I’m at the TUANZ Broadband Reloaded conference in Hastings at the moment, chairing the eLearning group discussions. We’ve had some challenging presentations to stimulate our thinking about how we might take advantage of the opportunities that Broadband will provide.

Among these was Bill St Arnaud , Senior Director, Advanced Networks for CANARIE Inc in Canada, who provided us with a detailed insight into how, in various areas of Canada, the provision of Broadband to the Universities, and from there to the regions around them, has enabled educational institutions and schools to access a wide range of learning opportunities not previously within their reach.

Examples of these include:

• ALTA, an online project where students can conduct fundamental research into the nature of high energy cosmic rays (and related topics).
• Neptune a virtual aquarium project situated off the West Coast of Canada, enabling students to take control of a submersable camera from their desktop!

These sorts of projects illustrate very well the creative and constructive ways in which broadband technologies can enable high quality learning experiences for students regardless of location etc. During the conference I have spoken to several people who are looking at ways of involving NZ students in some of these (and other) broadband enabled projects.