Washington's K-20 Education Network uses next-generation technology to improve service to customersFebruary 2006
Washington's K-20 Education Network uses next-generation technology to improve service to customers
An eleventh grade high school student in Walla Walla, Washington jumps online after dinner on a Wednesday night to do his homework. He is taking a college-level French class from a Washington state four-year university. An hour later, his seven-year old brother, who is in the second grade, sits down at the PC to practice telling time using an interactive online program. How's this possible? Using the state's K-20 Education Network.
For the past eight years, the K-20 Education Network has been providing Internet and two-way videoconferencing services to students and educators throughout Washington state to expand their learning opportunities. K-20 Education Network services provide students with access to data and educational resources they wouldn't receive in a traditional classroom setting. Today, thanks to technology advancements, combined with the education sector's growing need to do more online, Washington's K-20 Education Network Board is enhancing the K-20 Education Network.
Rep. Sam Hunt (D-Olympia), who is a K-20 Education Network Board Member, supports greater network capacity and utilization. "Today's K-20 Education Network customers are much more dependent on technology than when we first created the network."
According to Hunt, K-20 customers want to do more with the technology, such as using the network to develop financial systems to run payroll and deploy student information systems. To do this requires adding more capacity to the network.
Using next-generation technology — Fast Ethernet — the K-20 Education Network will do just that.
"Fast Ethernet works just like Ethernet, except that it can provide data transfer rates of 100 megabytes per second on the network," says Connie Michener, K-20 Education Network Program Office Executive Director. "This technology is a cost-effective way to obtain extra performance on the K-20 Network. We have already started implementing Fast Ethernet throughout the state. So far, we have installed it in the Wenatchee area and the greater Olympia area, and we're already seeing an increase in the usage from those locations."
Partnership to advance learning opportunities
The K-20 Education Network was authorized by the Washington State Legislature, and developed and coordinated by DIS and the state's education communities.
A high-speed telecommunications backbone network that runs on the state's existing telecommunications infrastructure, the K-20 Education Network offers the use of the Internet and two-way videoconferencing at 476 Washington state educational institutions:
- 311 K-12 locations (school districts and educational service districts)
- 72 community and technical college locations (main and remote campuses)
- 55 baccalaureate locations (main and branch campuses)
- 26 public library districts
- 7 independent baccalaureates
- 5 Northwest Indian college locations
Since 1998, the K-20 Education Network has allowed Washington state students and educators to share information and coordinate programs with each other without the traditional constraints of distance and cost. High school students can use the K-20 Education Network to access the Internet and take advanced classes to get a jump start on earning college credits. Using interactive videoconferencing via the K-20 Education Network, high school graduates can take university courses to obtain bachelor degrees, K-12 educators can continue their professional development, and deaf and hard-of-hearing elementary-age children from multiple school districts can learn to read and write.
In addition to connecting students to the Internet, the K-20 Network provides Washington students and educators access to Internet 2 - a national research and education network. This consortium is led by over 200 U.S. universities that work in partnership with industry and government. It allows K-20 students and educators to participate in a collaborative research environment that will produce new Internet resources, applications, and tools.
"The value of the K-20 Education Network is that it gives all of our students and teachers equal access to educational opportunities," says Dr. Douglas Astolfi, President of St. Martin's University and K-20 Education Network Board Member. "The K-20 Education Network is one of the best investments the state has made. I am impressed with how it continues to enhance the productivity of our state's education system."