Case Study: ultra-fast broadband transforms teaching and learning in regional Victoria

Since connecting to AARNet, St Ignatius secondary school in regional Victoria has implemented a cloud-based Learning Management System (LMS) and, for the first time, has simultaneous College-wide access to HD video streaming.

It’s a far cry from the school’s previous connection, which was inconsistent and unreliable due to contention, aging technology and the school’s distance from the exchange, explains Bernie Lowes, Director of Infrastructure and Operations.

“Schools and students in regional cities, such as Drysdale are disadvantaged by the much lower capacity and speed of their Internet connection,” said Lowes.

“Frequent drop outs and disconnections were commonplace. To cope under these conditions, we were forced to reduce individual user bandwidth, making it very difficult or unfeasible for students to use media rich or bandwidth intensive online resources.”

Limited bandwidth restricted the College’s access to the vast array of cloud-based resources that support the secondary education sector such as file storage, learning management systems and products including Google Apps for Education, Edmodo and Microsoft Office 365.

“These resources can’t be accessed without an internet pipe that has the capacity and reliability to meet their demands. Lack of reliable access ultimately makes students under-prepared for their place in a digital-enabled workforce.”

Lowe was determined to provide staff and students with the best available technologies to put the school at the forefront of digital learning, overcoming the disadvantage of being located far from the country’s metropolitan centres.

To do so, the school turned to AARNet as the only provider able to offer the scalable bandwidth to meet its needs.

With a 1G connection to AARNet, Saint Ignatius College now has access to Australia’s research and education network, which includes direct connectivity to most universities, cultural institutes and many other schools, as well as high-bandwidth access to numerous cloud-based educational resources hosted on the AARNet network.

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