Week 5 Assignment (Pohl & Van Liere)

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In response to this week's discussion we would like to provide you with
a little background of our school district.  Norfolk Public schools is
behind the times of communication.  There is only one school in our
district, Ruffner Middle, that has made great efforts and had great
success with our local cable carrier.

	Cox Communications and Ruffner have established a partnership
where Cox provided roughly 300 computers with networking and
internet connection through fiber optics.  We have toured Ruffner and
were impressed with their set up.  The connection is also the fastest
we have used.  This situation is ideal and we see no reason why the Act
would terminate any such relationships such as this one.

	We also believe the Act will make these situations more
popular.  It is easy and affordable to upgrade donated
computers and this makes networking possible.  With the Act getting
more lines for communication and cheaper access to the internet there
is no loss to anyone or any program.

	Before we talk about our school let us breifly describe the
program we are involved with.  Public schools Restructuring for
Inovative Mainstream Education (PRIME) is a project that envolves six
schools in our district.  One aspect of PRIME is to increase technology
and education.  The layout is one high school and its five main feeder
schools.  Through PRIME we are currently applying for an NSF grant to
help with our goals.

	We at Lake Taylor High School are currently trying every angle
to fully network our school (Intra and Inter), this is only a
part of our technology plan.  We have recieved a donation of 50 386 IBM
computers from a hopefully soon to be partner USAA.  With slight
upgrading these computers will be ready to "surf" the net.  One of our
other partners in education, the USS Stout, has voulenteered to do all
the wiring for the networking.  To start our plan two proffesors of
computer science from Old Dominion University are diagraming our school
for the wires.

	Unfortunatley due to the age and size of our building this task
will take a few months, but we are on our way.  Now we need
funding for additional computers, phone lines, software, and internet
access.  For this we are waiting on the response from NSF for the
grant.  However, would'nt it be great if the money we recieve from the
grant could be used towards more things if the Act lowers costs and
increases substities for education?

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