Imagining the Future
Internet2 K-12 Applications at TJHSST

Introduction

The new high speed Internet2 with its data transfer rate of 2.4 gigabits per second will provide a different dimension for interactive applications. Since the relative speed of this new medium will be over 40,000 times faster than a typical 56K dial-up connection to the regular Internet from home, it will essentially be fast enough to download the entire contents of our school's very full web-server in just one second!

Such a fast data rate will permit remote access to graphically intense materials, including such things as real-time video conferencing, media rich applications with embedded video and audio as well as tele-immersion. There is also potential to access computational resources that are not currently available at the K-12 level such as remote distributed computational systems, supercomputers, and real-time virtual reality environments. High speed bandwidth is coming, but will the Educational Community be ready to utilize it?

Students and teachers at Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology are attempting to experiment with the potential of this new technology. The following are broad categories of projects that we are currently working on in our investigation of applications that could utilize such broadband access as we explore Advanced Network and Services' latest challenge called Imagining the Future. The projects are being developed through one of TJ's advanced computer sccience electives, Supercomputer Applications, which deals with 3-D graphics and scientific visulaization techniques.

Donald W. Hyatt
dhyatt@tjhsst.edu