Karl Cushing reports on how the UK's largest networked environment
is changing teaching countywide.
A project in Lincolnshire has created the UK's largest networked
learning environment, connecting 450 sites, 106,000 users and
12,000 PCs, in a bid to transform the teaching and learning process
through increased use of ICT.
The Netlinc project began in 1998 as a local response to the
National Grid for Learning initiative. However, what began as a
programme to integrate educational resources for primary and
secondary schools in the region has since expanded to include
libraries, children's homes and mobile learning units, creating "a
community grid for learning".
Geoff Chandler, the local education authority's ICT project
manager, says that Netlinc has developed into a county-wide secure
network, allowing users to "collaborate, communicate and
interoperate". User groups are given their own distinct interfaces
to shared services, online tools and digital content. Teachers and
pupils can access content and teaching plans as well as create and
upload their own content. The idea is to merge e-learning with
traditional classroom-based teaching methods.
Chandler says the county has "set a precedent for integration and
networking in education" through the project and has helped to
demonstrate how technology has become an integral part of primary,
secondary and lifelong learning.
"With the deployment and management of the network, students and
the community have access to the best online learning we can
provide, in addition to providing Lincolnshire with an excellent
platform to achieve government NGfL and life-long learning
targets," says Chandler.
Another aim is to combat isolation and social exclusion in outlying
rural areas in the county. As well as trying to link up remote
areas there are 10 mobile learning units - essentially flight cases
containing laptops, scanners, digital cameras and printers - spread
throughout the county.
Currently 152 of the 450 sites are connected by broadband, with the
rest connected via ISDN. The goal is to have everyone connected to
broadband by 2005. Half of the sites are centrally managed and the
other half manage their own networks. The next stage of the project
will see more PCs and sites connected using broadband, further
expansion of the platform into the Lincolnshire community and the
upgrading of the network from the present Windows NT environment.
Chandler stresses that Netlinc represents the coming together of
lots of separate projects with different funding streams including
government, schools, the local education authority and the New
Opportunities Fund. Linking projects has helped to lower total cost
of ownership and get best value, says Chandler. The fund has also
helped ensure interoperability and drive standards while keeping
hardware failure at just 0.2%.
Netlinc uses a managed e-learning environment called Assimilate
from software firm Ramesys, which allows both teachers and learners
to collaborate and communicate with each other.
www.netlinc.org.uk