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Giussani, B: European Politicians' New Mantra: Wiring Up Schools to the Internet

Some greeted his plans with skepticism given that many schools do not even have adequate basic equipment such as VCRs not to mention those classrooms that still lack enough plain desk space for all the children. But official enthusiasm for the Internet is obviously present.

Jacques Chirac
surprised listeners with his enthusiasm given the low level of his personal familiarity with technology. Last year he made a comment that gave away his limited knowledge of
the area when he asked at an inauguration event
what the bizarre plastic sitting object sitting next
to the PC was.

Giussani, B: ibid

Technology in Schools Project - Technology 2000

Net Day focuses on wiring the nation's schools through volunteer activities thereby not taking up any of a school's budget, taking little investment from the state, and relying mostly on donations from the private sector. As the webpage of the New York City Washington Irving High School - linked in from the ‘local' Net Day site "New York Connects" - tells visitors:

"Internet Day NYC is part of the nationwide effort, [Net Day 2000], started in 1996 by John Gage of Sun Microsystems and Michael Kaufman from PBS to make sure that students and schools are provided an opportunity to keep up with technology. With the growth of businesses reliant on computers and the Internet, providing access to youths early on will give them the advantage and experience to prepare them for the future workplace."

From Florida to Delaware, from Wisconsin to Oregon, people across the country join in through volunteer efforts to wire public schools in their communities.

The enthusiasm for wiring public schools is not just an American phenomenon. Several European top politicians have expressed concerns about the need to get their public schools wired. Some of these efforts seem more realistic than others, but the main point is that the phenomenon is spreading beyond the borders of the United States.The Italian minister of Education has announced plans to connect 15,000 schools by the year 2000. Germany has somewhat less ambitious plans in wanting to wire about 10,000 schools in the next three years. The real problem is that the amount of money allocated for the project is only enough to install one computer per school. Moreover, only 20 percent of the budget is allocated for teacher training, an essential part of implementing the new technology in everyday education. France's president has spoken of his plans to get every secondary school wired by the year 2000. Swiss officials have also expressed the need for immediate wiring of schools, as have both leading parties in the United Kingdom.

The Western Australian government has allocated $2.5 million for the 1996/97 academic year, in total the state has set aside $20 million for the three year The Technology in Schools: Technology 2000 project. The allocation of individual schools had been transferred to the schools' special purpose grants at the beginning of Term 1 in 1997. The state has provided a very detailed explanation of what the schools are expected to do with this fund and how the allocations were determined. Moreover, institutions have been supplied with detailed information concerning both infrastructural concerns and technical training issues. The web document of the Education Department of Western Australia also mentions that a professional development program on the use of the curriculum will be created in 1997. The Technology in Schools project is concerned with issues broader than just Internet implementation in the classroom, the project is three-fold including: Internet in the curriculum; Technology Focus schools; and innovations in the classrooms. The third focus points out the overarching changes that may be introduced to the educational system in light of the new available resources. The Australian web document also recognizes the difficulty of locating specific information on the Web and informs the reader that the Cataloguing Section is working on developing improved search capabilities.

It seems that there is a sudden assumption across the Western world that implementing the Internet in public schools will bring about significant changes in society. This is one way to explain and understand the above described intentions of so many politicians to get schools connected. This assumption warrants a detailed look at the possible effects of the Internet in the classroom. However, before we can take a detailed look at how the Internet may be able to contribute to education and whether this contribution is significant enough to warrant its introduction in all schools across the board, it is important to take a more general look at the role of education in society to understand why a change in it may be of significant importance to society.

Eszter Hargittai,
The Pros and Cons of
Implementing the Internet
in the Classroom