Workshop to look at distance learning options

When the Legislature passed a bill to aid school districts with distance learning in 2006, Alec Baillie was worried.

The bill provides money for school districts to upgrade their distance learning equipment and link to Network Nebraska, a state-funded fiber-optic line.

For outside-of-school distance learning centers that charged for use, like Baillie's Loup Basin Technology Center in Ord, that meant trouble.

"The specter of free versus fee, even for nonprofits, raised a concern for us," Baillie said.

But two years later, as the bill is rolled out through the state, Baillie is much more optimistic about it.

The development of Network Nebraska should allow new opportunities to bring in more community education, he said.

"It's just a real wonderful program and a great opportunity for all of us," Baillie said.

The technology center will host a workshop on Tuesday to discuss some of those opportunities with economic development officials, business owners, nonprofit leaders and school officials.

Baillie said a new model for community distance learning could include seminars, classes and meetings on business and development issues, like leadership classes, computer skills, grant writing or alternative energy.

The workshop will include sessions with several experts, including Tom Rolfes, who is helping implement Network Nebraska, and educators and entrepreneurs from around the state.

It will include discussion of the law itself, its implications for schools and economic development and communities' distance learning needs.

And, appropriately enough, the workshop will be broadcast via videoconference at several satellite sites, including one at Central Community College in Grand Island, as well as Lincoln, Norfolk and North Platte.

"It really is a workshop that goes outside the boundaries of the Loup Basin," Baillie said, referring to the Loup Basin Resource Conservation and Development Council's nine-county region north and west of Grand Island. "It's an exciting time."