Did anyone realize this was going on? I have always taken my high speed Internet connection for granted and assumed it was available to anyone in the USA that wanted it.
Anyone who has ever gone online using a dial up connection versus a high speed connection knows there is no comparison. The entire Internet experience is different. In my house as a mother of a 12 year old and 10 year old, high speed internet is an accompaniment to our daily life. Our teachers have never made it mandatory for homework assignments, but its use is encouraged and why wouldn't it be? For example, when one of my children has a homework question they can go to an online homework help chat line for assistance or they can acquire an abundance of research material online that our local library could never compare to. When I was in school we had minimal homework every night and book reports or projects were only assigned quarterly. Now our children have hours of homework each night and sometimes have several reports or projects due in one month. Parents are busy too. I am a hands-on mom but I don’t have time to spend hours away from home at the library when my child can access more information in the comfort of our family room using the Internet. Why would anyone invest in a set of Encyclopedias that will be soon outdated, when the newest information can be accessed in seconds online. My children however still read books and have nightly reading as part of their homework. The Internet is not a substitution for that. I know there are worst travesties going on than children not being able to access the Internet using a high speed connection, but our children are already lacking so much because of the overcrowding and under funding of our public schools and services, why would we ever argue giving them the ability to access a world of information in seconds. The Internet provides children and adults with the ability to learn and see things they otherwise might not, and citizens of rural communities need that more than anyone. Yes, every town large or small, has community theater, but you cannot compare NYC to rural Massachusetts. Sorry!! That is a fact of life. As far as I am concerned, a dial up connection defeats the purpose of the Internet and I agree with the frustrations expressed in the article above. It’s a fact of life, everything we do is at a fast pace. We can’t expect the world of our children and not give all of them the same tools and opportunities.