Communication Workers of America

Earlier this month I featured a

report from the Communication Workers of America (CWA)

as my

Report of the Week. Although I know that each of you

usually reads every comment on this blog (hah!), Beth Allen of the CWA left

a later comment

that I thought was worth bringing to the forefront:

Hello all.

I am very interested in the challenge of articulating the vision as well.

I work with the Communications Workers of America, on the Speed Matters project,

which Scott kindly highlighted as a Report of the Week.

We are in the initial stages of gathering real stories about how

universal, affordable broadband can make a real difference. Our research shows

that even people who don’t want broadband for themselves have a vague idea that

it is important for kids and schools and the future of education. We need to

move from the abstract to the specific.

We are interested identifying educators who would be interested in

talking about their vision of what they could do if every child had home access

to a computer with a real high speed connection (think FTTH [fiber to the home]

with speeds of 30 mbps or more).

We are also interested in getting kids to imagine the future – what would

they do or invent if everyone in the United States had a real high speed

connection. It might be the world’s most awesome video game. It might be a video

phone system so that they could communicate with their grandparents who live far

away.

If any of you are interested in participating in one of these projects,

drop me a note at

http://www.speedmatters.org/contact.html

Anyone willing to talk with Beth? If so, drop her a note! For what

it’s worth, Beth, here is what I’d talk about:

multimedia textbooks: A strategic investment

Online

multimedia textbooks: Follow-up