The Department of Education Tasmania (DoE Tas) has begun assessing the new education possibilities offered by the National Broadband Network (NBN).
In tender documents the Department wrote that with the implementation of the NBN, there was the potential to look at the provision of education services in a different way.
This included using the NBN to provide students in Kindergarten through to year 10 with remote access to experts to supplement education services provide by local teachers to help develop their skills and experiences in a far greater capacity than those offered presently.
Students will also have the potential to engage in real-time video conferencing and collaboration with fellow subject minded students within their immediate region, across the state or interstate and overseas.
Anytime, anywhere access for the students, parents, school community, and teachers to their learning communities, and, creating new ways of engaging with students who have traditionally struggled in the current school environment, were also potential outcomes of the NBN the tender documents said.
To help facilitate these possibilities, and develop others, the department has signalled it is seeking input from its current hardware and software preferred suppliers and the broader ICT industry on the potential education opportunities and the technologies or services that would support them.
“The Department of Education Tasmania is keen to broaden its thinking on the opportunities that the National Broadband Network and Digital Education Revolution will offer its students, teachers, staff and general Tasmanian community,” the documents read.
The Department also added that the state is looking to also build on its current computer to student ratio of one computer per 3.3 students – the best ratio in the country, according to the Department.
It has also adopted a Ministerial Council on Education, Employment, Training and Youth Affairs (MCEETYA) framework to assist in shifting the school’s IT thinking from a focus on infrastructure to include issues such as school leadership, professional learning and systems and resources.
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