Higher education faculty, staff and students are challenging teaching and learning paradigms through innovative connections with other colleges, universities, research labs, performing arts centers and an immense array of other resources over advanced networks.

The Chester County World Tour

The Chester County World Tour is a project of the Chester County Intermediate Unit to use IP-based video conferencing to develop language and cultural exchange for students in Chester County. As part of this initiative students and teachers in Chester County, PA have connected with Chile, France, Northern Ireland, Israel, and elsewhere to share language and cultural exchanges and professional development opportunities.

Asian Studies Collaborative (ASC)

About the Asian Studies Collaborative

The Asian Studies Collaborative is designed to establish a comprehensive framework to support Asian language and cultural education for K-12 and beyond educators. An advisory board has been created to support this work. The Advisory Board provides expertise and resources in Mandarin Chinese language and culture for the following: program design, professional development, standards-based curriculum, instruction, and assessment. The Advisory Board also provides guidance in the development of regional and global collaboration.

The Asian Studies Collaborative is designed to establish a comprehensive framework to support Asian language and cultural education for K-12 and beyond educators. An advisory board has been created to support this work. The Advisory Board provides expertise and resources in Mandarin Chinese language and culture for the following: program design, professional development, standards-based curriculum, instruction, and assessment. The Advisory Board also provides guidance in the development of regional and global collaboration.

The Asian Studies Collaborative will host its Spring Conference on May 6, 2011 from 8:00 am - 3:30pm. The keynote speaker is Dr. Yong Zhao, internationally renowned speaker, author, and distinguished professor of education from Michigan State University and most recently University of Oregon. Additional conference strands will include Sister Schools through the Chinese Exchange Initiative, Asian culture in curriculum, ACTFL Teacher of the Year, MAGPI global resources and the ZON virtual world.

The registration cost is $75 for Berks County Schools and $100 for out of county schools. To receive a reduced fee of $25 for university students call for assistance to Beth Kozloski at 610-987-8489 or email betkoz@berksiu.org or Sue Calvin at 610-987-8639 suecal@berksiu.org. For more information and to register please visit the Asian Studies Collaborative website.

Corporate Research and Aids to Education

In the Allentown/Bethlehem area, one of the largest employers in the region has been providing support for local school districts for many years by sending staff to classrooms to present the value of science and math in the real world.  They are reviewing connectivity as a means of expanding their outreach to a wider distribution of students and teachers during a single session, and without leaving their facility.  At the same time, they are contemplating high capacity access to the Pittsburgh Supercomputing Center for data analysis.  If they decide to connect, they will have avoided the cost of staffing a new data center, while increasing the productivity of their R&D efforts.

Digital Corinth

Expanding access to antiquity

The ancient city of Corinth, Greece has been excavated since 1895, creating a vast accumulation of information that is being digitized. The Digital Corinth Project teams at the University of Pennsylvania and the American School of Classical Studies at Athens are designing a unique system for tagging of digital components and the creation of tools and lesson plans that draw on the data to present learning opportunities on the architecture, city planning, social and religious life of the city of Corinth during the Roman occupation in 44 BC. Students and teachers from around the world will be able to utilize these learning resources and opportunities without ever leaving their classrooms.

Dynamic Circuit Networks

Overcoming the short term, high capacity bandwidth requirement

A new service offering from Internet2 called “Dynamic Circuit Networks” gives MAGPI the ability to provide from 1Gbps to 10 Gbps of bandwidth from an appropriately connected institution in PA, NJ, or DE to another similarly connected site in the United States and even specific locations in Europe.  Campuses of universities and research facilities can dynamically create these pathways for limited periods of time and then disconnect the circuit when the application is finished.  This resolves issues such as the research requirement for large amounts of bandwidth, but limits the financial responsibility to the length of the transmission.  Once the internal infrastructure is created, institutions can share this high capacity access for minimal cost and effort.  The University of Pennsylvania has requested this service for downloading very large files to their High Energy Physics Department from the Large Hadron Collider in Cern, Switzerland.