Distance learning for everyone - Industry Trend or Event

Communications News, Sept, 2000 by Sean Kelly

Broward County, FL--the nation's fifth largest school district with 240,000 students and 24,000 staff members--was seeking more flexibility, control and reliability for its distance-learning program that encompasses more than 50 sites, 1,000 hours of programming per month and 16 courses. The school district turned to Lucent's Enterprise Networks Group and its MultiPoint Conferencing Unit (MCU), a videoconferencing bridging solution. MCU enables the school system to manage a live videoconference among 24 sites simultaneously.

"Now our students can have advanced placement courses, visit diverse cultures and interact with outside experts without leaving school," says Mary Anne Butler-Pearson, distance-learning coordinator at Broward Education Communications Network.

For example, elementary and secondary students toured a Japanese folk art museum, visited the set of the musical "Ragtime," and interviewed NASA space scientists--all from the classroom via videoconferences. "All teachers have to do is show up and turn the equipment on, and the MCU will call them and initiate the videoconference," Butler-Pearson says. With the district's former outsourced conference bridging services, participants who had not arranged attendance in advance could not join a videoconference.

With the ability to broadcast educational programming virtually anywhere, Broward County also uses the videoconferencing system to provide training programs to the community. For instance, adults with disabilities are learning computer skills that help them find jobs in the medical transcription field via video- hookups in their homes.

The new system has also made staff development programs more cost-effective. Broward County cut the time it took to train 1,500 new teachers from 30 days to five, and the school system is saving on travel costs and time associated with ongoing staff training.

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