Having access to the Internet and acquiring the skills necessary to use, question, and create in a digital environment have become essential to living and working in the 21st century. Yet, this move to digitalization has created a digital divide between those who have broadband "access" and the "skills and attitudes" to…

Providing access to robust connectivity is critical to ensuring today's students are college and career ready. As such, federal, state, and district-level leaders have dedicated a significant amount of time, effort, and resources toward improving our schools' external broadband access, including both Internet access and wide area network (WAN).…

The National Geographic Society believes that schools are the last major institutions in the United States to adopt new information technologies because of fear of change, fear of technology, and narrowly focused public policies. The results of this failure to modernize schools has been to graduate workers who can't meet minimum job requirements…

This paper describes METN (Maryland Education Technology Network), a network which is designed to assist Maryland schools in developing instructional computing, while also working to provide equitable access to computers to all Maryland students. The process of creating the system is described, and a number of lessons learned from its development…

The Northeastern Utah Telelearning Project was created in 1985 to remedy problems of meeting core curriculum requirements and providing educational equity in rural schools, and to provide cost effective educational delivery systems to school districts. It was determined that a distance educational computer network using audiographic…

Since the early 1980s, the drive for educational equity has fueled school high-tech purchases. A common theme emerges: schools need money to buy up-to-date equipment and software and to pay for teacher training and technical support. Careful planning can ensure that educational technology is implemented in high-payoff areas, such as serving…

Analyzes telecommunications data in public schools in the framework of individual rights to equal educational opportunities, drawing from the Equality of Educational Opportunity (EEO) report (Coleman, 1966). Examines data collected by the National Center for Education Statistics (1996) to determine if there were significant differences in access…

The National Information Infrastructure (NII) is planned as a web of communications networks, computers, databases, and consumer electronics that will put vast amounts of information at the users' fingertips. Private sector firms are beginning to develop this infrastructure, but essential roles remain for the Federal Government. The National…

This report depicts the status of telecommunications network development and usage by K-12 educational institutions in April and May of 1996, as described by the heads of educational technology initiatives in each of the 50 states and the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico. These data are reproduced in this report as 51 "State Profiles."…