• To bring innovators in K-12, community colleges, universities, libraries, and museums into appropriate regional, national, and international advanced networking efforts, via the "Sponsored Education Group Participant" (SEGP) process.
• To encourage and help sustain partnerships among these education institutions, the private sector, and government.
• To enhance teaching and learning by facilitating projects that explore the ways in which advanced network applications, services, tools, and digital content can extend access to education and educational resources.
• To develop mechanisms for timely communication across all educational sectors and regions in order to enable quick, pervasive technology diffusion.

Background

The decision by the Internet2 community to extend access to Abilene, the Internet2 national network backbone, to the broad educational community and thereby engage innovators from all sectors of education in the development and deployment of advanced network services and applications, evolved through conversations among various Internet2-related councils and groups and discussions among Internet2 members. This decision, however, was neither rooted in broadly shared goals for, or exuberant optimism about, "reforming" or "transforming" K-12 education (or even higher education!).

Instead, this invitation was shaped by Internet2's goals, which are intrinsically technology related, and which would be best served by enabling Internet2 member institutions and "connectors" to bring the many innovators and innovative schools who do exist in K-12 (and in K-20) to the table - innovators who share interests in, and commitments to, advanced networking, content, services, and applications. Many in the Internet2 community believe that an important lesson learned from previous networking and technology experiences (e.g., World Wide Web) is that big payoffs come from getting tomorrow's technologies (and often preferred, open standard-based versions) into the hands of as many innovators and sectors as quickly and as "connectedly" as possible. This time, with the Internet2 K20 Initiative, it seems possible to bring in the broader education community much closer to launch by inviting innovators across the educational spectrum to engage in initiatives involving Internet2 technologies - without over-promising, overextending, or losing focus on its advanced technology missions.

The approach developed to connect the broader education community to Internet2 is through a process called, "Sponsored Education Group Participants" (SEGPs). The new SEGP program is intended to allow expanded access to Abilene for state and regional education networks, through sponsorship by Internet2 university members. State and regional networks may include nonprofit and for-profit K-20 educational institutions, museums, libraries, art galleries, or hospitals that require routine collaboration on instructional, clinical and/or research projects, services and content with Internet2 members or with other sponsored participants.

The fundamental Internet2 K20 issue remains how to achieve Internet2's goals of rapid technology creation, diffusion, transfer and evolution. These goals are the defining criteria for determining Internet2's relationships and roles in Internet2 K20 initiatives and partnerships. School technology leaders, leaders from the library and museum worlds, and Internet2 innovators agree that a well-conceived and realistic approach to K-20 can be a win for both the Internet2 and K-20 communities.