HERN Amended Proposal (p.2)

PROJECT DESCRIPTION PROJECT HERN: HAWAII EDUCATION AND RESEARCH NETWORK

A VISION FOR INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY

For the past three years, the Hawaii State Department of Education (DOE) has pursued a commitment to create "appropriate access to voice, data and video information systems for every public school student, teacher and administrator regardless of their location or learning environment by the year 2000" (OITS, DOE 1993). The key phrases here are "appropriate access" and "regardless of location or learning environment." Similarly, the University of Hawaii (UH) plans to utilize information technology as a key strategy in coping with the changing environment and increasing expectations. UH views telecommunications as the means by which its campuses and education centers may be woven into a seamless web to efficiently provide equitable high-quality access to higher education throughout the state.

The role of information and telecommunication systems and services in UH and DOE is to enhance student and staff learning, increase intellectual and administrative productivity, and improve academic and administrative effectiveness. To accomplish this, educational information technologies must:

Ensure equity of access to information resources for all persons involved in learning in the State of Hawaii.
Ensure ubiquitous access to information and telecommunication systems and services from anyplace at any time. Education must become a 24-hour opportunity accessible from anyplace via a multitude of voice, data and video devices.
Ensure coordinated and integrated access to educational information and telecommunication systems and services so that "public information resources" are easily, readily and cost effectively available to everyone, while privacy and personal information are carefully protected.

Just as life-long learning means that education does not stop just because one has graduated from high school or college, so too does it mean that learning does not stop once a person steps outside of the classroom. The vision for educational technology in Hawaii includes access to a telephone, a computing device, a video receiver and a telecommunication link in every office and classroom. Moreover, this vision provides for access to information resources via telephone, television and linked micro computing devices from the home, the field and places of business. Perhaps the fundamental issue is no longer, "What is the role of technology in the classroom?" but, instead, "What is the role of the classroom in the emerging era of information technology?"

The State of Hawaii is unique in that both lower and higher public education are directed on a statewide basis. The Hawaii Department of Education, under the leadership of a single Board of Education and a single Superintendent, is responsible for all public K-12 instruction throughout the state. The University of Hawaii system, under a single Board of Regents and a single President, provides all public higher education in the state through 10 campuses (including community colleges) and five education centers on six islands. Together with the East-West Center, a federally funded institute for research and education located on the UH-Manoa campus, the UH and DOE have formally created the Hawaii Educational Networking Consortium, in order to foster and develop educational telecommunications in Hawaii. This partnership provides an opportunity for the deployment of a statewide networking infrastructure to support all public education in Hawaii.

While the State is committed to a massive, high priority program of installing state-of-the-art information technologies in its classrooms, there remain critical issues: developing the management strategies, institutional structures, support systems, training systems, and user interface environments required to provide equitable and ubiquitous statewide access to networking infrastructure: technology, support and applications.

This proposal seeks funding of S4.3 million over a three year period to:

Develop the management procedures and organizational methods required to effectively integrate and deliver the HERN partnership resources -- public and private, hardware and software described below, 24 hours a day, seven days a week, year around.
Develop and institutionalize methods for training network users of all ages in the most cost effective and time efficient manner.
Experiment with reforms aimed at giving middle and high school students the information research, analysis, and management skills they need to be competitive in the 21st century workplace.
Collaboratively develop network-based higher education curricula for cooperative delivery among Hawaii's community colleges.

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