Thanks to Mary Ann VanCura Library Develop Specialist Extraordinaire for sending me a head up on the Bandwidth Planner for schools. The coolest part is the bandwidth calculator – you put in your current Internet speeds and answer a series of question about the number of students and computers you have an how students and staff use computers – and they’ll tell you how much bandwidth you need – or where you current bandwidth is sufficient and where it isn’t.

You don’t have to be a CIO or CTO to complete the form. You do have to know what students are doing online to some degree – are they viewing movies or sending email. Also the answers are provided with a graphic so you don’t have to be a CTO to understand the answers either. In fact, this would be a great tool for a CTO to use to help communicate need to folks who aren’t as technical.

Bandwidth Planner also includes a few nice case studies on schools using broadband.

The Bandwidth Planner is part of a larger site called the School 2.0 eToolkit. I didn’t spend hours on the tool but it seems to be focused on helping educators learn about opportunities where technology can help the students learn in and out of the classroom. It reminds me of the ICN (Internet Community Networks) from years ago where we looked at how technology could get all community members to work together. In both tools you take a look at what a connection from the school to the local factory would mean; then extend that connection to the home and what are the implications for each party. While the focus is on the school, I think any community or economic developer would find this interesting.