Northern Grid for Learning (NGfL) is a consortium of 12 Local Education Authorities in the Northern region of England, whose aim is to negotiate commercial partnerships with local and national ICT (Information, Communications, Technology) organisations to promote best value for schools and learning organisations. It is currently working on a brief from the Department of Education, to identify a cost-effective and sustainable connectivity solution for the delivery of learning content via the Internet to schools and educational establishments within the region. The ultimate choice of solution will be guided by cost, quality of service and sustainability. The project is also aimed at helping schools to meet targets set by the Government for specific 'pupil to computer' ratios, to be achieved by March 2002.

The opportunity to trial different technologies

NGfL has subsequently initiated two pilot projects in selected schools, to evaluate connectivity solutions based on thin client technology and satellite delivery, respectively. David Raymond, Technical Co-ordinator, Northern Grid for Learning, explains: "We decided to take the opportunity to trial different technologies within selected schools, and to analyse the feedback from both staff and pupils. In order to do this, we have instigated two specific pilot projects to explore the feasibility, benefits and costs of providing high-speed delivery of content and applications via the Internet. One pilot project focuses on satellite delivery, and the second on delivery from a remote server using thin client technology.

"One of the key concerns with thin client technology is that whilst it's a great solution for text based applications and spreadsheets, we need to ascertain how well it will perform with the multimedia applications used in education. We need to determine how effective it will be in a learning situation, whilst also concentrating on the security, management, costs and reliability issues of the system in terms of both classroom effectiveness and remote administration."

Working in association with Learning Pathways, specialists in the provision of ICT solutions in education, NGfL has chosen to trial Sun Ray advanced ultra-thin client computing technology from leading IT solutions provider Sun Microsystems.

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Centralised control and greater sharing of resources

Sun Ray appliances are simple, low-cost devices that require no desktop administration and are targeted at workgroup environments. The appliances are centrally managed by, and draw their computing resources from, the Sun Ray server. Sun Ray solutions include 'Hot Desk' technology, which enables users to access their computing session, instantly, from any Sun Ray appliance in the workgroup - at exactly the point they left off - just by inserting their smartcard in the appliance. A Sun Ray solution significantly reduces acquisition costs, administration, and desktop maintenance whilst providing easy, centralised control and greater sharing of resources.

Geoff Glossop, Learning Pathways' Managing Director, explains why the Sun solution was chosen: "We looked at a number of standard Citrix thin client solutions, as a means of delivering Wintel applications over the Internet, but we were really attracted to the Sun Ray solution for three key reasons. First, the potential price advantage to schools of having a simpler desktop solution; second, the benefits to schools of having that desktop solution managed remotely, and third, the security benefits of the Sun Ray appliances - schools are trying to move away from standard PCs because they get stolen, whereas a Sun Ray appliance isn't of any use to the thief, unless it's plugged into a Sun server."

The pilot has been set up in 8 schools across the region in North Tyneside, County Durham and Middlesborough. Pupils in the pilot schools will be using between 5 and 50 Sun Ray desktop appliances, depending on the size of the school. The Sun Ray appliances are connected via the school's network cabling to a local Sun Enterprise 250 or Ultra 10 server in the school. This server is then routed via the Internet to NGfL's two Citrix applications servers, which are located at Derwentside in County Durham.

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Online applications delivery

The applications being used in the pilot include the 'Literacy and Numeracy Pathways' integrated learning systems and the World Book Encyclopaedia from Learning Pathways, together with NGfL's own support materials. NGfL is also planning to include multimedia content from Anglia Multimedia, and online curriculum content from Actis.

"The World Book Encyclopaedia provides a good test for the solution's multimedia capabilities, as the application contains a large amount of high quality pictures and sound files," says David. "We're also planning to include some materials from Anglia Multimedia, comprising cross curricular multimedia material that is usually distributed on CD ROM, but which we intend to deliver online from the applications server next to the Sun Ray server."

David predicts that users will find the Sun Ray solution's smartcard logon facility to be a major benefit. "I think this will be extremely useful for pupils in school," he states. "To move between classrooms, a pupil simply removes their card, goes to another terminal, inserts their card and continues with their work at exactly the same point that they left off. On a Windows NT system, they would have to log off, then log on again at another machine, log back into the application, find their document, load the file and find the relevant position within the file - every time they moved between machines or classrooms. It is so much quicker and easier to access work via the Sun Ray solution. This will be a really useful facility for busy teachers, significantly cutting the time taken to start a lesson, by enabling the pupils to access their work instantly.

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Reducing technical support

"The ability to manage the system remotely will significantly reduce the level of technical support required in the schools. The local server in each school will only require a minimal amount of general maintenance, as all of the applications and computing resources will be stored on the remote server at Derwentside. Having the applications stored centrally also has major benefits for the application providers, who will only need to install or update software on one remote server, rather than having to go and install it on several machines in a number of different schools.

"I also see a key benefit in the fact that pupils and teachers will be able to access the system from home, as well as from school. By using an appropriate client downloaded from the Internet, students and teachers will be able to access the Sun Ray server from any Internet enabled computer. Teachers could therefore use their own desktop machines at home, to develop lessons on the integrated learning system, in preparation for the pupils to use via the Sun Ray appliances during lessons at school. Similarly, if a pupil was unable to attend school for any reason, perhaps through injury or illness, they could access the work they'd been doing at school, from their home."

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Enhancing learning environments

Running the pilot project will also enable David and his team to identify any potential problems that might occur, for example, with integrating the system with the school's current technology. Although initially representing a major financial commitment for the schools, the Sun Ray solution is attractive in the sense that the stateless desktop appliances require very little maintenance or management and hence, they offer a far lower cost of ownership than a network of PCs.

"We appreciate that there may be issues that won't be revealed until the pilot has been underway for some time, " concludes David. "We're currently negotiating with a number of telecommunications providers to begin rolling out broadband connections of 2Mb upwards to the pilot schools in the region, to enable us to test how well the Sun Ray solution copes with transmitting applications and multimedia from a remote server into schools over that bandwidth. The general impression from the schools so far, is that they feel the Sun Ray solution will significantly enhance their learning environments - and using the latest technology has a big motivating effect on pupils."

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