New Zealand's Network for Learning

One of the first things that intrigued me about New Zealand's digital-learning efforts is the creation of the Network For Learning (N4L). The N4L is a "crown owned company," which means it's privately run but 'owned' by the NZ government, creating a public-private partnership that's different from the type we find in the US. The goal of the N4L is to create a "managed network" that will "provide safe, predictable, and fast Internet with uncapped data, online content filtering, and network security services" to schools in New Zealand. Although membership in the N4L appears voluntary, the NZ government has committed more than $200 million to this effort. You can learn more about the Network For Learning here.  

It's interesting to compare New Zealand's national commitment to building broadband infrastructure with the effort in the US to reform eRate, the federally funded telecommunications-in-schools program. By my back-of-the-envelope calculation, to match NZ's investment in high-speed broadband we'd need to spend more than $8 billion US to upgrade our 100,000 public schools.* A number of organizations and advocacy groups including my employer, NewSchools Venture Fund, and others such as EducationSuperHighway are working together to ensure that the Federal Communications Commission (which oversees eRate) commits the necessary resources to upgrade our schools.

The creation of a managed network for schools makes a great deal of sense, as it provides economies of scale and outsources "IT" management, which is often a headache for schools. At the same time, I found this recent article on Ed Surge about the rise -- and looming fall? -- of interactive smartboards to be very insightful. "Adoption of transformational technology must be teacher-initiated," writes Jason Orgbaugh (a former teacher), a simple point often lost in massive digital device rollouts (see, e.g., Los Angeles Unified School District's struggling attempt to procure 700,000 iPads). 

So yes, build the network. But then let the educators decide what technologies to adopt, and how they want to transform their instructional practice.

*Back of envelope math: I'm told New Zealand has 2,500 public schools, if all of them joined the N4L that translates to approximately $84,400 per school (211,000,000 divided by 2,500). Multiply $84,400 by the 98,817 public schools in US and you get $8.34 billion. Of course there would be large economies of scale from going from 2,500 schools to nearly 100,000 so the actual cost should be billions less than this -- but a proper upgrade will require spending real money.