The NGfL (National Grid for Learning)is a collection of resources brought together by the UK Government to help raise standards in education and to support lifelong learning. Nationally collected information can be reviewed on line(www.ngfl.gov.uk).
In order to maximise the access of this material, the government have helped LEAs and schools fund connection to the Internet.
Telford & Wrekin Council have been awarded 'pathfinder status' for NGfL by the government. The council decided to take an innovative approach to connecting to schools to the Internet.
Telford & Wrekin Council has embarked upon creating a community grid for learning. This has been done by connecting schools together, into their local 'nodal' server farm with shared access to the Internet.
Appropriate teaching and learning resources have been developed by schools for sharing and development.
School children in Telford & Wrekin are benefiting from a £7.5 million IT educational network set to catapult them into the future. The most advanced Internet-based e-Learning project in the UK, it features the country's first secure high-speed broadband network and the largest school-based video-conferencing facility in Europe.
The project (costing £12 million in total) also incorporates the installation of structured cabling in schools, procurement of curriculum software through authority wide licensing deals, and a massive programme of IT skills training for all teachers. Internal support teams have been developed, to assist in on-site and remote technical support, content development, web authoring and management.
Telford & Wrekin Council awarded the network contract to create this groundbreaking Grid for Learning to ICL, and subcontractors Telewest and Synetrix.
The structured cabling contract was awarded to Pinacl Communications and external evaluation and guidance was given by Mason Communications. Other major players include Capita, Granada and the BBC.
24,500 students in 86 nursery, primary, special and secondary schools in the area have access to an unrivaled range of electronic multimedia educational material, including broadcast quality video-on-demand.
Students also benefit from interactive-video conference tuition. Five hundred desktop video conferencing units and 15 group conferencing facilities allow for both individual tuition or group sessions. This means that students can 'virtually' attend specialist lectures of their choice and that groups can participate in 'real time' sessions, including language and culture lessons, with schools in other countries. In addition, classes can be broadcast simultaneously to all schools in the area from a central service managed by the local education authority.
All students have their own email address and parents can be assured that children are not accessing inappropriate material on the Internet, thanks to intelligent filtering software.
In the future, the Telford & Wrekin Grid will be extended into the home and community through a secure, out-of-hours remote access system, which will enable teachers, pupils and parents to connect to their school. These facilities are expected to play an important role in involving parents in their child's education and will be available from a variety of access points such as libraries.
Ultimately the network will be used to allow people in the wider community to access online information and educational services from public places such as libraries, courts and community centres. This is in line with the government's vision of lifelong learning and career development for the whole community.
Councillor Sue Davis, Chair of Education and Training at Telford & Wrekin Council said, "This exciting initiative will allow adults and children to plug into new opportunities. By making the most of this technology, local learners of any age will be able to get in touch with people and communities in countries across the world."
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revised: 22 January 20001
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