Dive Summary:
- According to the National Telecommunications and Information Administration, only about 30% of U.S. homes have Internet access, and schools are looking into new ways to remedy the problem.
- Initiatives such as the Federal Communications Commission’s E-Rate program and its Learning On-the-Go pilot program are working to get more tech and Internet access into underprivileged students' homes in the form of smartphones and wireless broadband connections.
- Individual districts such as the Katy Independent School District in Texas and Quakertown Community School District in Pennsylvania are also pushing to get more students connected off-campus.
From the article:
Christine Coleman thought she had made a good start in the City School District of New Rochelle (NY). The district technology director had talked Verizon, the local telecom provider, into helping her purchase 500 Droids for middle school and elementary school students at a reasonable price. The principal of New Rochelle High School had already diverted some textbook funds he had available into 200 netbooks for some of his students.
That, Coleman believed, would put a dent in the "digital divide" she saw in her suburban school district with a large immigrant community where nearly 40 percent of its 11,000 students are English language learners. Although she had not yet created a districtwide 1-to-1 computing program (she still hasn’t), she was on her way. ...