Dispatches from the school technology frontier
January 1997

Coming: Lower tolls for schools on the info highway

Now you can fret a little less about the cost of wiring your schools: A special government advisory panel has recommended that public and private schools, along with public libraries, be given large discounts on the cost of Internet access, the wiring of classrooms, and the use of communications services. The panel estimates it will cost more than $2.2 billion to pay for the program, which would be funded by major communications companies. Those companies are expected to pass the cost along to consumers.

The Federal-State Joint Board on Universal Service issued recommendations that provide for several benefits to schools, such as:

• A sliding scale of discounts ranging from 20 to 90 percent. The largest discounts would be offered to the poorest schools.
• Discounts on monthly rates for telecommunications and Internet services.
• Special deals for classroom and internal library connections, whether the locations are using wired or wireless technology.
• A universal service fund that could carry over unused money into the next fiscal year. The emphasis would be on spending intelligently, not just spending.

"The public spoke out loudly and clearly that they want an education rate for schools and libraries that is deeply discounted," says Anne L. Bryant, executive director of the National School Boards Association, which was part of a coalition of education, government, and library organizations called EdLiNC that lobbied for the discounts. "Two of every three Americans voiced their support for this discounted rate, according to an NSBA poll. We're delighted that the joint board listened."

National Education Association President Bob Chase, also a member of EdLiNC, says, "The deep discounts for all telecommunications services is the first important step to providing fair and equitable access."

In an interview with the Washington Post, Vice President Al Gore conceded that the recommendations fell a bit short of President Clinton's vision of giving schools and public libraries free basic service to the Internet. But, Gore told the Post, "while it's true that it's not completely free for all schools, the package covers more services than we were originally proposing. With the inclusion of inside wiring and other services . . . and with the extra money that they've put into the proposal . . . we will definitely be able to reach our goal of connecting every school and library to the information superhighway by the year 2000."

The recommendations will be passed along to the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), which is scheduled to vote on the proposal by May. FCC officials expect the measure to pass without much opposition.

At odds over copyright

Copyright confusion was rampant among educators even in the paper era, when teachers and students were never quite sure how much of a book or magazine they could copy and where they could use that information. The complexity of the digital age has only added to the confusion, sparking serious differences between educators and the software industry about what should be allowed.

The latest battle erupted over voluntary copyright guidelines released recently by the Consortium of College and University Media Centers at Iowa State University in Ames. Software industry representatives say the guidelines, designed for use in public elementary and secondary schools as well as in higher education, are fair and appropriate. But educators say they are far too restrictive and inappropriate for the daily classroom needs of teachers.

"For children's projects, they make absolutely no sense," says August W. Steinhilber, general counsel for the National School Boards Association, which opposes the guidelines. Other major groups opposing the guidelines include the National Education Association, American Library Association, American Association of Independent Schools, and U.S. Catholic Conference.

The guidelines, Steinhilber says, restrict children from copying more than 10 percent of a copyrighted work, such as the text of a novel, a musical work, a data base, or a movie. That detracts from the learning process, he says, because it severely limits students from doing comprehensive school projects. "If they should produce something commercial, then the guidelines should apply," says Steinhilber. "Otherwise, they should be given the freedom to do what they wish to do."

The guidelines also limit how long teachers can store student projects that use copyrighted material. After two years, such projects must be destroyed, according to the proposed guidelines. Steinhilber says that restriction puts burdensome restraints on teachers who want to keep exemplary projects as examples for future students.

Steinhilber says the guidelines also advise teachers not to show or use student projects that use copyrighted material outside their classrooms. In other words, he says, a project developed in science class cannot be used in math class--a restriction that would weaken a school's ability to have a strong interdisciplinary curriculum.

But industry representatives disagree that the guidelines are too restrictive. John Raffetto, spokesman for the Creative Incentive Coalition, which represents copyright owners, says the approach suggested in the voluntary guidelines is on target.

"It doesn't take away any amount of fair [copyright] use or add to it," Raffetto says. "It just clarifies it in the digital age."

They got wired

We started something: Our September 1996 story Wired Volunteers featured Hine Junior High School in Washington, D.C., where local volunteers gathered last summer to install cable--and get a jump on national NetDay. Looking for a site to kick off the nationwide effort, NetDay organizers chose Hine, where Education Secretary Richard Riley (shown here on kickoff day) observed the fruits of volunteer labor.

NetDay lives on--online

Want to keep--or catch--the spirit of NetDay96? Click on NetDay Wire, an online newsletter for people who want to share information about wiring their schools.

Funded by the education division of MCI and affiliated with Technology for Results in Elementary Education (TREE), NetDay Wire provides news and helpful information for folks who want to help their schools wire up for the next century--"so we don't all have to reinvent the wheel every time," says editor Laurie Becklund, a former Los Angeles Times reporter who became active in last spring's NetDay96 in California. The newsletter went online in late September, just as other states were planning their NetDays.

Becklund says she was nervous at first about checking the number of hits at the web site. "I was afraid there were going to be 12 a month," she says, "and all 12 would be mine."

She needn't have worried. In the first five weeks, NetDay Wire had 190,000 hits.

Now NetDay Wire is gearing up for the next national NetDay, scheduled for April 19. Becklund encourages schools to provide hotlinks to the newsletter on their home pages. And she hopes volunteers will continue to help public schools with everything from "raising money for technology to painting the bathrooms."

Putting their money where your mouse is

If you're worried how you're going to afford computers and Internet connections for your students, fear not. American voters say they're willing to pay a monthly fee to make sure school kids have regular access to computers. According to a poll by Public Opinion Strategies, about two-thirds of those asked would pay an average of $18 a month.

Support for discount connections for schools is also high, according to the poll, which was commissioned by the National School Boards Association (NSBA) just before the Federal-State Joint Board on Universal Service issued recommendations calling for Internet discounts for schools. About 81 percent of Americans believe schools should have discounted or even free telephone connections to telecommunications services so students can get hooked up to the Internet.

The public also understands the importance of teacher training, the results show. Almost 40 percent of respondents believe improving the use of technology in the classroom depends on better teacher training. "The public is sending us a clear message that in order for school boards and communities to have the best possible technology and learning in their schools, we need to start where the learning process starts, with teachers," says Anne L. Bryant, NSBA executive director. "For our children to be informed, our teachers have to be informed. Technology alone won't do the job."

Equity is a high priority for 89 percent of the respondents, who agreed that schools in rural and poor areas should receive assistance to get the same access to technology as kids in wealthy areas.

Although respondents said they'd be willing to pay some of the bill for children's access to computers, their opinions were evenly split on who should pay for school technology: private companies, the government, or communities.

Public Opinion Strategies interviewed 800 registered voters for the survey. The poll has a 3.5 percent margin of error.

Tell five friends

Attention school techno wizards and techie wannabes: Uncle Sam wants you. Just promise to show five of your colleagues the joys of computers and surfing the web, then point and click on the 21st Century Teachers web site, a cyberspace gathering place for teachers committed to training other teachers about using technology in the classroom.

21st Century Teachers, sponsored by a coalition of education organizations, seeks to build a nationwide corps of at least 100,000 technology-savvy teachers and other educators who will share their knowledge with their colleagues. The project is an answer to President Clinton's call to make teachers as comfortable with computers as they are with chalkboards. The coalition, including the National Education Association, the American Federation of Teachers, and the National School Boards Association, launched the project in October 1996.

Teachers can sign up at the web site to volunteer. They must promise to train at least five of their colleagues in some aspect of technology in the classroom and agree to be technology advocates in their school districts. At press time, the coalition did not have exact figures but estimated that approximately 6,500 teachers had signed up.

At the web site, teachers and other educators will be able to find other teachers in the project by geographic area and by school size. The site also has a section devoted to resources to help teachers with training or curriculum questions; included are links to other web sites and files to download. A third area of the site lists corporate resources and materials for sale. Future plans call for chat rooms where teachers can talk to each other electronically.

The money to advertise and maintain the web site comes from the organizations sponsoring the initiative.

E-Wire is prepared with Associated Press (AP) reports.