Libby Black

Name: Libby Black

E-mail: blackl@bvsd.k12.co.us

Organization: Boulder Valley School District

City and State: Boulder, CO

Area of Employment: education

How I heard about Network Democracy:

By e-mail and by a USPS mailing that I got.

My experience in this area:

Since the winter of 1991 I have been working to facilitate the implementation of the Internet technology in the Boulder Valley Schools (see http://bvsd.k12.co.us). This is a collaborative project with the University of Colorado and the Boulder Valley School District (seed money was provided by the NSF) and we have made great strides in connectivity (all 50 schools connected via T1 by 1997), staff development, student use of the network and student support of the network. We also have an extensive community network which we are working to integrate into the schools' use of our community "Intranet." I have also directed a project to get rural math and science teachers on-line called CreatingConnections and funded by the Annenberg/ CPB Math and Science Project and the US West Foundation. Through this project I have overseen the training and support of 450 rural teachers and become somewhat familiar with the barriers to telecommunications for rural schools. I hope that my extensive knowledge & experience of telecommunications use and applications in the K-12 arena can enable me to contribute meaningfully to the conversation.

What I hope to learn:

I hope that I can broaden my own horizons about some of the other issues surrounding universal access and understand better the implications of the Telecom Act for all sectors of the K-12 community.

Additional comments:

If you haven't read the paper by the Benton Foundation on K-12 use of telecommunications take the time. You can find it at http://cdinet.com/benton/goingon/learning.html and it is one of the best things out there on K-12 use.