Omaio School 1St on Coast to Get Fibre

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Broadband

Te Kura o Omaio joins Ultra Fast Broadband

by Peter Shields 29/06/2011

Government rolls out Ultra Fast Broadband for Rural Schools Celebrations were held on Thursday as children from Omaio, Henderson Valley and Granity Schools participate in a live lesson in astronomy and Te Reo via their new fast Internet links. Anne Tolley, Education Minister participated with Omaio students. Education Minister Anne Tolley and Education Department dignatories arrived at Te Kura o Omaio a remote rural school in the eastern Bay of Plenty at the start of the school day. They witnessed the tamariki participating in a inter-school ‘live’ lesson.  The celebrations started with a powhere and then speeches from local komatua and the School Principal Ngehu Gage. The other schools had VIP guests as well including the Minister for Communication, Steven Joyce, at Henderson valley School. Chorus Head of Communications, Melanie Marshall, and staff provided the expertise to install the fibre link and set up the systems behind the scenes.  Te Runanga o Te Whanau provided further IT support though their Cyberwaka IT Support. Everyone hopes that the system installed for schools such as Omaio will help with education and economical needs of rural communities throughout Aotearoa New Zealand.

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*  The Virtual Classroom The future of education and student participation may well be moving at last into the 21st century. The fibre links installed by Chorus to the schools in these remote districts will mean a huge leap in collaboration and sharing between educators and students.  Normal ADSL broadband at my rural home is about 2.5Mb/s. Omaio Kura now has 20+Mb/s download and 35Mb/s upload. This is enough bandwidth to deliver TV quality video and audio links between schools. The Internet will also be more accessible to students for all sorts of learning opportunities. The tamariki looked amazed as student from participating schools answered questions from a teacher in Henderson about matariki, the astronomy aspects and the maori traditions.