EBNet to open a world of educational opportunities

Students in the East Brunswick Public Schools have multimedia communications at their fingertips through a high-speed network—the first of its kind in a New Jersey public school system—that brings advanced communications capabilities to their classrooms.

The school district has installed one of the largest high-speed, Asynchronous Transfer Mode (ATM) multimedia networks used by a K-12 district in the country. Designed by Info Quest Group, Inc., Lucent Technologies and Bay Networks, the single data network replaces 32 separately managed systems to serve the district's 11 schools and its administrative facilities.

Besides providing students with quick access to the Internet and World Wide Web for individual research or group study, the network enables them to exchange research with students and scientists around the world, collaborate on experiments with students in other school districts, observe an archeological dig in South America or converse in other languages with students in other parts of the world.

The new ATM technology enables different types of communications signals—voice, video and data—to be carried simultaneously at high speeds over a fiber-optic network. The technology already is used in large public networks and by large businesses.

The district also will become a beta test site or "living laboratory" for new technologies and applications developed by Lucent Technologies' Bell Laboratories and through Lucent's technical alliances with other companies such as Bay Networks.

Lucent Technologies designs, builds and delivers a wide range of public and private networks, communications systems and software, consumer and business telephone systems and microelectronics components. Bell Laboratories is the research and development arm for the company. The company's Business Communications Systems unit has a development agreement with Bay Networks, a worldwide leader in the internetworking market and sells its products.

What is ATM?

Not to be confused with automated teller machines at the bank, ATM (or Asynchronous Transfer Mode) is a communications transmission and switching technology that allows all kinds of signals to be transported at various speeds across a common network.

How does it work?

ATM divides voice, video and data signals into packets or cells that can be intermingled and sped along a single line. The cells are all the same size, 53 bytes, so multiple cells can be handled quickly and routed simultaneously.

Voice communications require relatively little transmission capacity or bandwidth to move through a network. Video signals, on the other hand, require a very broad bandwidth to go from point to point. ATM networks make very efficient use of the bandwidth by chopping every signal into a 53 byte package and transporting many different media at the same time without them becoming mixed or garbled.

Just as a spoken sentence must be heard in its exact order to be intelligible, most networks must receive information in order. But, an "asynchronous" transfer reassembles information on the receiving end regardless of its order of transmission. Of the 53 bytes of each ATM cell, 48 contain the information the user is sending; the other five contain the "header" information that steers the cell through the network. The header gives each cell a degree of intelligence. For an end-user, the signals all arrive at a workstation in ample time for simultaneous use of voice, video and data information. ATM acts as a switch to support both narrow band and merging broadband applications. As such, it is 'multilingual"—seamlessly accepting signals from traditional as well as other high-speed networks. Established as an international standard, ATM has the potential to truly pave a worldwide "superhighway."

How fast is it?

ATM can transmit the Encyclopedia Brittanica—about 44 million words or 246 million characters—around the world in less than 15 seconds.

The use of the ATM network

The new network connecting the East Brunswick's 11 schools and administration building will be centrally managed from its East Brunswick High School hub and will streamline record keeping and expand the district's educational opportunities. For example, keeping track of enrollments, attendance, grading and class scheduling will be faster and more efficient. The exchange of this information between the schools and the superintendent's office will be optimized.

Speed and efficiency are just two of the features East Brunswick's new network offers. It also makes exciting educational opportunities possible:

• Faculty members using the same curricula collaborate with one another through e-mail, video or by a combination of media.

• Language students hold a video conference in French with students in France.

• The district uses video to broadcast a popular speaker to all student assemblies at the same time.

• Fourth grade students exchange weather data with students and scientists worldwide.

• International studies students go online for in-depth research on policies and issues of Uganda and conduct real time interviews with government officials.

• Science students collect data in the field, using Graph Link Calculators, and download the data to computers for analysis.

• A sixth grade class studying ancient civilizations participates in an actual archeological dig in South America.

• A high school student takes a virtual walk through the Louvre to prepare a report and an illustrated presentation for AP Art History.

• Eighth graders download weather data from passing satellites.

• Using photogate apparatus, physics students calculate acceleration due to gravity .

• Middle school students collaborate on science experiments with students in another district.

• Teachers take graduate courses via the Internet.

• A class publishes a poetry anthology using clip art and word processing.

• A teacher downloads materials and contacts Native American speakers for fifth grade oral assessment projects.

• A middle school class prepares a multimedia presentation on the community for new residents.

• The high school newspaper staff uses desktop publishing and transfers the paper to the printer electronically.

• Students and teachers explore the Internet and the World Wide Web for individual research or group study with no precious classroom time wasted in capturing and downloading information.

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