 |
 |
 |
|||||
My father found out last week that he has cancer. He will begin treatments this week and the hope is that he will be cured. The reason I bring it up here is because I can't conceive of going through a health situation like this without access to high speed Internet. When my dad found out that his yearly physical had turned up some troubling issues, where did he turn for more information? The Internet. When he needed to communicate with his family to keep them informed of his prognosis and the course of his treatment, where did he turn? The Internet. When he was looking for the qualifications of the doctors recommended to him, where did he turn? The Internet. When he needed to let his clients know that he wouldn't be working for some time, where did he turn? The Internet. When he needs to do work from home during this time of healing, where will he turn? The Internet. I can't conceive of living in today's world without access to high speed Internet. Maps, phone numbers, books, movie schedules, research for work, email, news, instant messaging, social networking, weather information, applying for jobs, registering for classes, taking classes, keeping in touch with family members, sharing pictures and documents, banking, shopping. I can't imagine it! So, how do we give our students the skills to use these resources? How do we ensure that they have access to the Internet while they're students? We can provide laptops, but that doesn't guarantee Internet access. Perhaps we need to lengthen school building hours to give students access to the network and Internet there before and after school. If we're in smaller communities, maybe we can work something out with local Internet providers. Maybe Internet ready cell phones are the answer. Honestly, I don't know for sure how to give students equal access to information. What I do know is that Internet access for students is a necessity in education today, and we better work together to come up with a solution for providing that. We can start by providing robust Internet in our schools, but we can't stop there. Access 24/7 is the goal. The question is how close can we come to approaching that goal? Dad's lucky. He has good Internet both at work and at home, and he is a well versed user of Internet resources, but boy, does it ever make me worry about those who don't have those resources. What a huge disadvantage in today's world!
|
|||||||
 |
 |
 |
