What would an educator do with $650 million? Better yet, what "should" he/she do with $650 million? No, this is no game show. It's a real-life challenge posed to school districts nationwide in the year since President Obama signed the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) of 2009. The bill dedicates more than $90 billion to education, with…

School districts need adequate financial resources to purchase hardware and software, wire their buildings to network computers and other information and communication devices, and connect to the Internet to provide students, teachers, and other school personnel with adequate access to technology. Computers and other peripherals, particularly,…

Total technology immersion doesn't happen overnight, but with vision and determination, transformation can take hold and start to grow. Floydada Independent School District (FISD), winner of the 2010 Sylvia Charp Award for District Innovation in Technology, is a great example of what a district can achieve when starting with a modest tech…

The eleventh annual EDUCAUSE Current Issues Survey shows some very familiar themes among the top-ten IT issues of strategic importance to technology leaders in higher education. Indeed, all ten of the issues from the 2009 survey are back, albeit in a slightly different order. In addition, Strategic Planning returns as an issue of renewed…

A 2006 ECAR study defined cyberinfrastructure as the coordinated aggregate of "hardware, software, communications, services, facilities, and personnel that enable researchers to conduct advanced computational, collaborative, and data-intensive research." While cyberinfrastructure was initially seen as support for scientific and…

This report highlights the dramatic growth of broadband in the United States. The report shows that the Administration's technology, regulatory and fiscal policies have stimulated innovation and competition, and encouraged investment in the U.S. broadband market contributing to significantly increased accessibility of broadband services. The…

This article presents the top-ten IT-related issues in terms of strategic importance to the institution, as revealed by the tenth annual EDUCAUSE Current Issues Survey. These IT-related issues include: (1) Funding IT; (2) Administrative/ERP Information Systems; (3) Security; (4) Infrastructure/Cyberinfrastructure; (5) Teaching and Learning with…

Ongoing technical support is often under-funded in district budgets. Most rail far short of the Consortium for School Networking's (CoSN) recommended ratio of one technician for every 50 to 70 computers, or one technician for every 500 computers in a closely managed networked environment. Add to this the fact that teachers' needs for instructional…

Describes KIDSPHERE, an Internet-based mailing list that was created to further the development of school computer networks. Its role in building a community of educators on the Internet and in furthering the goals of educational reform is discussed; other topics include the value it provides, distribution, and funding. (Author/LRW)

This report shows how Universal Service Fund support for schools and libraries is used by school districts and libraries around the country. Highlighted are approximately 190 success stories of program participants that have come to rely on the USF to expand educational opportunities for students through better use of telecommunications technology…

Explores economic aspects of a resource discovery network (RDN) in the United Kingdom consisting of a center and eight sub-based hubs using Ithink Analyst, a modeling software package. Results suggest that with a combination of sponsorship and subscription income a RDN could succeed without grant funding within 10 years of its launch. (Author/LRW)

Describes the development of the Supreme Court Opinion Network (SCON) which evolved from the need for the Electronic Dissemination of Opinions (EDO). The roles of the Court, vendors, and publishers are explained; funding is discussed; and the computer system that ultimately emerged, Project Hermes, is described. (Contains 16 references.) (LRW)

Many educational institutions suffer from a lack of funding to keep telecommunications laboratory classes up to date and flexible. This paper describes our Remote Unix Lab Environment (RULE), a solution for exposing students to the latest Internet based telecommunications software tools in a Unix like environment. RULE leverages existing PC…

Describes CAUL (The Council of Australian University Librarians) which is dedicated to improving access by the staff and students of Australian universities to scholarly information resources. Discusses funding, access to databases, electronic information resources, information infrastructure and network information support, and electronic…

This statement by Senator Albert Gore, Jr., on introduction of the Information Infrastructure and Technology Act of 1992 highlights examples of applications of high-performance computing, the components of the Information Infrastructure Development Program (i.e., education, libraries, manufacturing, and health care), and participating agencies. A…