By Jennifer Wohlleb

Staff Writer

The Internet has long promised to be a treasure trove of opportunities for education, but the implementation of this tool has not always been smooth. That is changing for Kentucky students as the state begins a two-year project to get all 175 districts on the high-speed network known as Internet2.

Internet2 is similar to the original Internet, but much faster. It does not have commercial or entertainment sites, but is a collection of research organizations, universities, and K-12 institutions. Frankfort Independent Schools is currently the only Kentucky district on this high-speed network and is serving as a pilot site along with Kentucky’s public colleges and universities.

"Internet2 was created to form the same function as the original Internet, for research organizations, military, universities," said Dr. Tim Smith, Frankfort’s Chief Information Officer. "And now the Internet is so clogged up with entertainment sites and other things that schools and universities could not get their work done efficiently. So another network was born, similar to a rail system. If the recipient and the originator of the collaboration are both on Internet2, it will switch tracks and provide them with the highest speed. This speed allows very specialized applications to occur such as video conferencing, 3-D visualization, remote instrumentation and other applications that are being developed to solve problems. It’s the fastest bandwidth available to anyone."

Smith said Internet2 applications are being used about three times per week by students from kindergarten to 12th grade, predominantly for videoconferences, but there are other uses.

"There is remote instrumentation, where you can actually control an electron microscope at Lehigh University," he said. "or the Night Skies project between the University of Louisville and an observatory in Australia. Students in the southern hemisphere can use the UofL telescopes and our students can observe the night skies with the equipment in Australia. The bandwidth of Internet2 allows that connection to be almost instantaneous."

One of the district’s most significant uses of Internet2 has been a service learning project at the high school through the University of Pennsylvania and MAGPI — which is a networking gateway for these types of collaborations — where students from across the country were able to speak with Holocaust survivor Gerda Weissmann Klein.

Teacher Karen Hatter said speaking with Klein has had a profound impact on her students.

"It has really piqued interest in issues in the news," she said. "The article about the use of the Confederate flags (as symbols by some schools) and also about the conference held by the president of Iran about whether or not there was a Holocaust. It has brought a whole new dimension to our classroom."

The next part of the project— Stand up, Speak Out, Lend a Hand — will allow students to develop a service project in their community. Hatter said her class is planning a parade and rally to celebrate the importance of diversity. Each of the 28 participating schools will have to creatively present their project idea as part of another videoconference event.

Using Internet2, Frankfort students also have virtually visited the Cincinnati Zoo and talked with zookeepers as they demonstrated how they take care of bats; a class participated in America Reads the Constitution sponsored by the National Constitution Center in Philadelphia, which required a creative presentation about how a bill becomes a law; and second-graders conferenced with students from England for an interactive reading of one of Aesop’s fables.

"The technology provided us with a real-time collaboration; it was like we were in the same room," Smith said. "The event was one of the best collaborations we’ve had. Our entire second grade participated in the collaboration with England at a cost of $80; it’s much cheaper than taking a field trip."

He said many events are free or range from $50 to $200, and many of the nonprofits put their fees back into developing more content for education.

He said the camera system that makes videoconferencing possible fits in a brief case and plugs in in any classroom with a network or students can come to a computer lab.

"It’s really a seamless way to connect students, researchers, and experts in their field," he said, "and that connection hopefully improves collaboration and learning."