Comments on: Closing the Digital Divide? WiFi on Busses

By: Erit Rabinowitz

Erit Rabinowitz — Sun, 31 Jul 2016 08:15:04 +0000

Wow, Susan, that is a challenge! Is it possible to keep the school computer labs open after school with supervision for a few hours? Perhaps you can implement some sort of incentive system for students who take advantage of the additional library hours. Are there accessible local libraries where students can work? Perhaps the mobile hot spots mentioned by Laurie above could help you. This seems like a worthy cause for a GoFundMe campaign! Also, you might want to look into grants like this one http://www.rd.usda.gov/programs-services/community-connect-grants (which is closed, but perhaps there will be other similar opportunities in the future). Good luck to you and your students!

By: Susan Irwin

Susan Irwin — Sat, 30 Jul 2016 04:17:41 +0000

We have zero buses in our District and we have zero textbooks this fall (Aug 2016) for the newly adopted NGSS CA DOE standards. In other words, there is NO curriculum being supplied; we have to create it for 7th gr science. There is an online textbook available, but as you mention, not ALL students have access at home, when they will need it.

We can let/encourage them use the Library before school (if open), during break, lunch, or after school (if open), but some will and some won’t. We’re rather in a pickle. Any ideas?

By: Erit Rabinowitz

Erit Rabinowitz — Tue, 21 Jun 2016 13:28:07 +0000

That sounds great Greg! Thank you for sharing your success.

By: Erit Rabinowitz

Erit Rabinowitz — Tue, 21 Jun 2016 13:26:33 +0000

That sounds like a creative solution to the challenge of ensuring that students have internet access for school work. Perhaps a combination of mobile hotspots and WiFi buses could work in an area with limited cell service. Thanks for your input Laurie!

By: Erit Rabinowitz

Erit Rabinowitz — Tue, 21 Jun 2016 13:22:28 +0000

That sounds great, Casper. If school districts provide internet access to whole communities, adults can benefit as well. Perhaps in that case the costs could be shared among other entities and not fall solely on the school district.

By: Laurie Griffin

Laurie Griffin — Fri, 03 Jun 2016 00:21:02 +0000

In one high school that I worked, we implemented using Kajeet hotspots. One issue that we had was that some parts of our county were so rural and had no cellar service.

By: Casper Pieters

Casper Pieters — Wed, 01 Jun 2016 23:42:16 +0000

Having satellite linkup can be cost effective if it is done for whole remote communities. I have seen this applied in remote Fiji and the internet connection bypassed dated local communication infrastructure and linked straight to the provider in Singapore. The school kids using passworded access could get a workable internet speed at the same time.

By: Greg

Greg — Tue, 31 May 2016 15:33:02 +0000

Great article Erit.

At Kajeet, closing the Digital Divide is our passion. We’ve worked with more than 175 schools / districts, including many in rural areas, to provide their students affordable, filtered hotspots “SmartSpots” for outside the classroom use. Students are able to access the educational websites they need for school homework and projects but not steaming (e.g. Netflix), social, and adult websites. All at 4G LTE speeds.

Like mentioned in the article, Kajeet can provide filtered, Internet connectivity on school bus fleets as well, the “SmartBus”.