Ultra-fast start to school year for Kaipaki students

MEDIA RELEASE
For immediate release

18 February 2013

Ultra-fast start to school year for Kaipaki students

Kaipaki Primary School’s 60 children are among the first rural students in Cambridge to start the school year with access to ultra-fast broadband in the classroom.

The three-classroom country school is also among some of the first in the Waikato to experience the power of ultra-fast broadband.

Principal, Steve Dunsmore said having the fast Internet connection will make a huge difference to the school’s learning environment and student’s learning outcomes.

“Our children live in a world where high-tech gadgets, smart phones and access to the Internet are a part of the fabric of their lives. Having ultra-fast Internet at school will expand the learning environment by giving students access to their work from wherever they are, and share it across devices, classrooms, schools and teachers.”

He said even simple learning exercises, such as writing stories, would be transformed by ultra-fast broadband.

“Let’s say the children are writing a story about a trip to the zoo. In the past they would have written a story in their books, handed it to the teacher who would have marked them separately and then handed them back to the students.

“Now, with the capacity and speed of ultra-fast fibre, students can work on a shared document on multiple computers at the same time, they can see what their classmates are writing and provide constructive feedback or comments on each other’s work, and the teacher can monitor the exercise and mark it at the same time.”

Fibre was laid to the school as part of the Government’s Rural Broadband Initiative, the objective of which is to give 97.7 percent of schools and 99.9 percent of students ultra-fast broadband at speeds of 100 megabits per second (source: Ministry of Business, Innovation & Employment website, http://goo.gl/dFoAO).

Kaipaki School is one of a cluster of rural Waikato schools being connected by local provider, Lightwire.

Lightwire is a Hamilton-based technology company specialising in innovative broadband services. It was spun out of the University of Waikato in 2006 and since then it has been developing wireless-based Internet services and fibre-based Internet services for both urban and rural markets.

Lightwire business development manager Jeremy Barker said, “ultra-fast broadband will change the way teachers teach and children learn. It can be up to 100 times faster than a school’s current Internet connection.

“The major advantage for schools is the ability to have all computers connected to the Internet at once without their server timing out or becoming frustratingly slow. That’s a huge benefit to teachers who need the confidence of a fast, reliable Internet connection when using it as a learning tool in the classroom.”

Principal Dunsmore said Kaipaki School had 30 computers and devices for students to use.

“Kaipaki is the first school in Cambridge to have ultra-fast fibre and a commercial grade wireless connection and the Ministry of Education’s wired infrastructure, which was installed as part of the Schools Network Upgrade Project. Essentially schools need all three elements to get up and running with ultra-fast broadband – and we’re the first school in Cambridge to have all the pieces of the puzzle working,” he said.

Hamilton or Waikato schools interested in learning more about the benefits and availability of ultra-fast broadband can phone Lightwire on 0800 12 13 14 or visit www.lightwire.co.nz.

-ENDS-

© Scoop Media