A QUESTION OF ETHICS:
CHILDREN AND INTERNET ACCESS

Good morning. The premise of this talk is that equity in access to the internet is in fact an ethics issue; that inequity in access where children are involved can have cognitive and developmental impact.

One caveat -- I am not an educator.

I am however an experienced journalist with over 20 years experience in gathering information and drawing conclusions. From the fall of 1989 until the spring of 1994, I ran the program that was one of if not the only major source of news for students in 12,000 American high schools. In the five years I ran CHANNEL ONE I also visited dozens of schools all over the country, so I have some idea of the disparities that exist in classroom access to technology. Finally, I am the parent of two sons, one of whon is a seriously dyslexic college student for whom the advantages of technology are no abstraction.

I want to begin with some quotes:

Some cosmic:
Apple visionary Allan Kay: "The computer redefines what childhood should be."

John Perry Barlow comparing the internet to the invention of the printing press -- even the discovery of fire.

Some simply anecdotal:
Fox Online honcho John Roberts: I remember when I first knew things were different -- it was on Earth Day. I had on my cu-see me [explain] and I looked and there was an earth day flag flying in the snow in Antarctica -- and then there was another site and there was the New York skyline at night -- an on another Sydney's opera house -- and there they all were -- in real time - on my own screen. All in real time on his screen -- on his cu-cme camera in his office. The world almost literally at my fingertips.

My very favorite story involves that same C-U See Me technology... it offers my favorite evidence of the developmental impact of Internet technology. Last year I visited the Global Schoolhouse at Jefferson Middle School in Oceanside, CA. It's not a wealthy school at all, but has built through the sheer grit of one teacher a nationally recognized internet program. While I was there I sat with a 12 year old African American girl, clearly not well-to-do, as she talked to a scientist in Norway. I asked her if it wasn't incredibly exciting to "meet" someone so far away -- all the way in Europe. She looked at me as if I was crazy, pointed to the screen, and said in an exasperated tone, "He's right here!" To her the multiple time zones and thousands of miles were quite literally irrelevant.

Now consider this:
In a recent radio panel on gang violence in LA, a local expert became animated as he countered repeated callers who claimed that if inner-city families were strong, there would be no gangs. This counselor countered by saying that families were far from being the only problem; that middle class parents don't understand what's missing in underclass lives.. Middle class families have troubles too, he said. But their kids understand that there's more out here; they don't join gangs - they act out in other ways. They know what there is to lose -- and that there are reasons to protect it.

It is not my contention that the internet is a cure for gang violence -- at least not exactly. But one can't help drawing a metaphor -- that the Internet symbolizes access to the previously unavailable, whether it's reference sources, sports statistics or college information. Young people with no idea about the world outside their limited and difficult environment could reach out and gain access to almost anything almost anywhere -- to say nothing of distributing any proactive product they might generate in the same way and seeing their work out in the world.

Autonomy, creativity, and a way to link and find common ground with young people all over the world.

Now - for a moment - let's consider the four requirements to bring the Internet to kids.

• Hardware
• Wiring
• Provider

And I think we also need to add teacher training and maintenance/update. That's a daunting set of tasks.

The facts: at home [see handout]

• There are 67.4 million children in the United States
• 47 million of them in school in grades k-12.
• At home, 98.3% can expect to find a tv
• 85% a VCR,
• 63% cable,
• 1994: only 35% have computers. Moving up but whites lead
• If their families earn over $100,000 - that figure jumps.
• If they earn below $20,000, it sinks to 11%.
• 54% of computer buyers have college degrees.
• 74% of families making over $70,000 have at least one computer;
• According to SPA, white families are three times as likely to have computers at home as black or Latino families.
• Of 100m Americans who use computers at home, @60% are 17 or younger [census]
• Web users are upscale [25% have incomes over $80k, 50% professional or managerial, 64% have at least a college degree
• 62% access at home, 54% at work, 30% at school [over 16]
• Consumer marketing says average hold income of online subscriber is $61,6000
  But it's expanding both in attitude and actuality:
  STUDY SAYS ONLINE USAGE IS UNDERESTIMATED

In other words, no matter how technophobic they may be -- Americans "get it". So we can't say that Internet disparity of access is drawn from ignorance. Odyssey, According to the study, the vast majority of the American public identify online service use as "the wave of the future" (76%). Among those consumers not yet online, most see themselves being online by the end of 1997 (almost 50% of non-PC owners and 67% of PC owners), with the majority of those saying they will be online by the end of 1996. Most see strong consumer benefits, saying online services are "really useful" (59%), "are educational for adults and kids" (58%, 56%) and "make life easier" (47%).

So. Americans have gotten the message about the inevitability and advantages of life online. What's the other message important in access for young people? Their future. What are the skills more important for success and even basic employability for the generations which follow us?

• Teamwork, ability to collaborate
• Problem solving skills
• Ability to educate oneself -- learn independently
• The flexibility to change jobs and new skills as many as six times in one worklife
• Comunications skills
• SEVENTY-FIVE PERCENT OF AMERICANS NOW WORK IN SERVICE AND INFORMATION JOBS, WITH NEARLY HALF OF ALL AMERICANS INVOLVED IN THE GENERATION, DISSEMINATION, AND USE OF INFORMATION.[AAAS] RESEARCH ON EDUCATIONAL/COGNITIVE IMPACT RE THESE NECESSARY SKILLS:
• Students who used telecommunications increased an average of 3 grade levels in language mechanics and 2 grade levels in language expression [krendl/fredin 1988/Cohen/riel 1989] BUCKLEY TEACHER/BETTER REPORTS Goals 2000 report/oted
• Collins 1991: Tech into classrooms = more coaching, less lecturing Doe report: [3/95]
• Kids online more responsible for learning
• Great development in collaborative, cooperative learning
• Extra good for disadvantaged, less successful kids.
• Conceptual development
• Demonstrate significant changes in writing skills, collaborative learning when they can control their input.
• Employees adept at technology earn 10-15% more [Dept of Labor, has been debated but at worst there's some]
• Logic: fluency, literacy w/computer and online JUST LIKE LANGUAGES
• Daniel's term papers
• permanent inequality?
• Gifted research
• independent learning/math course
• Interdisciplinary mastery: the kinds of associations that lead to self-teaching...

Other research available in DOE site [many from Reinventing Schools AAAS report, some from Tech Impact 3/95

Cross-Cultural Understanding: Use of global communications by school children suggests that collaborative projects and information exchanges can promote cultural awareness and understanding. Students who correspond with and learn from kids in other parts of the world demonstrate greater tolerance for cultural differences and appear to benefit from discussions there. "The use of telecommunications in social studies education has been said to "eliminate the middle man" by putting students in direct contact with the people and the cultures they are studying; immediacy and personal involvement help to strengthen understanding and appreciation of cultural variation."

Writing and Communication "Studies suggest that, when communicating with peers about issues that matter to them, and when given an audience for their ideas, students work more diligently and exhibit greater commitment to what they produce. Within the context of collaborative projects between groups of students from different countries, the attention given to effective communication and thoroughness appears to exceeds the care taken to complete traditional writing assignments in the classroom. Using a network to strengthen writing skills, then, taps into students' motivation to convey ideas, and provides an opportunity for genuine commitment to the purpose of communication. "

Critical Thinking and Problem Solving "Collaborative projects conducted over a network often involve the collection and analysis of information, whether scientific, cultural, or geographical in nature. Students involved in these types of experiences develop the ability to think through problems and develop and understanding of how "real-world" problems are addressed by scientists and researchers. Additionally, exposure to a wide range of information from an even wider rangen of sources requires students to develop such higher order skills of comparing, contrasting, and analyzing information in order to find that which will be of most use to them. The ability to think critically and strategize about how to solve problems--and to do so cooperatively--is viewed by many as essential to the preparation of student for the technology-rich workplace of the 21st century."

In-depth Content-area Learning
"Access to a wide variety of resources and sophisticated information allows students to pursue academic subjects in greater depth than traditionally possible with textbook and school library resources. Although considered desirable by many, this opportunity to learn and teach in greater detail and through innovative means presents challenges to those teachers attempting to use telecommunications within a curriculum that emphasizes broad coverage of topics and the accumulation of facts."

Collaborative Learning
"In the case of network technology, the cooperative nature of learning has been shown to extend beyond the classroom walls, to involve students in other schools, other states, and often other countries. Children using networked computers develop skills enabling them to share information, learn from peers, and offer their own contributions to large scale, often interdisciplinary projects over wide area networks. FOR MANY, THE DEVELOPMENT OF SUCH COLLABORATIVE LEARNING SKILLS IS VIEWED AS CRITICAL TO THE PREPARATION OF STUDENTS FOR LIFE AND WORK IN THE 21ST CENTURY.

OK. So we know all this amazing data and outcome information. With that in hand, One might hope that our schools would provide something close to a level playing field. HARDWARE: 99% of our schools report having some sort of computer in the building. BUT 80% of them are obsolete Affluent schools have twice as many and more up to date models. There are 4.4 million PCs in American public schools for a ratio of 11-1. the latest figures show that there is both good and bad news behind those numbers. in 1984 there were 126 students per computer in us public schools by 1988 that figure had rocketed to 25 students per computer, and for this school year, according to the Q.E.D. database, it's only 9 kids per computer! Sounds great. even the modem numbers are getting better:
In the 1991-1992 school year there were modems in

• 11% of elementary schools
• 20% of middle schools/junior high schools and
• 30% of senior high schools

• 29% of elementary schools
• 39% of middle schools/junior high schools and
• 51% of senior high schools

The same [Q.E.D.] survey, when broken down by income of families, reveals what we probably suspect but hope is not so:

• On a continuum from high to low income, the student-computer ratio moves from 11/7 at one end to almost 14 at the other.
• A racial breakdown is even more revealing: In schools with none of what Q.E.D. calls "multi cultural concentration" there are 12 students per computer; in high concentrations the ratio is over 14. the least access is in Latino neighborhoods; schools with high Latino concentrations average over 16 students per computer!
• WIRED reported this month, from the Department of Education: the following ratios: In grades one through eight 12% of Latinos, 13% of African Americans, and 40% of white students have computers. In grades 9-12 the disparity grows: while both black and Latino students with computers rise to @15% and white students to 50%. WIRING/CONNECTION Mostly in administrative offices only. 35% of schools have internet access only 3% in classrooms though [40% of those w/access at all] When schools w/out net were asked why not: 69% cited funding as major barrier. 50% cited poor equipment 47% cited too few access points. Teacher training and maintain
• Teacher in Maryland: We consider ourselves very fortunate in that we have apples and macs that are on carts.. We have no internet connections available. [nor does the office have a fax machine yet]
  With cuts to our education funds and an additional 17% cut due next year to our title 1 funds [mine is a title one funded lab] we see no ope of obtaining a separate phone line and an up-to-date modem unless the pta decides to do the funding.
  Few of our teachers are computer literate and even fewer of them have made the connection to the net. I try to share with them the delights of the internet [although I don't even have graphics available on the account I use for now - but its a free connection provided by Maryland university. Maybe some day I will be able to have a dedicated line in my room so the children can see the messages in the mailbox regularly and respond more directly.

TEACHERS
Teacher training or no use having equipment [non/use, librarian stories, ednet] Rank and file teachers often need to be seduced into using the facility:

• huge strings on how to engage peers, principals, school boards Needs maintenance, updating SECURITY CONCERNS
• concerns re pornography etc
• various surf watch, cyberguard etc
• parent/student/school contracts re usage propriety
• supervision - limited length of time using.
• Less than half say they worry it makes pornography too easy to get into the home (46%) or that it represents a possibility for non-secure credit card transactions (43%).
• A relatively small 24% express concern about online being "unsafe for kids."

RILEY: to wire every school as gore asked will cost $10 billion. What are they losing? WHAT CAN WE DO?

TECH CORPS LAUNCH TO BOOST USE OF TECHNOLOGY IN SCHOOLS NATIONWIDE Washington, D.C., (Oct. 10, 1995) -- The Tech Corps is a grassroots, volunteer organization designed to help schools prepare students and teachers for the 21st century by bringing the technical expertise of thousands of men and women into America's schools.

President Bill Clinton, challenging Americans to help bring the power of computer technology into the classroom, said, "This goal cannot be achieved by government fiat. It can only be met ... by communities, businesses, governments, teachers, parents and students joining together. A high-tech barn-raising."

Tech Corps volunteers will work with grade K-12 teachers and school administrators in their local communities to provide assistance with technology planning, technical support and advice, staff training, mentoring and classroom instruction. The national organization will provide guidance and training for state chapters. State Tech Corps hapters will operate autonomously and will identify and match their volunteers to local projects according to interests, skills and school districts' priorities.

Tech Corps volunteers will enhance teaching and learning nationwide through their technology projects. "In 1961, President Kennedy challenged men and women across America to join programs, such as the Peace Corps, to help build an infrastructure to tie developing countries to the global community," said Gary J. Beach, chief executive officer of Computerworld Inc. and founder of the Tech Corps concept. "Today's announcement challenges millions of Americans with technical skills to join the Tech Corps to build a technology infrastructure for our nation's public schools. This will help link our classrooms to the rich educational content high technology has to offer."

The Tech Corps build upon a program started in Massachusetts that has successfully completed pilot projects in twelve communities and will expand this fall to 47 school districts representing more than 60 communities. Five additional states are launching Tech Corps chapters today in New Mexico, Colorado, Iowa, Illinois and Tennessee.

"The Tech Corps' Massachusetts program has been a huge success, and I am confident thousands of people across the country will respond to the President's call to support Tech Corps in their communities," said Beach.

Industry and education leaders around the country are endorsing the Tech Corps as a significant volunteer initiative capable of having a Major impact on U.S. schools. "It is a travesty that we are using pre-industrial age technology to educate the children of the information age," said Thomas Wheeler, president of Cellular Telecommunications Industry Association [CTIA], one of the Tech Corps' sponsors.

"The CTIA Foundation for Wireless Telecommunications has provided the initial funding for Tech Corps to help remedy this situation through the combination of corporate technical skills and good old American volunteerism."

The Tech Corps is incorporated as a private, non-profit organization and is overseen by a board of directors which includes professionals from the high tech, telecommunications and education sectors.

For more information on the Tech Corps or to register for the Tech Corps Chartering Conference, visit the organization's Internet Web site at http://www.ustc.org.
House Web site at http://www.whitehouse.gov.

Contact Information:
Lois Paul & Partners
Web Site: http://www.sme.com/loispaul
Contacts: Mary Leddy (415) 286-3990 Mary_Leddy@LPP.com
Steve Chipman (415) 286-3990 Steve_Chipman@LPP.com
Brenda Nashawaty (617) 860-5642 Brenda_Nashawaty@LPP.com

Tech Corps National Office
Web Site: http://www.ustc.org
Contacts: Karen Smith (508) 620-7749 ksmith@ustc.org
Gary Johnson garyj@ustc.org

At nine o'clock in the morning of Saturday, March 9, 1996, ten volunteerswill arrive at each school in California. By noon, they will have led high-frequency telephone wire and coaxial cable from a central closet to the school library, science labs, computer labs, and as many classrooms as possible. In the afternoon, volunteers from hundreds of California high-technology companies will bring professional testing equipment from their companies to the schools to test and certify the work done in the morning. At the end of the day, each school in California will have been visited, surveyed, and certified. We will use exactly the same technology for the schools that we use to network our own companies and institutions. We will use the same installation tools, planning manuals, and testing equipment we use daily in our businesses. We will install simple, but technically advanced technology to solve one third of the challenge of connecting our schools to the Internet: linking the school libraries, science labs, and classrooms to a central point. This complements other initiatives to link the central point to the outside world, and other initiatives to place computer equipment in the classrooms and libraries.

This is a private initiative: volunteer parents, teachers, administrators, and students, together with volunteer engineers from California's high-technology companies, businesses, and unions will come together on NetDay to link all California schools with the global Internet.

When I was preparing to bring my 4th grade NAI reading students to my home for Internet and"ham " radio demos,i asked for greetings. The response was terrific. The kids loved all the messages and will be answering them over the next few weeks. Thanks so much for the great hellos. They have located all the places on the map and are trying to decide who will be answering which message. Thanks. Carol S. Bailey P.O. Box 836 Warm Springs, OR 97761

Ednet:
Our ninth grade interdisciplinary team is about to visit the us holocaust memorial museum in wash dc. We hope our students will develop essays, poems and graphic art in response to this visit, and these products will be posted to our web site.

We encourage interdisciplinary and on-line interaction on the topic as part of a unit called the beast within. I hope everyone will take a look...

This one came from a ch e-mail from a high school librarian in east Tennessee, received shortly after I put us on the net in 1994.
I'm on the internet through the generosity of Martin Marietta at Oak Ridge, TN.. We are a rural school, but relatively poor. Being on the internet has literally helped me to have one of the best libraries in the state. Because of the internet I have been able to let students literally travel places we can't imagine. I have had students become experts on NAFTA and teach classes [the NAFTA document was on the internet and we pulled it down and found that the original document even had vocabulary words.] I also aided a student doing a controversial senior thesis on same sex adoption. The student was able to join list serve groups and go into libraries all across the country and pull documents that I will never be able to have in a rural high school library.

This teacher, like many others, would never be able to get funding or, just as critically, training in how to provide this sort of learning experience with out a corporate sponsor. She and her private partner were smart enough and resourceful enough to establish such a collaboration. What are we saying to and doing to the children for whom such largess is unavailable?

Just as technology is reshaping other institutions, it has the potential to reshape education, ending the disjunction between school and the broader society. [AAAS] Technology can become the force that equalizes the educational opportunities of all children regardless of location and social and economic circumstance. This should be the national goal. [AAAS]

Government cannot ensure equity. Only a commitment by the public and by all levels of the educational system can do that. Society has a great interest in enabling all its citizens to participate in the economic and social mainstream. Technology offers one of the most powerful means available for breaching the barriers of class, race, and income that divide America. [sec ed report reinventing schools [AAAS] equity pg 3]

Yahoo: http://www.yahoo.com

Electronic Newsstand Homepage http://www.enews.com

EDUCOM: http://www.educom.edu

Global Schoolhouse Home Page http://k12.cnidr.org/gsh/gshwelcome.html

Yahoo - Education:K-12 http://www.yahoo.com/Education/K_12

*U.S. Department of Education http://www.ed.gov

AskERIC Home Page http://ericir.syr.edu

*Yahoo Education:On-line http://www.yahoo.com/Education/On_line_Teaching_and_Learning Teaching and Learning

Universities(All) http://www.mit.edu:8001/people/cdemello/univ-full.html

*Reinventing Schools: http://www.nas.edu/nap/online/techgap/welcome.html

The Technology Is Now

Welcome to PoliticsUSA http://www.politicsUSA.com

The College Guide--Table of Contents http://www2.interpath.net/jayi

Yahoo - Reference:Libraries http://www.yahoo.com/Reference/Libraries

State Library Agencies http://www.state.wi.us/0/agencies/dpi/www/statelib.html

Educational Structures? http://www.americast.com/K12/what.html

Cool Student Resources http://www.teleport.com/~burrell

KIDLINK: Global Networking for Youth 10-15 http://www.kidlink.org

Star Schools Program http://www.ed.gov/prog_info/StarSchools

National Institute on the Education http://www.ed.gov/prog_info/At-Risk of At-Risk Students

Bartlett, John. 1901. Familiar Quotations http://www.cc.columbia.edu/acis/bartleby/bartlett

UCIS:The Ultimate Children's Internet Sites http://www.vividus.com/ucis.html#Children's

Environmental Sites on the Internet
http://www.lib.kth.se/~lg/envsite.htm

The Diary Project http://www.well.com/user/diary

Help Build a Better Theme Park http://www.itp.tsoa.nyu.edu/~alumni/dlasday/futureplace

*Overview of Technology and Education Reform
http://www.ed.gov/pubs/EdReformStudies/EdTech/overview.html
*Technology and Education Reform http://www.ed.gov/pubs/EdReformStudies/EdTech
ED Publications: Resource Directories http://www.ed.gov/pubs/resdir.html

In the afternoon, volunteers from hundreds of California high-technology companies will bring professional testing equipment from their companies to the schools to test and certify the work done in the morning.

At the end of the day, each school in California will have been visited, surveyed, and certified.

For the first time, we will have a complete inventory of the state of technology in California schools; this inventory will be permanently and instantly accessible on the World Wide Web. This inventory will be a universal point of access to the ten thousand home pages of California schools.

For the first time, everyone will be able to see where our schools stand, and be able to decide what is to be done next. We will use exactly the same technology for the schools that we use to network our own companies and institutions. We will use the same installation tools, planning manuals, and testing equipment we use daily in our businesses. We will install simple, but technically advanced technology to solve one third of the challenge of connecting our schools to the Internet: linking the school libraries, science labs, and classrooms to a central point. This complements other initiatives to link the central point to the outside world, and other initiatives to place computer equipment in the classrooms and libraries.

For some schools, wiring is impossible. Asbestos, brick walls, structural problems, or other factors may not let us lead wire to connect the rooms in the school. For a limited number of schools, ATT and others will provide wireless connection: radio links that are fast enough to carry data from computers in classrooms to a central point, for connection to the outside.

Other sponsors are developing other extensions of NetDay, which we will describe in pages now under development. The foundation, however, is to link as many schoolrooms as possible on NetDay.

This is a private initiative: volunteer parents, teachers, administrators, and students, together with volunteer engineers from California's high-technology companies, businesses, and unions will come together on NetDay to link all California schools with the global Internet.

• Prior to NetDay, volunteer engineers will survey the schools to plan the installation.
• During NetDay, parents, engineers, and parent-engineers will link the school libraries, the science labs, and as many class rooms as possible to a central location: the School Hub.
• At the end of NetDay, engineers will test the installed wiring using professional equipment supplied by the participating companies and institutions.
• The testing teams will certify each school's successful installation; any flawed installations will be identified for replacement.

This initiative is a beginning; by preparing the school infrastructure, we will eliminate the first barrier to full school connectivity.

The California State Department of Education has a well-written ONLINE Network Technology Planning Guide for schools designing their wiring plan. To order a paper copy of the Network Technology Planning Guide you may mail a check, payable to California Department of Education.

Government agencies may send a purchase order

Mail to:

California Department of Education
Publications Sales Unit
P.O. Box 271
Sacramento, Ca 95812-0271
The ISBN number is 1166
Call 1-800-995-4099 to order by credit card

These companies and organizations are providing company resources to survey the schools, develop the wiring plan, and test the installation at the end of Netday.

If you would like to become a sponsor, you will be able to enter your information in the next version of these web pages.

Your responsibilities are to survey your chosen school, prepare a design, arrive on NetDay with tools and expertise, and, at the end of NetDay, test the installation. Your design will be reviewed by a central panel, and, if approved, will become the official school plan. Your name, and, if you want, your logo will be attached to the school home page as an official sponsor. You may volunteer to do more, but this is the minimum.

The companies and organizations in the table below became sponsors by September 21, 1995. There are now an additional fifty companies and organizations.

A number of company presidents and executives represented all the others at President Clinton's endorsement of NetDay96, including Michael Spindler of Apple, Steve Case of America On Line, Glen Toney of Applied Materials, Steve Hooper of ATT, John Morgridge of Cisco, Bert Roberts of MCI, Larry Ellison of Oracle, Phil Quigley of Pacific Telesis, Ken Coleman of Silicon Graphics, Harry Saal of Smart Valley, Gary Forsee of Sprint, Bill Raduchel of Sun, Bruce Ravenal of TCI, Eric Benhamou of 3Com, John Seely Brown of Xerox Parc, and John Gage of Sun.

@home
3Com
MCI Telecommunications
America On Line
NASA Ames
Anixter
National Semiconductor
Apple
Netcom
ATT
NetManage
Autodesk
Netscape
Bell Atlantic
Network General
Bellcore
News Corporation
Books That Work
Oracle
San Rafael City Schools
California Institute of Technology
Sandia National Laboratories
Sasco Data Systems
California School Employees Association
Semiconductor Equipment and Materials Int.
California State Dept of Education
Silicon Graphics
Silicon Video
CalTel
Smart Valley Inc
Cirrus Logic
Southern California Edison
Cisco Systems
Sprint
Communications Workers of America
Stanford University
Sun Microsystems
Digital Equipment Corporation
Symantec
EDS
Tandem Computers
Exploratorium
TCI
Harris Semiconductor
UCLA
Hughes Electronics
University of California, Berkeley Computer Science
Intel
Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory
Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory
W3.com
The Well
Logitech
Xerox PARC
Los Angeles Times
KLA Instruments
University of California, Santa Barbara
Lam University of California, Riverside
Far West Labs The Tech Museum of Innovation
General Magic
Transition Technology International
Coloray
Stanford Linear Accelerator Center
California State Assembly
Pacific Telesis Group
California State Senate
San Jose Education Network
California Cable Television Association
San Jose Mercury News

Almost a thousand volunteers have picked a school to help, and almost all of them did that in the first week following President Clinton's announcement. In the next week, we will generate the new school home pages that reflect the volunteers, and, for the first time, publicize the location of this Web site. Our new site will be hosted by the Well, and will have the name "Netday.net". This will greatly simplify access, and allow us to do a redesign of these pages.

When that happens, we expect a flood of volunteers. Only those of you in Silicon Valley, and a few who heard by word of Web of this site, have had a chance to volunteer. Dozens of new sponsors are volunteering, so we are designing a way for them to pick a school, or offer services to schools, who must then approach the sponsor.

Watch this space.