The Internet Innovation Alliance is a broad-based coalition of business and non-profit organizations that aim to ensure every American, regardless of race, income or geography, has access to the critical tool that is broadband Internet. The IIA seeks to promote public policies that support equal opportunity for universal broadband availability and adoption so that everyone, everywhere can seize the benefits of the Internet - from education to health care, employment to community building, civic engagement and beyond.
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Blog posts tagged with 'Education'
Wednesday, September 01
In a recent study, the U.S. Commerce Department estimated that differences in income and education accounted for about half of the gap in Internet usage between whites and Hispanics and African-Americans.
— Shapiro, Robert and Kevin Hassett. “A New Analysis of Broadband Adoption Rates by Minority Households.” Georgetown Center for Business and Public Policy. Washington D.C. June 22, 2010.
Learn more facts in our ever-expanding Broadband Fact Book.
Wednesday, August 04
Via USA Today, college students returning to campus this fall will find it a little more difficult to download movies and music illegally:
Every college across the country must either have installed software to block illegal file-sharing or have created some other procedure for preventing it. The requirement is part of the 2008 Digital Millennium Copyright Act, which took effect July 1.
Some schools have been working to comply with the provisions for several years.
Under the law, student violators face fines from $750 to $30,000 for each song or movie downloaded. If a court determines the infringement was “willful,” that fine can be as much as $250,000, although some judges have reduced higher fines, saying they’re unreasonable. Schools’ liability is limited if they cooperate with law enforcement.
Monday, April 26
80% of parents say the Internet helps children with their schoolwork.
— “September Commission Meeting” Federal Communications Commission. September 29, 2009.
Monday, April 19
In 2008, the 94 percent of U.S. schools with Internet access used almost exclusively broadband connections, but residentially-based broadband in rural areas continues to lag the availability in metropolitan regions.
— Robert LaRose et. al., “Closing the Rural Broadband Gap,” Department of Telecommunication, Information Studies, and Media, Michigan State University. November 30, 2008.
Thursday, April 15
IIA Co-chairman David Sutphen discusses digital literacy and education at a recent IIA Hill Academy event.
Monday, April 05
41% of students use email and messaging to contact teachers or classmates about schoolwork.
“September Commission Meeting” Federal Communications Commission. September 29, 2009.
Wednesday, March 31
With the arrival of Apple’s iPad just days away, Seton Hill University in Greensburg, Pennsylvania has announced that starting in the fall every full-time student will receive one of the devices as part of their enrollment.
Tuesday, February 23
Via the New York Times, Tufts University has changed its admission policy to allow would-be students to include YouTube videos about themselves as part of their application:
Lee Coffin, the dean of undergraduate admissions, said the idea came to him last spring, when watching a YouTube video someone had sent him. “I thought, ‘If this kid applied to Tufts, I’d admit him in a minute, without anything else,’” Mr. Coffin said.
For their videos, some students sat in their bedroom and talked earnestly into the camera, while others made day-in-the-life montages, featuring buddies, burgers and lacrosse practice. A budding D.J. sent clips from one of his raves, with a suggestion that such parties might be welcome at Tufts.
Friday, February 12
The New York Times examines an interesting school bus experiment in Arizona:
Students endure hundreds of hours on yellow buses each year getting to and from school in this desert exurb of Tucson, and stir-crazy teenagers break the monotony by teasing, texting, flirting, shouting, climbing (over seats) and sometimes punching (seats or seatmates).
But on this chilly morning, as bus No. 92 rolls down a mountain highway just before dawn, high school students are quiet, typing on laptops.
Morning routines have been like this since the fall, when school officials mounted a mobile Internet router to bus No. 92’s sheet-metal frame, enabling students to surf the Web. The students call it the Internet Bus, and what began as a high-tech experiment has had an old-fashioned — and unexpected — result. Wi-Fi access has transformed what was often a boisterous bus ride into a rolling study hall, and behavioral problems have virtually disappeared.
The Internet bus is part of a larger movement endorsed by the Department of Education to extend learning beyond school walls.
Monday, February 01
Today’s New York Times looks at the expansion of broadband on language education services:
With the growth of broadband connectivity and social networks, companies have introduced a wide range of Internet-based language learning products, both free and fee-based, that allow students to interact in real time with instructors in other countries, gain access to their lesson plans wherever they are in the world, and communicate with like-minded virtual pen pals who are also trying to remember if bambino means baby.
Monday, January 25
Navarrow Wright, President of Maximum Leverage Solutions, discusses broadband education and entrepreneurship.
Thursday, September 17
Technology can be scary — especially to those who can’t quite understand it. First there was the town of Gastonbury, England, which protested against receiving a Wi-Fi network after some residents blamed it for dizziness, headaches, and other ailments. Now there’s the garlic farmer in Victoria Harbour, Nova Scotia, who is trying to stop the village from receiving high-speed Internet. Reports CBC News:
Lenny Levine, who has been planting and harvesting garlic by hand on his Annapolis Valley land since the 1970s, is afraid his organic crop could be irradiated if EastLink builds a microwave tower for wireless high-speed internet access a few hundred metres from his farm.
“I think over a period of time it will change the DNA of the garlic because it shakes up the molecules,” he said Tuesday.
It’s easy to laugh at people who fear technology — especially when their fears are based around changing the DNA of garlic — but their protests highlight the need for education when it comes to rolling out technology. Any country looking to bring broadband to all its citizens needs to be able to assure people that the Internet can be a secure, and truly beneficial, tool for their everyday lives. After all, what’s the point of providing access if people don’t want — or are scared to — use it?
Thursday, August 20
Debbie Goldman, Telecommunications Policy Director for Communications Workers of America, discusses the perspective of telecommunications workers and the economic and education benefits of broadband for all Americans.
Tuesday, August 04
Australia’s education department recently installed filters on school computers in order to block objectionable content. Unfortunately, the new filter didn’t quite work as planned:
George Cochrane said his school-aged son and daughter, who study by distance education from their farm in Grenfell, were horrified by the sites they could access.
Other educational sites and harmless web pages for the local member of parliament - and even Education Minister Verity Firth’s own site - have been blocked by the filter.
The Department of Education and Training confirmed that the filter would be used on thousands of laptops for high school students. It is also currently used on all computers in schools.
“My daughter typed in ‘swallow’, as in the bird, and it blocked access to a documentary on swallowing toothpaste but gave you access to a male site talking about inappropriate material,” Mr Cochrane said.
As you’d expect, the education department is moving quickly to correct the error.
Monday, June 15
Jodi Lyons, Executive Director of SeniorNet, discusses the importance of teaching senior citizens how to use the Internet, and how broadband stimulus money will affect adoption among people over 65.
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Tuesday, June 09
In a move to cut spending, California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger is phasing out school textbooks and embracing online education. Reports the BBC:
From the beginning of the next school year in August, maths and science students in California’s high schools will have access to online texts that have passed an academic standards review.
The governor says digital textbooks can be updated easily - so learning keeps pace with progress.
You can learn more about online education in the IIA Broadband Fact Book.
Wednesday, June 03
Cellphones and other distractions have long been the scourge of educators. But one professor at the University of Texas at Dallas is embracing, of all things, Twitter. Read Write Web has the scoop:
Teachers are always trying to combat student apathy and University of Texas at Dallas History Professor, Monica Rankin, has found an interesting way to do it using Twitter in the classroom.
Rankin uses a weekly hashtag to organize comments, questions and feedback posted by students to Twitter during class. Some of the students have downloaded Tweetdeck to their computers, others post by SMS or by writing questions on a piece of paper. Rankin then projects a giant image of live Tweets in the front of the class for discussion and suggests that students refer back to the messages later when studying.
Monday, June 01
From the vantage point of 2008, the 94 percent of U.S. schools with Internet access use almost exclusively broadband connections, but residentially-based broadband in rural areas continues to lag the availability in metropolitan regions.
Robert LaRose et. al., “Closing the Rural Broadband Gap,” Department of Telecommunication, Information Studies, and Media, Michigan State University. November 30, 2008.
More facts about rural broadband access.
Tuesday, May 19
Susan Patrick, IIA Ambassador and President and CEO of North American Council for Online Learning, discusses the importance of broadband in online learning programs in the US and abroad.
Friday, May 15
Now that the insanely popular Harry Potter series has ended, British publisher Bloomsbury is re-inventing itself—and turning altruistic in the process. The Guardian reports the publisher has started a new venture which will deliver science textbooks online, for free:
The series will be the first from Bloomsbury’s new venture, Bloomsbury Academic, launched late last year as part of the publisher’s post-Harry Potter reinvention. Using Creative Commons licences, the intention is for titles in the imprint to be available for free online for non-commercial use, with revenue to be generated from the hard copies that will be printed via print-on-demand and short-run printing technologies.
Nobel prize winner Sir John Sulston—one of the men behind the Human Genome Project—is a partner on the project.
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