IUSD to Receive World's First K-12 High-Speed Network
This week, CENIC Networks announced that it has partnered with the Orange County Department of Education to provide Orange County public schools with the first-ever 100-Gigabit per second K-12 internet connection. The Irvine Unified School District (IUSD) is one of 27 districts to benefit from this ultra-fast network. IUSD Superintendent Terry Walker, who is the only K-12 superintendent representative on the CENIC Board of Directors and Executive Committee, said of this high-speed network, “It is the equivalent of adding 20 lanes to the 5 Freeway – imagine what that would do for traffic in Southern California. Now, imagine the possibilities for education.” Superintendent Walker continued, “So much of what we do as educators, to provide our students with real world learning experiences and access to resources, is dependent upon internet connectivity.” A 100Gb connection will provide IUSD with the limitless ability to dramatically transform how students learn by leveraging technology and internet bandwidth in a way that has never been possible for K-12 schools, until now. IUSD is uniquely positioned to fully maximize this opportunity due to the ongoing investments the District is making in its technology infrastructure. Students will have increased access to quality research resources, interactive lessons and video streaming to increase their engagement in science, technology, reading, engineering, art and math. Such an opportunity will afford our students with experiences found on college campuses and in innovative 21st century careers. IUSD will continue to manage how technology is integrated into classroom learning and will continue to educate our students about good digital citizenship. This historical opportunity will ultimately better leverage the human potential of our students, teachers and staff. To read the full CENIC press release, click here.
