About LEARN: Activities & Accomplishments

PK-12 Public Schools

LEARN's network helps educators teach our public school children.

The Texas Education Telecommunications Network (TETN) utilizes LEARN's high capacity network to provide network enabled services for the PK-12 community in Texas as recommended in the Texas Education Long Range Plan for Technology. TETN core routers were deployed among the cities of Dallas, Houston, and Austin, and network switches were deployed in San Antonio and Tyler to expand the TETN footprint to connect Education Service Centers (ESCs) and Independent Schools Districts and students throughout Texas. TETN serves the PK-12 community as a provider of high quality intranet traffic including distance learning, virtual field trips, virtual participation in educational activities at a global level, professional development, virtual schooling and a myriad of applications utilizing the broadband infrastructure. TETN efforts are aligned with the National Broadband Plan for Education and the Texas Education Association (TEA) Long-Range Plan for Technology 2006-2020 with the support of online learning, digital content, data access and transparency and broadband infrastructure.

An integral component of the TETN Plus Network is the addition of an educational specialist in the TETN Office. This person is responsible for developing unique content for students and works with the ESCs, LEARN members and the Internet2 K-20 community to identify multi-state/multi-country student projects. Examples of programs that were available to public school students in Texas during the past year include:

    The JOIDES Resolution vessel is named for Captain Cook's vessel that explored Antarctica 200 years ago.
  • JOIDES Research Vessel - The JOIDES Resolution (JR) is a seagoing research vessel that drills core samples and collects measurements from under the ocean floor, giving scientists a glimpse into Earth's development. Data from the JR's ocean drilling offers a scientific means of understanding climate and environmental change throughout a significant part of our planet's history-a research subject often termed Earth's paleoclimate. The JR's core samples are the "smoking gun" in evaluating many historical events related to paleoclimate, changes in the solid earth that impact events like the extinction of the dinosaurs.

    Thanks to the LEARN network, Texas public school students were able to talk with geologists and other scientists aboard this amazing research vessel while they were out to sea on their way to Antarctica. Students learned about the vessel and its role in increasing our understanding of the seafloor, plate tectonics and past climate change.

    • Barbara Bush encourages school children in Texas to read.
  • George Bush Presidential Library And Museum - One of the major events at the George Bush Presidential Library was the Reading Discovery videoconference with Former First Lady Barbara Bush. This was the third year for the event and it has grown tremendously each year. This year 17 of the ESCs participated with over 18,000 students and teachers watching via videoconference. Another 8,000 watched a digital recording afterwards. Each participant received a free book from the Bush Library Education Department. With the success of this program, the George Bush Presidential Library and Museum offered reading videoconferences presenting Buffalo Soldiers and the Adventures of Peter Rabbit to students throughout Texas.