September 8, 2010
TECHNOS QUARTERLY Summer 1996 Vol. 5 No. 2
NetDay: A Partnership to Bring Students, Teachers, and Schools onto the Information Superhighway
Sidebar for Realizing the Promise of Technology in America's Schools
The NetDay Concept
NetDay was started in central California by Michael Kaufman of KQED, a public broadcast organization, and John Gage of Sun Microsystems. It was conceived as a grassroots drive to help bring California's elementary and secondary schools onto the Internet, using a combination of public volunteers and private contributions that culminated in a single, focused day of activity called NetDay.
The goal of NetDay was to install high-speed wiring infrastructure in local schools and to enable schools to connect to the Internet. The wiring standard used was Category Five, a level of performance that allows sophisticated digital video and data transmission within the school.
Information about schools, volunteers, and donations was shared over the Internet through a site on the World Wide Web. This method allowed new information to be available immediately throughout the state, and made it easy to monitor the progress of NetDay preparations. Posted on the Web site, efforts by individuals and companies as well as conditions in individual schools were highly visible. Companies committed to NetDay became models for involvement for other firms.
The
late Ron Brown, U.S. Secretary of Commerce, center, and Glenn Rule, 12, a
sixth grader at Freeport Elementary School watch a screen showing an Internet
link-up with President Clinton in Concord, California, during NetDay '96 on
Saturday, March 9, 1996. Next to Brown is Peter Pak of Sun Microsystems, who
assisted in the link-up.
California NetDay
On March 9, 1996, tens of thousands of volunteer parents, students, teachers, and high-technology engineers installed the wiring in public and private schools. Sponsors bought wiring kits and contributed their equipment and skilled installers. School organizers arranged events at their schools and attracted considerable media attention. Several top-ranking government officials came to California to help install Category Five wiring in schools for the occasion. President Bill Clinton and Vice President Al Gore were in a Contra Costa County school; Secretary Richard Riley participated at a San Diego school; FCC Chairman Reed Hundt was in Los Angeles; and the late Ron Brown assisted in a Sacramento-area school.
Massachusetts NetDay
Massachusetts businesses and educators, inspired by the California effort, came together to help schools in their Commonwealth. Many of these people, long committed to education technology, saw an opportunity for higher visibility and success. They wanted to provide help not only in wiring but also with PCs, network hardware, and support for teachers.
Such help is urgently needed, because the full promise of the Internet is far from being realized in Massachusetts classrooms (and indeed in schools throughout the country). According to a GAO report, two-thirds of the state's elementary and secondary schools lack computers to meet current instructional needs. Existing computers are often slow and obsolete, and only 20 percent of the computers in Massachusetts schools have hard disks. Teacher training and development have also fallen behind technological advances.
Education, labor, and business groups have come together to form MassNetworks, which is a campaign to help Massachusetts schools. MassNetworks provides the foundation for a statewide partnership—consisting of a broad coalition of business, education, labor, nonprofit institutions, and government organizations—to use technology to support school reform.
The goals of MassNetworks are: to coordinate Massachusetts NetDays by acting as a clearinghouse for donations and volunteer work; to support teachers, principals, and students at all schools, and to help them use this technology effectively; to create public support for long-term school reform; and to form an alliance of business, labor, government, and education groups to accomplish these goals.
Marilyn Strasser (cq), a Pacific Bell Pioneer of America volunteer, lays wiring down before it can be fed into the classrooms for link-up to the Internet. Strasser was one of approximately 66 people from the Sacramento community and businesses to volunteer for NetDay '96 on March 9, 1996.
This ambitious effort, the largest of its kind to date, will require large private-sector contributions to succeed. Over the next year and a half, thousands of volunteers will be mobilized at hundreds of schools. These volunteers will install wiring and computers to give students and teachers access to computers, the Internet, and the World Wide Web. Teachers will begin to receive the support and training they need.
The first event of MassNetworks is a NetDay on Saturday, October 26, 1996. On that day, Massachusetts pilot schools will have wiring infrastructure installed. Many more schools will receive other types of help as needed, such as teacher support, computer and network hardware, and technical advice.
The many tasks associated with MassNetworks are divided among working groups coordinated by members of the schools and business communities. These groups are responsible for tasks such as Web site administration, local site preparation and wiring plans, volunteer mobilization and training, outside wiring and connections, and teacher training and professional development.
To fulfill these goals, MassNetworks needs a budget of $3 million, including in-kind equipment, tools, and services. The organizers, who regard this effort as the beginning of a long-term school improvement initiative, are also working for passage of an education technology bond bill to provide the required support.
NetDays Nationwide
Schools nationwide are now mobilizing to plan their own NetDays. The California organizers of NetDay are orchestrating a month of NetDays on the four Saturdays of October 1996. In addition to Massachusetts, NetDay efforts are also underway in North Carolina, and additional inquiries and requests for information have come from 39 other states and several foreign countries.
In preparation for these events, California NetDay organizers have expanded their Web site to accommodate data for schools and volunteers throughout the United States, and are making their videos and other training materials available. The California group is also planning a nationwide “How-To” NetDay Conference in Washington, D.C., in late June for organizers from all 50 states.
MassNetworks can be reached at their Web site, http://www.massnetworks.org.
Photographs by Laura Chun/Sacramento Bee.
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