New innovative multimedia learning programs designed to be delivered via high-speed Internet could be coming soon to a computer near you.

Inukshuk Internet, a subsidiary of Microcell Telecommunications Inc., recently launched a variety of projects in Western and Northern Canada that could have an impact on post-secondary courses, training for health- care professionals and in education for distance learners.

In a recent meeting at the British Columbia Institute of Technology (BCIT) – a day after launching its high-speed wireless access network in Richmond – Inukshuk officials presented eight projects that are part of its $3-million-per-year pledge to fund the development of multimedia-rich learning projects across the country.

Dean Proctor, Microcell’s vice-president of regulatory affairs, said Inukshuk’s funding commitment was made in return for 12 licences it received from Industry Canada in 2000 for Multipoint Communications Systems (MCS) spectrum in the 2500 MHz range covering every territory and province except Saskatchewan and Manitoba.

Dean Proctor

“They wanted to have the learning communities involved in the benefits that Inukshuk, as it was rolled out across the country, could deliver,” said Proctor, who said the development of multimedia content is also a benefit to Microcell – perhaps best known for its Fido brand – as it extends its broadband wireless network across the country.

“If you’re able to make this product more interesting by saying there’s online content, there are learning proposals, there are reasons for you to hook up, I would think it would help our subscriptions.”

The projects in Western and Northern Canada received a total of $500,000 and include:

* $70,665 for two BCIT programs. One will train nurses to assess emergency patients with suspected or confirmed spinal injuries, using simulation to teach components that are difficult to teach in a regular classroom.

The program will be available for free, at least for the next year, on the broadband network for anyone to download. The second program, which took about 150 person-days to develop, is an interactive software program that simulates and extends the chemistry lab portion of reaction kinetics for first-year post-secondary and Grade 12 students.

“These projects just wouldn’t have happened without them,” said BCIT project leader Peter Fenrich.

* Grants of $47,800 to the University of Calgary and $10,000 to Memorial University of Newfoundland to fund the creation of an online module to teach infection control professionals (ICPs) to develop, and implement a surveillance program.

“At this point in time we’re faced with a huge problem as far as personnel goes,” said Dr. Elizabeth Henderson, associate professor in the department of community health services at the U of C, “because people who do infection control now have been doing it for 20-odd years and are reaching retirement age, and it takes five years to train new people.”

Elizabeth Henderson

* The Vancouver School Board (VSB) received a significant portion of the funding – $177,600 – for a program called Doing IT Right that trains traditional classroom teachers to use technology to develop courses into online learning modules.

“What we really wanted to do was start to build a revolution in K-12 education, and I think we succeeded in doing that,” said Judy Dallas, director of learning and information technology for the VSB, which partnered with the major players in the province delivering distance education – including Royal Roads University, Surrey School District, the Distance Education Consortium and the COOL School Consortium, a consortium of 31 school districts around the province that create online or digital content.

* Vancouver’s Emily Carr Institute of Art & Design received $75,000 to create a post-secondary online Canadian design course. “It’s probably the only course in all of Canada that is strictly Canadian design, which I find shocking and upsetting,” said the project’s co-director, Sam Carter.

“That’s one of the things that gave me the motivation to try to put together a course and to take advantage of the potential and richness that broadband delivers.”

* Vancouver-based Open Learning Agency, which provides education both online and through the mail, received $38,880 to develop multimedia learning objects for primary-grade children.

Directed to home-based distance education learners, it will soon be available both via the Internet and on CD- ROM.

Other grant recipients included the Calgary Board of Education, Aurora College in the N.W.T. and the Government of the Northwest Territories, which received a total of $60,500 to design multimedia learning objects (MLOs) to strengthen the reading skills of high school and adult learners from both Alberta and the Northwest Territories.

Uqsiq Communications Inc. of Iqaluit received $9,100 for a pilot program to increase access to the Inuktitut language.

Proctor noted that Inukshuk, named for an ancient symbol of Inuit culture traditionally used as a navigation aid, has also joined forces with a local group in Northern Canada, Nunavut Broadband Development Corp.

They plan to have the Inukshuk network fully operational in all 25 communities in Nunavut by April, 2005, although some of those communities only have between 50 and 100 homes. Proctor said Inukshuk’s first funding initiative attracted about 300 proposals from across the country, with 22 receiving grants.

It will soon be accepting funding requests for further multimedia projects and for connectivity projects similar to those in Nunavut.

“There are small community-based groups in B.C. that don’t have access to broadband that I hope will be coming forward with proposals,” he said.

(Jan Mansfield can be reached at jan@businessedge.ca)