Every Child Connected

As we move towards the Information Age of our nation’s history, it becomes increasingly important to ensure that all citizens have access to the internet. Maybe even more imperative is to ensure that every child has access to the internet, even if their family cannot afford a computer for their home. According to a study conducted in 2004 by the Pew Internet and American Life Project, only 44% of households whose annual income is less than $30,000 a year are online. That is unacceptable in the country that invented the internet.

I thought back on my days in high school and recalled very few times that I had access to the internet duringa typical school day. I remember our computer lab which was a room no bigger than a typical classroom filled with Gateway PC’s that were either outdated or broken and outdated (my high school has since updated to some better equipment). I might have been lucky to get online once a week if I had a project or assignment that required me to do so. When other students reflected upon their internet accessibility in high school, I found that my experience was quite typical.

I set up a group on Facebook that allowed users to join and answer a few questions I had. How often did you have access to the internet during high school? What kind of assignments did you have that required the internet to complete? Did high school properly prepare you for internet use in the future?

Most of the people I talked to only had access to the internet when they had a project or a research paper to do. Even in those cases, they were lucky to get online for an hour each day. Nearly everyone I talked to thought that high school had not done a sufficient job in preparing them to use the internet in college or in the workforce.

I e-mailed my high school English teacher, Ms. Isabel Nunes. She told me that on average a student will spend an hour online each week, but in some cases the amount of time is much higher or none at all. It really depends on how much the student values the experience he or she can gain from connected to the web. Other factors affect how often a student can get online during school: disciplinary problems, curriculum demands, and meetings with clubs or sports teams.

David Dziezynski, a junior at Albertus Magnus majoring in communications, graduated high school with me. When I asked him if our years at Wilby had prepared him to use the internet in college he said that most of his knowledge of the web came from “personal experience outside the classroom.” We can fail our children no longer.

President-elect Barack Obama sees the importance of having our children connected to the internet regularly if we are to strengthen America’s competitiveness in the world. When he propsed the largest public works project since the development of our interstate highway system earlier this week, he adressed this issue head on.

 “As we renew our schools and highways, we’ll also renew our information superhighway. It is unacceptable that the United States ranks 15th in the world in broadband adoption. Here, in the country that invented the Internet, every child should have the chance to get online.”

The propsed public works project is aimed at repairing our roads and highways as well as bridge construction projects, but much of it will be directed at improving technology. The government would pay for new computers in schools, new medical technology in hospitals and doctors’ offices, and a nationwide push to bring broadband to parts of the country that cannot yet access the Internet at high speeds.

The world’s economy will be even more reliant on the internet in the coming years. If the United States wishes to be one of the big players in the economy in the future it is absolutely crucial that we get every child connected and keep them connected.

A. Martin