Options of Broadband Access in Schools (OBAS)
Achievements
Fast internet accesses are becoming more and more important for the educational system. Beside the qualification of teachers fast internet accesses are the most important condition for the introduction of new media at schools and the institutionalised educational system facing the requirements of the information society. They are the condition for the cost-effective use of eLearning and the provision of multimedia-based teaching contents between different schools. As the experiences of the Norwegian project partners show teaching contents can also be offered economically and successfully if single schools do not have sufficient resources for presence teaching. It is also possible to increase the wide range of teaching contents in rural areas by this means. Fast internet and eLearning can therefore contribute to the equal opportunities of children and young people in rural areas by offering learn material which normally is only provided in conurbations. So they contribute to diminish the incline between cities and rural areas regarding the variety and the quality of educational offers and to increase the attractiveness of the rural area as living space.
Beside sufficient broadband connections (DSL for eLearning for more than one unit at school is inadequate!) in many regions the operating safety and technical reliability of the ICT equipment at schools is a further important obstacle for the increased use of ICT in classes. In most countries the local authorities are responsible for the provision of hardware at schools. Due to deficient financial resources it is normally impossible to guarantee professionally the administration of ICT equipment. A central administration of school networks via centrally connected staff is possibly realisable in an urban context, yet in rural areas such concepts are not realisable because of the time to be spent on travelling.
The project is to investigate exemplarily the possibilities of the use of broadband connection at schools and to support by means of practical and transferable concepts the application of technology in the educational system of the participating regions. The project starts against the background of the described problems at two points:
On the one hand the use of eLearning at schools is to increase the sensitivity for this topic and strengthen the competences through the exchange of experiences of the partners participating in the project. It does not deal with questions of pedagogy or consent as there are relevant funding programmes of the EU. Subjects are rather aspects of the topic eLearning such as planning, organisation and economy which from the point of view of the local and regional educational institutions are in first place but there are no funding programmes for the exchange of experiences. As a second field an economic concept for the distance maintenance of computer networks at schools is to be developed. This will be done under the leadership of the partner 3, Stadt Osterholz-Scharmbeck.
Objectives
- Know-how transfer regarding the implementation and support strategies of eLearning on local respectively sub-regional level;
- Strengthening of the eLearning competence in the participating regions;
- Test installation of selected technological concepts in single regions and transfer of the exchange of experiences to other regions;
- Documentation of the added value of broadband connection at schools as a condition for multimedia learning and the requirements of the information age;
- Joint implementation of solutions in cooperation of different project partners;