Podcast Series: Innovations in Education

Explore the full series of eSchool News podcasts hosted by Kevin Hogan—created to keep you on the cutting edge of innovations in education.

7 things supporting broadband best practices

State leadership can have a powerful impact on broadband best practices in K-12 schools–and a new report highlights success stories and strong policies supporting broadband connectivity.

State K-12 Broadband Leadership: Driving Connectivity, Access and Student Success, the new report from SETDA, highlights how state leaders are instrumental in advocating for policies and policy decisions that focus on broadband networks, bandwidth capacity, Wi-Fi implementation, and off campus access for low-income families.

“In order to provide personalized learning experiences for students to best prepare them for college and careers, and to compete in a global economy, all schools need access to reliable, high-speed broadband,” says SETDA’s incoming Executive Director, Candice Dodson. “No two states approach broadband implementation the same, however, state leadership is essential to the process in implementing high speed broadband for all.”…Read More

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eRate survey highlights broadband needs

Most schools need more broadband to handle mobile deployments and say eRate doesn’t meet their technology needs

eRate-broadband
Nearly one-third of school districts (29 percent) did not apply for federal eRate assistance because they assumed the program would have insufficient funds for their needs, according to a new survey on school eRate and broadband needs from the Consortium for School Networking (CoSN).

The current eRate funding level fails to meet schools’ broadband infrastructure needs, and almost half of responding districts (43 percent) said none of their schools are equipped to meet the goal of having 100 Mbps of internet access per 1,000 students as things are today. Only 25 percent of school districts said 100 percent of their schools meet this goal, which has been adopted and championed by the State Education Technology Directors Association, the LEAD Commission Blueprint, and by President Obama’s ConnectED initiative.

(Next page: How many districts can support broadband connectivity?)…Read More

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