Internet 2: Educational Uses of Advanced Networks

Summary of a talk by videoconference by Christina Siroskey (USA),
Program Coordinator, International & Infrastructure Related Activities
Internet 2, Bogota, Colombia, July 26, 2006


I try to bring together collaborators from around the world.

Internet 2:
- 10 years old
- today more than 200 universities who are members of I2
- partner with 36 states with K12 networks connected
- 112 medical schools, etc

(Map of Internet 2)

- institutions connected to RENATA today can connect to Internet 2

Why Advanced Networking?
- to support virtual collaboration, learning experiences
- to access shared resources - eg. immersive experiences, digital libraries, scientific equipment
- optimize the network for research and teaching
- build communities of interest - common platform to develop new uses

Why Faculty Participate
- increasingly specialized information
- access to expertise at remote locations
- multiple learning modalities
- access to resources not otherwise available

Learning Through Experiences
- eg. K12 students exploring underwater at Monterey Bay
- live surgery
- international musical instruction

Sharing Learning Materials

Access to resources:
- United Nations - el ciberbus escolar (cyber schoolbus)
- MIT OpenCourseware

Research Channel
- Consortium of 30+ universities
- HDTV over IP experiments - 200 programs available on-demand
- access to remote electron microscopes

Data Transportation
- eg. Color MRI of a brain - 4.5 petabytes (Arthur Toga, UCLA)