College library extensions take in the planet

Ruapehu Bulletin, Volume 14, Issue 653, 10 September 1996, Page 5

College library extensions take in the planet

Ruapehu Col lege's library is being extended by 51 1 million square kilometres, thanks to the installation of a pair of 0.63mm copper phone wires. Students at Ruapehu College are benefiting from a Telecom initiative that sees New Zealand primary, intermediate and secondary schools receive a special telephone line to be used specifically for learning purposes. Through its Education Foundation offer, Telecom will meet the cost of installation and also permanently waive the monthly rental for each 'learning line', for around 2800 schools. The learning line links the library with any other source of information on earth (area = 511 million km2) that is on the Internet. To accommodate the information technology suite, the

library is being extended by about 20 square metres through alterations to the entrance and the adjacent hallway. Ruapehu District mayor Weston Kirton joined local Telecom representative Tom MacArthur with students of the college last Friday to mark the start of their learning line service. Mr MacArthur told the gathering that several other schools in the area had also taken on one of the telecommunications links, including Raetihi School, Orautoha School and Ohakune Primary School. Through the offer, Ruapehu College also recei ves $8424 to fund classroom resources including information technology equipment through the Telecom School Connection programme. The company ' s education manager, Garry Falloon, said children are increasingly using telecommunications as an everyday learning tool. ' ' They fax each other around the country and around the world to gain and.share information. They audioconference and increasingly use the Internet and other electronicallybased sources to gain information." He said o ver 1 0,000 teachers have attended information technology tutorials, and even more students have participated in one of the classroom based activities such as last year's 'Ice Bound' and this year's 'Sea Keepers for Schools' programmes.