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EducationSuperHighway & Massachusetts connect residents to affordable broadband

Education Superhighway

The Affordable Connectivity Program (ACP), part of the Infrastructure Law, provides eligible households with a $30 monthly subsidy for affordable broadband at home. Latest News Uncategorized Broadband LeadersSchool Districts Lead the Way on ACP.

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Satellite Broadband Is Expanding. Can That Reduce the Digital Divide?

Edsurge

During the pandemic, broadband access became more pressing than ever for education, as schools and colleges suddenly shifted most teaching online. And that sudden shift exposed inequities in who has access to broadband.

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K–12 Schools Seek to Connect 12 Million Students Without Home Broadband Access

EdTech Magazine

For many, the internet has become an integral part of daily life. Phones connect to the internet, TVs connect to the internet, and even vacuum cleaners are online today.

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Untethered Broadband, Enhanced Professional Development and Other Major Ed Tech Trends for 2021

EdTech Magazine

The coronavirus pandemic upended education in 2020, sending more students home to learn virtually and bringing new concepts such as hybrid learning to the mainstream.

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Ensuring Access to Robust Broadband for ALL Students

Doug Levin

Benjamin Herold of Education Week has put together a real cracker of a series on the challenges of ensuring school broadband access in rural communities – and how E-rate (pre- and post-modernization) is helping to address the situation. Three further thoughts spurred by this terrific piece: That it costs more to provide robust broadband to rural communities seems to me an incontrovertible fact. Blog Broadband Equity E-rate FCC Rural schools

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7 things supporting broadband best practices

eSchool News

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. 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.

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5 priorities for broadband access

eSchool News

Equitable, reliable, and robust broadband access both on and off campus is essential to support digital learning and prepare K-12 students for life and work. Related content: 7 things supporting broadband best practices.

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High Costs Block Broadband Inside and Outside of Schools

EdTech Magazine

By David Hutchins CoSN report highlights the challenges preventing districts from ensuring digital equity. Budgeting Funding Investment Management Networking

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States, Schools Work Together to Bring Broadband to K–12 Districts

EdTech Magazine

States, Schools Work Together to Bring Broadband to K–12 Districts. Then the school began to run up against its 200-megabit-per-second broadband limit. eli.zimmerman_9856. Thu, 10/04/2018 - 11:27. During the past school year, IT officials at Wachusett Regional High School in Massachusetts began what would later become a one-to-one Chromebook rollout, deploying five technology carts holding 25 laptops each. .

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Rural areas have been slow to connect to broadband. More public funding could speed things up

The Hechinger Report

But there is one essential that has always been scarce in this part of the country and that she couldn’t stock up on: Broadband access. Perry’s home isn’t wired for broadband access. The lack of broadband access effectively ended the 2019-20 school year in March of 2020.

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Broadband Provides More Equitable Access to Education and Workforce Preparation

edWeb.net

And, that makes access to adequate and reliable broadband even more important as the development of new technologies continues. Broadband’s Big Picture. Marc continues to advocate for and work with several other broadband initiatives in the state and with organizations like SETDA.

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How to ensure home broadband access for every student

eSchool News

When the coronavirus pandemic forced students into remote learning this past spring, many telecommunications companies stepped up to offer free or deeply discounted home broadband access to families who couldn’t afford it.

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CoSN 2018: Broadband and Cybersecurity Are Top IT Concerns

EdTech Magazine

CoSN 2018: Broadband and Cybersecurity Are Top IT Concerns. Cybersecurity and broadband/network capacity are tied for the top priorities for IT leaders in 2018, while budget constraints were marked as one of the most pressing challenges for a fourth straight year. Data-driven instruction and decision-making broke into the top three this year, joining broadband and network security, which jumped one place to the top spot, and cybersecurity, which jumped two spots to become No.

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Edtech Reports Recap: Video Is Eating the World, Broadband Fails to Keep Up

Edsurge

The broadband gap isn’t only a problem for remote learning. That Broadband Gap Bar? schools had high-speed broadband connections. A different nonprofit, Connected Nation, has picked up EducationSuperHighway’s broadband baton.

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Broadband expands equitable access to education, workforce prep

eSchool News

This makes access to adequate and reliable broadband even more important as the development of new technologies continues. Related content: 7 things supporting broadband best practices. Broadband’s big picture.

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OPINION: How targeted federal action could finally chip away at the broadband racism faced by Black students

The Hechinger Report

Even after service providers launched discounts for broadband services during the pandemic — often targeting online learning — Black Americans across the South saw little change in their access to broadband services.

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Idaho Schools Weathering a Broadband Crisis

EdTech Magazine

Frank Smith For a frightening two weeks in February, Idaho public schools were scrambling to secure their own broadband connections after a state judge pulled the plug on nearly 200 schools’ Internet service provider over a contract dispute. Bandwidth Management Budgeting Funding Management Networking

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How E-Rate 2.0 Helps Schools Afford Broadband and Wi-Fi

EdTech Magazine

Funding Leadership Management Mobile Broadband Mobility Wi-FiBy EdTech Staff What K–12 schools and districts need to know about changes to the E-Rate program.

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Breaking Down the FCC’s Latest Broadband Brouhaha

Edsurge

Broadband policy is dense, and many of the articles and statements on the subject are frankly hard to follow. Previously this band was only available to education institutions—known as the Educational Broadband Service, or EBS for short. Opponents of the measure say that it strikes a blow to rural broadband access, particularly for homes, and thus misses a crucial opportunity to help close the homework gap. radio, TV, mobile data, broadband.

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OPINION: College in a pandemic is tough enough — without reliable broadband access, it’s nearly impossible

The Hechinger Report

Sadly, though, the reality is that millions of Americans — in rural and urban areas alike, and including many underrepresented minorities — lack the reliable broadband connections needed to access postsecondary and K-12 education in a nation that remains in partial lockdown.

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Addressing the digital divide’s effects on education and the workforce

eSchool News

million Americans who don’t have access to broadband internet. This often stems from the fact that rural areas are less likely to be wired for broadband services, therefore resulting in slower internet speeds.

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Changes to Federal Broadband Benefits in 2022

Education Superhighway

As of December 30, 2021, the federal Emergency Broadband Benefit (EBB) will end and begin officially transitioning to the Affordable Connectivity Program (ACP). The post Changes to Federal Broadband Benefits in 2022 appeared first on EducationSuperHighway.

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The challenges of broadband access in rural schools

eSchool News

Related content: 7 broadband best practices. But in order to take advantage of edtech, they first need broadband access. Thus, the price tag for getting connectivity can be expensive–in fact, schools and some businesses may be the only places with reliable broadband access. Rural school districts face many unique trials, and access to educational technology is no different. But the obstacles aren’t just about location.

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6 realities about district broadband connectivity

eSchool News

School wi-fi and broadband connectivity are showing improvement, due largely to an increased investment from the federal E-rate program’s modernization, according to a new report from CoSN. They also underscore why school systems need strong networks and robust, affordable broadband access to fully leverage 21st century educational opportunities. These strides demonstrate the impact of the E-Rate modernization, as well as state investments in rural broadband.

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Arkansas Leads the Way in School Broadband

Education Superhighway

In order to make this and other digital learning opportunities a reality for students, the state needed to increase broadband connectivity in classrooms. Arkansas is now the first state to meet the Federal Communication Commission’s school broadband goal of 1 Mbps per student, providing enough bandwidth to make digital learning a reality in every classroom, every day. The post Arkansas Leads the Way in School Broadband appeared first on EducationSuperHighway.

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Cost is still keeping districts from boosting broadband speeds

eSchool News

Cost remains the biggest hurdle for schools trying to increase broadband connectivity speeds for students, according to CoSN’s 2017 Annual Infrastructure Survey. The majority of school districts–85 percent, to be exact–meet the Federal Communications Commission’s short-term goal for broadband connectivity of 100 Mbps per 1,000 students, according to the survey. Next page: A positive trend in broadband costs.

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State Leadership Working Towards Broadband Access for All

edWeb.net

If the workday of an adult typically requires seamless broadband access, then it’s reasonable that today’s students need the same access during their school day. Recently, SETDA released State K-12 Broadband Leadership: Driving Connectivity, Access and Student Success , which looks at the current state of broadband access and how states are supporting teachers and students. The key is the state leadership to make broadband accessible to all.

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Broadband For All

The Web20Classroom

Over the weekend I was traveling through rural southern Virginia and Tennessee and saw signs encouraging law makers to consider legislation "encouraging" providers to expand broadband networks and heard a story out of southern Kentucky about students in distance learning programs were struggling because of the lack of access to high-speed Internet. The FCC recently unveiled the National Broadband Plan which aims to bring high-speed Internet into every home and school in the country.

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A school district is building a DIY broadband network

The Hechinger Report

But Bredder can’t give students the tool he considers most indispensable to 21st-century learning — broadband internet beyond school walls. In places like Albemarle County, where school officials estimate up to 20 percent of students lack home broadband, all the latest education-technology tools meant to narrow opportunity and achievement gaps can widen them instead. They’re building their own countywide broadband network.

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Report: Broadband access making ‘dramatic’ progress

eSchool News

took bipartisan action to upgrade their schools in 2016, with 5 states connecting 100 percent of their students to high-speed broadband. “It’s Next page: Better broadband affordability). Digital Learning and Tools IT Management IT Newsletter Networking & Broadband NewsEighty-eight percent of U.S.

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3 barriers, 3 fixes for school broadband

eSchool News

A new report urges state leaders to help all school districts access high-speed school broadband. Nationwide, 23 percent of school districts still do not meet the Federal Communication Commission’s (FCC) minimum school broadband access goal of 100 kbps per student, according to a state-by-state broadband connectivity report from the nonprofit EducationSuperHighway. per student budget for districts that do not meet the school broadband connectivity goals.

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Arkansas launches $13M school broadband upgrade

eSchool News

States take critical look at broadband infrastructure and its capacity to support 21st-century learning. As school broadband access becomes critical for student success, states are beginning to evaluate their broadband infrastructure to determine if upgrades and modernization are necessary. The network linked schools together, but in 2015, broadband internet connectivity is lacking. Next page: Details about the broadband upgrade.

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Ohio districts move to gigabit broadband

eSchool News

Corporate program aims to leverage gigabit broadband speeds to boost personalized learning. Fifteen K-12 school districts in Ohio will receive ultra-fast gigabit broadband speeds in an effort to personalize instruction for students. Consolidated Electric Cooperative will use the ultra-fast broadband to provide schools with the speed and bandwidth needed to keep up with technology demands and comply with local education mandates, including the move to online testing.

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Free School Broadband Comparison Tool

techlearning

Updates to the school broadband comparison tool make finding what neighboring and similar school districts are paying for broadband services even easier. Although the window has closed to submit e-rate applications, districts can still use the free resource, Compare & Connect K–12, by the nonprofit EducationSuperHighway, as they consider their needs over the next three to five years.

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BAND-NC Seeks to Expand Broadband Services

techlearning

BAND-NC seeks to help North Carolina become the first state in the nation where every county has a digital inclusion plan by the end of 2022

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NTIA NOFO Prioritizes Broadband Affordability Gap and Connecting Unserved Households in MDUs

Education Superhighway

Department of Commerce’s National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) released three Notice of Funding Opportunity (NOFO): Broadband Equity, Access, and Deployment (BEAD) Program ($42.5 As part of the launch, the U.S.

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The Challenges of Broadband Access in Rural Schools

edWeb.net

But in order to take advantage of edtech, they first need broadband access. Even when broadband is available, many students don’t have access at home. They’ve opened up their doors to their neighbors for their own broadband needs.

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11 facts about today’s K-12 IT leadership

eSchool News

Broadband access and the ever-growing equity gap are among K-12 IT leaders’ top concerns, according to CoSN’s annual IT Leadership Survey. Efforts to expand broadband access outside of school have increased dramatically.

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Planning for your school district’s broadband budget

Education Superhighway

Our research has shown that school districts across the country pay vastly different prices for similar broadband services. Tools like EducationSuperHighway’s broadband price transparency website Compare & Connect K-12 can equip your team with data to negotiate better pricing. For more information on planning your broadband network upgrade explore our free tools and resources or schedule a call with a member of our team.

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Kajeet: Overcoming the K–12 Digital Divide with Education Broadband

EdTech Magazine

By Chad A. Stevens, Ph.D. Kajeet's modular, wireless solution is a refreshing alternative to overcoming K-12 infrastructure woes. Classroom Mobility Networking Wi-Fi Wireless

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Groups provide broadband to S.C. housing project

eSchool News

Novatel Wireless, Kajeet launch pilot project for educational broadband access. Broadband and internet IT Management IT Newsletter News Top News

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Kentucky deploys 480 Mbps broadband across state

eSchool News

All state districts will have access to high-speed broadband connections. Counties across the state have worked to increase their broadband capacity as online assessments, video resources, and mobile devices have become more prevalent in schools. Broadband and internet Digital Learning and Tools IT Newsletter News Top News

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Report reveals surprising data about mobile broadband usage in schools

eSchool News

A recent Mobile Beacon report analyzing mobile broadband usage by non-profit organizations, including schools, finds that schools utilizing Mobile Beacon’s 4G LTE internet service indicate that the ability to supplement and/or extend existing school networks is the greatest benefit of the service. Next page: More details on schools and mobile broadband