Students at Mercury Bay Area School are joining the fast lane on the information superhighway.

This month the school joined about 200 other schools in New Zealand operating on faster broadband through the Government's Ultra-Fast Broadband and Rural Broadband Initiatives.

Mercury Bay Area School students (left-right) Trinity Major, 9, Poppy Richmond, 9, and Aimee Burton, 9, create reports for their classroom blog.

Faster speeds took effect at MBAS this term following a three-year upgrade of the school's internal highway, including the installation of fibre optic cables and a wireless network, and a major upgrade of servers.

Students' use of their own devices was tested and about 300 in the middle and senior schools are now hooked into the school system. Junior students are provided with laptops and devices are also available to students at all other levels.

IT operations manager Patrick Pfister says the delivery of faster speed is just tremendous. Overall throughput is now 50 times faster than previously but increased security measures mean the speed is about 10 times faster for individual users.

The increase has opened up a huge range of resources and interactivity, he says. Students can use a much wider range of internet tools and access information in various formats quickly and effectively.

They're also opening up their school world to their parents and their wider families through blogs. For example, Patrick's family in Switzerland can look at his 14-year-old granddaughter's classroom blog.

Junior school teacher Pauline Curtain says she's learning with her students as they develop their blogging skills. 'It's really great. For some children it's an easier way to get their thoughts down.”

It's easy to provide electronic feedback on students' work and it's great seeing students helping each other, she says.

Video-conferencing has also been introduced at the school, offering a high-quality option for joining groups together. A Mercury Bay teacher is teaching Japanese to students in other areas through this means.

The next step is the Network for Learning portal being developed by the Ministry of Education. This will offer teachers and students tailor-made access to the best tools available and a highly-professional, protected environment, Patrick says.

Principal John Wright says fast communication is fundamental to a learning culture for young people and for staff. 'It's not just for kids, it's actually for our staff to be the best they can be in a rapidly-changing world.”