throughout every day.” In a similar manner, Alabama’s schools began participating in the ACCESS (Alabama Connecting For flexibility, reliability, and availability, you can trust RCN Metro to put you on the map. Metro Ring(s) Point of Presence Colocation Ethernet • SONET • Wavelength Internet • Colocation • Voice The Smart Alternative www.rcnmetro.com 877.669.6366 367413_RCN.indd 1 Summer 2008 COMMUNICATIONS 4/3/08 CROSSROADS 2:07:50 PM 17 http://www.neoninc.com

Table of Contents Feed for the Digital Edition of Communications Crossroads - Summer 2008

Communications Crossroads - Summer 2008 Up Front Contents TeleBites Delivering the Broadband Future Deriving Revenue from Today's Broadband World The Right Way to Operate Data Centers Buyers' Guide Industry Calendar Advertisers DotCom Index to Advertisers Straight Talk

Communications Crossroads - Summer 2008

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