Fast learners get connected
Sunday Business Post - Best Schools Supplement, published on March 13, 2011

By Dermot Corrigan

Right now, 78 Irish secondary schools have super fast broadband access due to the 100Mbps Post Primary Schools Project overseen by the Department of Communications and HEAnet. 

The arrival of high speed internet access had brought huge benefits for both students and staff at the schools, according to Máire Clár NicMhathúna, principal at Coláiste Phobail Cholmcille, a small school located on Tory Island off the Donegal coast. 

‘‘It has made an amazing difference for us here,’’ said Nic Mhathúna. ‘‘Previously our connection depended a lot on the weather and the phone lines here, which are often not the best. Even when we had a connection basic e-mail was all we could really manage. Now we have high-speed broadband access in every classroom.’’ 

The 100Mbps Post Primary Schools Project is managed by HEAnet, with funding provided by the Department of Communications. The Department of Education, the Higher Education Authority, the National Centre forTechnology in Education (NCTE) and a number of private partners are also involved in the scheme. 

Each school now benefits from connection speeds similar to those used at large national and multinational companies operating in Ireland, allowing for very quick uploading and downloading of material, instant connection to websites and increased use of online applications. 

‘‘Every student here gets to use the internet as part of their learning process every day,’’ said Nic Mhathúna. ‘‘It also helps a lot with social interaction, particularly as we have only nine students in the whole school.’’   

Nic Mhathúna said that, as the school got more comfortable and experienced using the internet, the possibilities would expand. ‘‘At the moment we can only offer certain Leaving Cert subjects, depending on what teachers are employed here,’’ she said. ‘‘With broadband, we could join another school for another subject using video conferencing. We ourselves could offer a lot to other schools, because the standard and tradition of the Irish language is so strong here. Another important factor is that teachers can do in-service training online, without having to take days off to travel to the mainland.’’ 

Collinstown Park Community College in Clondalkin, Dublin, a mixed school with almost 1,000 students and 80 staff, has also benefited from inclusion in the 100Mbps Post Primary Schools Project, according to Jim Finn, the school’s ICTcoordinator. 

‘‘The students noticed the connection speed improvement instantly, they all wanted to know what we had done to the computers, as they were so much faster,’’ said Finn. ‘‘It has given us so many options which just were not available previously.’’ 

Finn said the school was currently developing a thorough plan to make best use of the better connectivity. 

‘‘Currently we are teaching the teachers how to use the internet, both as a teaching tool and for their own research,’’ he said. 

‘‘If you do not go in knowing exactly what you want the students to do online, they will very quickly be playing games or doing their own thing. So we are taking our time, and trialling it in a couple of classes,with some of the more IT savvy teachers.’’ 

The school’s strategy was to integrate use of the internet alongside more traditional teaching methods, Finn said. 

‘‘A history teacher brought his first year students to the computer room, and got them to use the IrishTimes online archive to find headlines from the paper at Easter 1916,’’ he said. ‘‘They then printed them out and created a collage of headlines.That way you build on something they have already done in the classroom.’’ 

Finn said a range of other possibilities was now opening up for the school’s staff and students. 

‘‘We are trialling the Moodle virtual learning environment with a few of our adult classes, putting up videos or different files for students to access online from the classroom,’’ he said. ‘‘The Moodle system allows individual subject teachers to create a central depository for resources within a department. Kids with computers at home can also access material online. It will also be used for staff training.’’ 

Internet provider AirSpeed has connected 31 schools across eight counties under the 100Mbps scheme, according to Liam O’Kelly,managing director of AirSpeedTelecom. 

‘‘When we saw the tender we thought it was a particularly good fit for us, because a lot of the schools were in remote areas not served by fibre connections,’’ said O’Kelly. 

‘‘We can provide the level of support required by delivering a four-hour service level agreement (SLA) across the country, except for some of the remoter locations such as the islands. It is important to say though that radio today delivers the same bandwidth as fibre, while even if you are within 20 metres of a fibre connection, it can be very expensive to dig out to meet that.’’ 

Last December’s budget allocated €44 million to expand the pilot scheme and deploy 100Mbps broadband to 300 schools with the expectation of a further 300 schools getting connected in 2012. O’Kelly said he expected the full rollout of the scheme would go ahead under the new government. 

‘‘My understanding is that the pilot was deemed to be a success and there has been money attributed to delivering the other schools under the same framework,’’ he said. ‘‘It will not need to go out to tender again.’’ 

Finn said any withdrawal of funding for the scheme would be a huge blow for teachers and students. 

‘‘We are putting plans in place now, so we would like to be sure that the system will still be there in four or five years time,’’ he said. 

‘‘Our biggest fear is that we would have to go back to the old system,which was just not suitable for our needs. Hopefully this will be rolled out to more schools. We then have the option of linking schools together."

John Boland of HEAnet; former communications minister Eamon Ryan; and Liam O’Kelly of AirSpeed at the launch of the 100Mbps broadband for schools project