Here is a link to our Veterans Day presentation where we brought in a chaplain who was serving in Iraq and presented to the student body in Glencoe. KARE-11 did a nice job on covering the story.

We also recorded the event so others could watch who could not make it to the presentation. The link was made through our video gateway on Internet 2, which is a broadband channel set up for these kinds of broadband applications. We linked with a group out of Washington, DC to help us find a video endpoint in Iraq.

We also connected two separate times to area high schools who were able to watch and interact with a surgical team as they performed a live total knee replacement. ACGC schools in Grove City, MN and YME schools in Granite Falls, MN each had high School Science classes be part of a live surgery. The students were sent curriculum kits before the surgery so they understood the procedure and why they needed to do the surgery but also the procedures involved in replacing a knee. The students were able to interact with the entire surgical team which was based in Ohio. During pre event questions about one half of the students were looking into the medical field. After the surgery over 70% of the students were now interested in going into the medical field. We only had one student leave during the surgery as it was pretty graphic and even though it was connected at 384 kbs the picture quality was fairly good.

We did get some press, but I am unable to find the article.

We also just completed our second year of Chinese language. The teacher is from the Metro area and we connect via videoconferencing. This is not unusual as about 8 years ago we received Japanese from Brooklyn Center and Russian from St. Cloud State. This is just a continuation of what we are able to do as a technology cooperative and an emphasis on Distance Learning. Since the Little Crow Telemedia Network (LCTN) and the Minnesota River Valley Education District (MRVED) share a gig WAN we are able to cooperatively share some servers and services. We bring Atomic Learning into the districts which is tutorial systems of quicktime movies instructing students and staff in how to use a variety of software. The step by step procedures allow students and staff the ability to watch the quicktime movie and then go and do the same steps on their software. They can also pause and replay the quicktime movies as they learn how to use their software.

In addition to the videoconferencing applications, the LCTN-MRVED WAN hosts a video streaming server which allows students and staff to watch and download educational videos which have been digitize and broken up into components which are also tied to grad standards. In the past we used United Streaming, but now we are switching to Learn360 which will give us better quality to the desktop.

The LCTN also hosts a Moodle server which allows us to host Online classes as well as provide a support for traditional classroom instruction. Moodle allows students to get resources from instructors 24×7 as well as allowing for discussion groups and live documents, wikis.

The Blandin Foundation is supporting four standout broadband programs through the Light Speed program. The program’s purpose is to stimulate the deployment of bandwidth intensive applications that connect local institutions to area resident’s home. This post comes from a Light Speed community leader.