News for and about the Internet2 community

["Lauren Rotman" <>]

Florida LambdaRail Becomes Latest State Education Network to Connect to
Internet2's Nationwide Network

Connection to Enable K20 Community Across the State to Benefit from
Leading-Edge Internet-Based Educational Opportunities

ANN ARBOR, Mich. - November 29, 2006 - Internet2 today announced that
Florida's statewide research and education network, Florida LambdaRail
(FLR), has become the latest Internet2 Sponsored Education Group Participant
(SEGP) and will connect to Internet2's nationwide high performance network.
While many of FLR's university members are already participants in the
Internet2 network, this new agreement extends network participation to
Florida's K20 community to enable thousands of students and teachers across
the state access to next-generation Internet-based educational
opportunities. 

The Florida LambdaRail SEGP, which will connect to Internet2's network
through Southern Crossroads (SoX), is sponsored by Florida State University,
University of Central Florida, Florida Atlantic University, University of
Florida, Florida International University, and University of Miami. By
connecting Florida's K-12 schools, libraries, community colleges, performing
arts centers and museums, the SEGP provides these institutions direct access
to advanced online resources. 

Specifically, FLR's participation in the SEGP program will facilitate more
significant participation in the Partnership in Global Learning (PGL)
program. The PGL is a consortium for research, development and dissemination
of e-learning resources for secondary schools, universities, and
corporations which has formed alliances among schools in Mexico, Brazil, and
the state of Florida. PGL helps to train teachers to develop and use
e-learning content modules in their classrooms and enables students to
interact and learn from one another across cultural and geographic
boundaries. Access to the Internet2 network provided by the Florida
LambdaRail SEGP will enable even greater collaboration among the
participating schools, especially for applications that use advanced
videoconferencing and other real-time communications technologies. 

"The Florida LambdaRail is providing bundled ISP and high speed research and
education networking services to other education institutions in the State
of Florida. The Internet2 SEGP offering is a good way for us to provide
expanded access to a wide variety of educational resources. We have offered
this to the Florida Department of Education as a way of providing these
resources for all Florida K-12 schools as a service to the state," said
Larry Conrad, Chair of the Board, Florida LambdaRail. 

The Florida K20 community will also be able to tap into already established
programs under the Internet2 K20 initiative like master music classes using
DVD-quality videoconferencing or events like Megaconference Jr., an annual
project that uses videoconferencing technology to bring together thousands
of students in elementary and secondary schools from around the world for an
all-day learning conference. Students can also take part in immersive
undersea exploration demonstrations with divers in remote locations around
the world, among many other applications.

"In bringing together innovators from all regions of the country, the SEGP
program seeks to encourage the development and use of advanced educational
technologies at all levels of research and academia," said Louis Fox,
director of Internet2's K20 initiative and vice provost of the University of
Washington. "The unique and diverse K20 community brought together by the
Florida LambdaRail SEGP will bring a new and exciting perspective as well as
additional resources to this expanding program and will help support even
greater contributions by this important segment of our community."   

For more information, visit: http://k20.internet2.edu

About Internet2
Internet2 is the foremost U.S. advanced networking consortium. Led by the
research and education community since 1996, Internet2 promotes the missions
of its members by providing both leading-edge network capabilities and
unique partnership opportunities that together facilitate the development,
deployment and use of revolutionary Internet technologies. Internet2 brings
the U.S. research and academic community together with technology leaders
from industry, government and the international community to undertake
collaborative efforts that have a fundamental impact on tomorrow's Internet.
For more information: http://www.internet2.edu/

About Florida LambdaRail
Florida LambdaRail LLC (FLR) is a Florida limited liability company formed
by member higher education institutions to advance optical research and
education networking within Florida. Florida LambdaRail is a high-bandwidth
optical network that links Florida's research institutions and provides a
next-generation network in support of large-scale research, education
outreach, public/private partnerships, and information technology
infrastructure essential to Florida's economic development.   For more
information: http://www.flrnet.org


CONTACT:  
Lauren Rotman
Internet2

202.331.5345



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