KORI

(08-05-30) Dr.Irina Rozina, a professor of communication at the University of Rostov-on-Don, Russia, welcomed the opportunity to learn from the KO team about e-education and other applications... Dr. Rozina met with KO Executive Director Geordi Kakepetum prior to the formal briefing...Walter Epp, PhD, a member of the Faculty of Education at Lakehead University, worked with KO to provide the visiting Russian academic with a tour of the KiHS classroom in Fort William and to organize a briefing with the KO Team...Brian Beaton, coordinator of Knet Services, provided an overview of the history of distance education in Northern Ontario as well as the role of KO as the RMO (Ontario) for First Nations SchoolNet... Beaton described some of the challenges that were faced by early pioneers of distance ed in the region and how they were overcome. Susan O'Donnell of the National Research Council described the research relationship that has grown between KO and NRC over the last five year. The KiHS team, Darrin Potter, Freda Kenny, Linda Johnson and Derek Kanate briefed Dr. Rozina with the nuts and bolts of the first digital school in Ontario. In spite of the short time provided to them, they covered a variety of aspects of KiHS from the past, present and future...Carl Seibel, telecommunications officer for FedNor / Industry Canada, told Dr. Rozina that KO as a state of the art leader in connectivity, telecommunications and the development of community based applications... "It’s as good as it looks," he said. Brian Walmark described some of the research work that KORI is conducting including a partnership with the Lakehead University Faculty of Education to document the best practices and lessons learned from KiHS... The other major project is the National Indigenous Community Satellite Initiative Network Research Consortium (NICSIN RC) which will in part create a data base to collect data to measure the impacts of broadband migration on education, health access and economic development. This is only the beginning of a dialogue where we can share and learn from one another…

To see photos, click here... Watch for the upcoming article about the briefing in the KORI e-book!