US/ND-2: re: Professional Development - comments on comments

re: Professional Development - comments on comments

Steve Kohn (NOTES.SKOHN@A50VM1.trg.nynex.COM)
01 Sep 1996 10:30:10 GMT 

Responding to Ronda's comments:

> Why are funds needed for content? The Internet makes it possible for
> people to contribute their own content. Thus what is needed is
> access so people can contribute content, not payment for content.

Reply:
My wife is a 2nd grade teacher.  She doesn't have the time or
inclination to develop content from resources on the Internet.  All I
do is education, and I don't see a ground swell of teachers interested
in speeding hours on the Internet first finding data, developing it
into useful information and then integrating it into curriculum.

Of course, like in everything else, there are a few teachers who will
do this and enjoy it.  They might even share with other teachers.  Once
this starts to be come popular you will have companies like Scholastic
(and they have already started - Scholastic Online) to package Internet
based content for $$.

Access should not be equated to content!

> The communications aspects of the Internet are what the FCC is
> being charged with making available.

Reply:
Again, please read the legislation.  There is no mention of access to
the Internet specifically that I know of .  We all know that access to
the Internet was in the minds of Snow/Rockefeller, but not the whole
answer.  If we do not make voice messaging, distance learning, and
other network based services to schools via US we are doing education a
disservice.

> That is why the current Telecommunications Act is a problem, not
> a solution to the issue of how to provide universal service
> in computer networking - it puts providing cut rates to businesses
> and subsidies to corporate entities above providing universal
> service.

Reply:
Again, I think you need to read the legislation - US is not just about
computer networking.

I don't know what you are referring to when you say the T.A. "... puts
providing cut rates to businesses and subsidies to corporate entities
above providing universal service."

What cut rates and what subsidies?

> So it seems there is a need to talk about how to provide for
> universal service to all residential users, rather than just
> to schools and libraries as part of this online discussion.

Reply:
I think there are too many issues and too little time just with US for
schools and libraries to expand the scope of these discussions to
include residential US.

> Don't we need to look at situations like this around the world
> to see how the U.S. is currently falling farther and farther
> behind as it speculates about offering "advanced telecommunications
> services" and therefore the minimal access to the Internet
> is denied to people in cities like NYC.

Reply:

How is minimal access to the Internet being denied to the people of NYC????

Anyone with a phone, PC, modem and an ISP has access!  Most people have
phone service.  There are numerous PCs and modem vendors, and tons of
ISPs in NYC - so what is the problem you are referring to?

> Don't we have to sort out what is important. I recognize that certain
> minimal sectors of the U.S. were asked what they wanted by Congress
> when they drafted the Telecommunications Act of 1996, but they left out
> the majority of us and therefore to now go along and only discuss what
> the telecos asked for is not going to provide what we who should have
> been involved in the process much earlier need and have been fighting
> for.

Reply:
Senators Snow and Rockefeller orginated the concept of US for Schools
and Libraries, not the telcos.  The telcos are presently meeting with
most of the major national educational organizations to help develop
workable US definitions and procedures.

> Ronda
> rh120@columbia.edu

[Moderator's Note:  In the future I will probably suggest that
lengthy exchanges of this sort be conducted by personal e-mail.
In this seminar I hope we can concentrate on those specific issues
which are being determined by the current Universal Service
proceedings before the FCC, with an emphasis on those provisions
which apply to schools and libraries.  I don't want to rule out
questions of home access, where those questions might be crucial
for meeting the primary missions of the schools and libraries,
but the focus of the seminar is not meant to cover all Universal
Service issues.  We could of course consider another forum in
which these broader issues would be addressed, but let's see if
we can make the present one work first.]