Sacramento's Educational Technology Gateway
What if education wasn't just the classroom but the world? For Sacramento area students, this revolutionary idea is growing in the here and now thanks to an exciting, new resource called BESTNet (Broadband Education Services Technology Network).
What is BESTNet?
Described as Sacramento's educational technology gateway, BESTNet is a shared vision of the educational community and defines as many things to students, teachers, parents and others. Literally a high-speed network that connects all Sacramento Educational Cable Consortium (SECC) K-20 member educational institutions, BESTNet also is an instrument to unlimited access of places and ideas throughout the world and beyond.
Who's Using BESTNet?
Using BESTNet, students can enter a new and creative environment to continue and supplement what they learn in the classroom. Already, students used the BESTNet connection to talk from their classroom to a Holocaust survivor, discuss life science with state park rangers, see how people lived during the Great Depression and learn about the Louisiana wetlands directly from the field. And teachers can use this environment to help connect their curriculum to standards, communicate with each other and parents and deliver lessons.
The goal of the BESTNet Web site is to use broadband capabilities to offer media-rich content. Currently, educators, students and parents can access original programming such as videoconferences and electronic fieldtrips and informative links to other resources. In addition, students are encouraged to learn more about video production as a way to express ideas and issues important to them.
As BESTNet evolves, so will the idea that education is a multimedia environment that provides a dynamic infrastructure for Sacramento's educational community. And access to the entire world through technology will just be life as usual.
Today's students are different than they were even 15 years ago. They learn differently and can feel disconnected from schools that were designed for another time. Called multitaskers or hypercommunicators, students today are "used to and respond to rapidly transmitted sights and sounds whether on television, computers or video games. They see no problem watching TV, browsing the Internet, listening to music and communicating with their friends at the same time," according to Apple Computer's educational Web site. A resource such as BESTNet feels comfortable to today's students and reinforces learning by using all their senses.
BESTNet Accesses the World
As the world becomes more complex, school fieldtrip budgets and arts programs are cut, a high-speed connection to the wealth of online resources and special programming fills the gap in a way textbooks can't. Suddenly, teachers and students have the opportunity to engage experts and leaders in all walks of life. And not only do students have the words and pictures as before, but they experience the ambience, the essence of a place and time -- a realistic extension of their imagination. In addition, once the technical portion is in place, anyone can continue learning without social or economic barriers, the best kind of lifelong learning possible.
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