Wi-Fi turns bus ride into a rolling study hall

Last fall, school officials in Vail, Ariz., 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-technology experiment has had an old-fashioned—and unexpected—result, reports the New York Times: Wi-Fi access has transformed what was often a boisterous bus ride into a rolling study hall, and behavioral problems have virtually disappeared. “It’s made a big difference,” said bus driver J.J. Johnson. “Boys aren’t hitting each other, girls are busy, and there’s not so much jumping around.” Internet buses soon might be hauling children to school in many other districts, particularly those with long bus routes. The company marketing the router, Autonet Mobile, says it has sold them to schools or districts in Florida, Missouri, and Washington, D.C. Karen Cator, director of education technology for the federal Education Department, said the buses were part of a wider effort to use technology to extend learning beyond classroom walls and the six-hour school day. The router cost $200, and it came with a $60-a-month internet service contract…

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Wi-Fi turns rowdy bus into rolling study hall

Internet buses may soon be hauling children to school in many districts, particularly those with long bus routes, reports the New York Times. The company marketing the router, Autonet Mobile, says it has sold them to schools or districts in Florida, Missouri and Washington, D.C. Karen Cator, director of education technologyat the federal Department of Education, said the buses were part of a wider effort to use technology to extend learning beyond classroom walls and the six-hour school day. The Vail District, with 18 schools and 10,000 students, is sprawled across 425 square miles of subdivision, mesquite and mountain ridges southeast of Tucson. Many parents work at local Raytheon and I.B.M. plants. Others are ranchers. The district has taken technological initiatives before. In 2005, it inaugurated Empire High as a digital school, with the district issuing students laptops instead of textbooks, and more than 100 built-in wireless access points offering a powerful Internet signal in every classroom and even on the football field…

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