CACHEBOX thaws frozen e-learning

ApplianSys is pleased to announce that the Kativik School Board in Nunavik has deployed a fleet of centrally-managed CACHEBOXes to boost e-learning at its remote schools across northern Quebec.

Kativik is the sole provider of both academic and cultural services to the population of Nunavik. It operates 17 primary and secondary schools, as well as 6 adult education centres in remote arctic locations, most being only accessible by plane. Its sites are multipurpose: in addition to schooling, they provide essential community sources of adult and vocational education, higher education, as well as teacher training.

The School Board’s connectivity options are limited to satellite, which is prone to latency and weather-related disruption. High-speed connectivity simply isn’t feasible – each site must work within very narrow capacities, often as low as 5Mbps.

With insufficient capacity to sustain its various e-learning programmes, Kativik found classroom content slow to arrive. Video playback in the classroom was simply impossible. Other media-rich content simply couldn’t download quickly enough to be usable during lessons.

Kativik looked to caching to help deliver content locally but feared a lack of technical staff at each remote location would make it impossible to deploy and administer. Any solution would need to push learning and cultural content out to each site, without the need for local hands-on intervention.

CACHEBOX was the ideal solution. By deploying a CACHEBOX at each site, Kativik ensures that content is available locally and can be served to learners at high speed, regardless of any congestion or latency on the internet connection. Connecting these to a CACHEBOXCMC at the board’s headquarters, a single administrator can manage and control each CACHEBOX remotely. And because each CACHEBOX can be preconfigured before being sent to Kativik’s sites, local deployment is made as simple as possible.

Thanks to CACHEBOX Media Library, a local repository for hosting shared online content, Kativik can push its curriculum out to each appliance in bulk. So online video, playlists, learning and tailormade cultural content can be precached ahead of need, ready for use in the classroom.

“CACHEBOX’s on-site resilience means Kativik can deliver on their vital cultural and educational remit without the need for technical know-how in each location,” says CACHEBOX Consultant Marianne Cowie. “The school board are delighted to finally bring digital literacy to the classroom and have ordered a further 6 CACHEBOXes so its adult learning centres can do the same.”

About

The Kativik School Board covers a large Northern Quebec territory that encompasses 14 remote school sites in Nunavik, most only accessible by plane. The board provides both academic and cultural services to the Nunavik population. So, beyond its 17 primary and secondary schools, it delivers higher and vocational education, teacher training, as well as adult learning from its 6 adult education centres.