Data integration is one of the single most challenging tasks any district can face. Fortunately for school districts throughout the country with data scattered in disparate systems, an open specification known as the Schools Interoperability Framework (SIF) is mitigating that challenge. SIF has emerged as a cornerstone of K-12 data warehousing,…

Discussion of the Florida Learning Support Systems, being developed by schools and businesses to better utilize information technology in education, focuses on use of the Internet as background communication, or communication between applications running on different computers without human intervention to develop new kinds of instructional and…

The Alabama Learning Exchange (ALEX; www.alex.state.al.us) is a network-based education system designed and implemented to help improve education in Alabama. It accomplishes this goal by providing a single location for the state's K-12 educators to find information that will help improve their classroom effectiveness. The ALEX system includes…

Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) is everywhere. The technology lets users make and receive phone calls over the Internet, transporting voice traffic alongside data traffic such as instant messages (IMs) and e-mail. While the number of consumer customers using VoIP increases every week, the technology is finding its way into K-12 education as…

Describes the development of a wide area network (WAN) in the Bismarck Public School District (North Dakota). Topics include design goals, network infrastructure, implementing library access, sharing resources across platforms, electronic mail, dial-in access, Internet access, adhering to software licenses, shareware and freeware, and monitoring…