This section defines terms used in the Educational Service Units Act and section 79-1337, including distance education, dual-enrollment, qualified courses, technology, and technology infrastructure.
For purposes of the Educational Service Units Act and section 79-1337: (1) Distance education course means a course with at least one student in any of grades kindergarten through twelve who is in a different location than the teacher and taught by a teacher employed by an educational entity utilizing either two-way interactive video or the Internet without two-way interactive video. Distance education course includes a dual-enrollment course with at least one student who is in a different location than the teacher and taught by a teacher employed by an educational entity utilizing either two-way interactive video or the Internet without two-way interactive video; (2) Dual-enrollment course means a course taught to students for credit at both a high school and a postsecondary educational institution; (3) Educational entity means a school district, a private, denominational, or parochial school, an educational service unit, a community college, a state college, the University of Nebraska, or a nonprofit private postsecondary educational institution; (4) Elementary distance education course means a distance education course which is delivered utilizing two-way interactive video to students who are enrolled in any of grades kindergarten through eight; (5) Network Nebraska means the network created pursuant to section 86-5,100; (6) Qualified distance education course means a distance education course which meets any applicable rules and regulations of the State Department of Education, is offered for one semester of high school credit or the equivalent, and for which all of the participating educational entities are required to have access to Network Nebraska; (7) Technical training means training to equip educators with knowledge about the skills and tools necessary to infuse technological resources and software applications into the curriculum to be used in classrooms with and by students and includes, but is not limited to, computer workstation troubleshooting, distance education, educational software, Internet resources, local area network management, multimedia presentation tools, and strategic planning; (8) Technology includes technical training and technology infrastructure; (9) Technology infrastructure means hardware-related items necessary for schools to interact electronically throughout the state, including, but not limited to, physical connections, wiring, servers, routers, switches, domain name service, and operating systems and human resources necessary to maintain infrastructure, including, but not limited to, systems engineers, programmers, webmasters, and help desk staff; and (10) Two-way interactive video distance education course means a distance education course in which a teacher delivers instruction to students in a different location than the teacher using two-way interactive video on at least two different days per week during the course. History: Laws 1999, LB 386, § 3; Laws 2007, LB603, § 9; Laws 2021, LB528, § 42.