I’m a little slow on the uptake, but I’m kinda figuring out that while access and hosting is pretty much a non issue at my school, it’s a big issue with a lot of schools. And I’m wondering if there might not be a way that we could help take the lead in that area. I know we have tons of server space. (I have a 60G server dedicated just to my yearbook…and I know I could get a grant…) But before I go making promises I can’t keep, I need some data on what hosting weblogs for other schools might entail. I ran about 50 weblogs last year through Blogger but all hosted locally, and my IT person says they used about 5 meg of space. Not too hard to do the math here to figure out that we could probably host a slew of these puppies, especially in the early stages. But it can’t be that easy. If we used Manila, would schools have to buy the license at least? If we used p-machine? How many could we create? What are the issues with using pitas and blogger and schoolblogs that make them a less effective choice? (I think I know the answer here, but I’d be interested to hear from the rest…) What are the other concerns?
Depending on what the answers are, maybe my school can “step up” as Peter suggests. Worth talking about at least.
Terry is back (Yay!) and asking those same questions. But his description of most of his students as having at best intermittent Internet access at home goes to the other obvious problem here. Word I get in some parts is that some states are starting to develop online content for their students, which means that they have to have access. But what do you do with the kids that don’t? Obviously, that’s a tougher question.