SchoolNet

Last updated

Canada's SchoolNet was a federal educational technology project in partnership with provinces, school boards, non-profit organizations, and the private sector, funded primarily by Industry Canada and developed by Ingenia Communications Corporation to promote the effective use of information and communications technologies (ICT) in libraries and schools across the country. [1] Many important early Canadian ICT programs fell under the SchoolNet umbrella, including Computers for Schools, LibraryNet, First Nations SchoolNet, and Canada's Digital Collections. [2] By 1997, SchoolNet brought internet access to all 433 First Nations schools under federal jurisdiction. [3] Microsoft founder Bill Gates praised the program in the Edmonton Journal on November 26. 1995, stating that "SchoolNet is the leading program in the world in terms of letting kids get out and use computers." [4]

Notable early projects included the SchoolNet MOO and the Special Needs Education (SNE) network. [5] The MOO was abandoned by Industry Canada in 1998, but a non-profit corporation was set up to continue the site as MOO Canada Eh! [6] From 1999-2001, SchoolNet funded Project Achieve MOO developed at the Knowledge Media Design Institute at the University of Toronto. [7] Although acknowledged by executives at Industry Canada as "one of the most successful websites in terms of the level of interest" funding for the SNE was discontinued, and the project moved with its developer Keenan Wellar from Ingenia Communications Corporation [8] to charitable organization LiveWorkPlay in 1997, before the site was discontinued when corporate sponsorship failed to materialize. [9]

The SchoolNet project was active from 1995 to the early 2000s, and the site was taken offline in 2008. [10]

Related Research Articles

<i>Edmonton Journal</i> Daily newspaper published in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada

The Edmonton Journal is a daily newspaper in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada. It is part of the Postmedia Network.

A MOO is a text-based online virtual reality system to which multiple users (players) are connected at the same time.

Michael Gurstein was a Canadian best known for his work in the development and definition of community informatics as the area of research and practice concerned with enabling and empowering communities through the use of information and communications technology. He was a native of Edmonton, Alberta, but grew up in Melfort, Saskatchewan and did his first degree at the University of Saskatchewan in Philosophy and Politics.

The eTwinning action is an initiative of the European Commission that aims to encourage European schools to collaborate using Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) by providing the necessary infrastructure. Teachers registered in the eTwinning action are enabled to form partnerships and develop collaborative, pedagogical school projects in any subject area with the sole requirements to employ ICT to develop their project and collaborate with teachers from other European countries.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Île Sans Fil</span>

Île Sans Fil is a non-profit community wireless network that provides free public wireless Internet access to mobile users in public spaces throughout the island of Montreal, Quebec, Canada. The organization works with cafés, restaurants, bars, stores, community organizations, and individuals to provide free Internet access in public spaces. As of April 2010, the network had over 140,000 registered users and over 212 live hotspots. In 2016, the organization changed it operating name to Zone Access Public Montréal

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Plympton–Wyoming</span> Town in Ontario, Canada

Plympton–Wyoming is a town in the Canadian province of Ontario, located in Lambton County immediately east of Sarnia. It is the seat of the Lambton County Council.

People First Network, also known as PFNet or Pipol Fastaem, started in Solomon Islands as part of UNDP's Solomon Islands Development Administration Planning programme (SIDAPP) and was developed by technical advisor David Leeming, Randall Biliki and others from January 2001. People First Network was initially a series of email stations around the Solomon Islands. The network provides email and other services to very remote rural areas. In particular the project was started as a means to link people to peacemakers following the ethnic tension and civil unrest in 2000, by providing rural communications and participatory news and information service.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Castelldefels School of Telecommunications and Aerospace Engineering</span>

The Castelldefels School of Telecommunications and Aerospace Engineering is a higher educational establishment on Baix Llobregat Campus in Castelldefels, Catalonia, Spain. It is part of the Technical University of Catalonia (UPC) and offers courses in aeronautics and telecommunications.

Keewaytinook Okimakanak Council is a non-political Chiefs Council in northwestern Ontario, Canada, serving its six member-First Nations. The council was organized in November 1991.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Higher education in Saskatchewan</span>

Historically, Saskatchewan's higher education system has been "significantly shaped" by demographics. In 1901, six years prior to the 1907 founding of a university in Saskatchewan, the urban population in Saskatchewan was 14,266 (16%) while the rural population was 77,013 (84%). One hundred years later, the proportions had changed significantly: urban population in 2001 was 629,036 (64%) while the rural population was 349,897 (36%). Over time the province's higher education system has changed significantly in response both to this demographic shift and to provincial politics.

The Global Standards Collaboration (GSC) started life as The "Inter-regional Telecommunications Standards conference (ITSC) in 1990. This was an initiative of the T1 Committee of the United States who invited the other founding partner organizations ITU-T, ETSI and the Japanese TTC to the first ISC Meeting in Fredericksburg, VA. The goal was set by the “spirit of Melbourne”, stemming from a CCITT Plenary Assembly, to find a way of co-operation between Participating Standards Organizations (PSOs) from different regions of the world in order to facilitate global standardization within the ITU. The ITSC focussed its work on fixed telecommunications networks.

European Schoolnet or EUN is a network of 34 European Ministries of Education, based in Brussels. As a not-for-profit organisation, it aims to bring innovation in teaching and learning to its key stakeholders: Ministries of Education, schools, teachers, researchers, and industry partners.

The Communications Authority of Kenya (CA) is the regulatory authority for the ICT industry in Kenya with responsibilities in telecommunications, e-commerce, broadcasting and postal/courier services. The CA is also responsible for managing the country's numbering and frequency spectrum resources, administering the Universal Service Fund (USF) as well as safeguarding the interests of users of ICT services.

The Ministry of Information Technology and Telecommunication, abbreviated as MoITT) is a Cabinet-level ministry of the Government of Pakistan concerned with Information Technology and Telecommunications.

The Apostolic Church of Pentecost (ACOP) is a Pentecostal Christian denomination with origins in the Pentecostal revival of the early 20th century. Although multi-national, ACOP has its strongest membership in Canada. In 2002 ACOP reported "approximately 24,000 members in Canada, with 450 ministers and 153 churches." There are ACOP churches in all the provinces of Canada. ACOP's headquarters is in Calgary, Alberta.

The digital divide is described as the characterization of the gap between individuals or countries that have access to technology and individuals or countries that do not. This also includes, but is not limited to: access to computers, internet, and information literacy. General contributions to the digital divide are geography and next generational users. Next generational users are more involved with using devices that can connect to the internet, while the geography factor focuses more on how an individual's location put them at an advantage or disadvantage to compete with the digital age. However, only a handful on people and communities are being represented. Underdeveloped geographical locations, like certain regions of the continent of Africa serves as one of the underrepresented minorities. In particular, South Africa faces many developmental problems that make it one of the more complex societies in the world to map the digital divide in. The country is divided by ethnic inequality and discrepancies in the level of development between different sectors. These obstacles result in disparities in access to information and communications technology (ICT). This disparity is commonly known as the digital divide. There has been another major contributor, namely, Telkom and its monopolistic hold on the progress of ICT in South Africa. South Africa faces unique challenges in addressing the digital divide, including ethnic inequality, disparities in development levels between different sectors, and a historically monopolistic telecommunications industry. Efforts to bridge the digital divide in South Africa involve a combination of government initiatives, non-governmental organizations (NGOs), non-profit organizations (NPOs), and public-private partnerships, all working towards increasing access to technology, promoting digital literacy, and enhancing digital skills among the population.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Internet area network</span> Type of large-scale computer network

An Internet area network (IAN) is a concept for a communications network that connects voice and data endpoints within a cloud environment over IP, replacing an existing local area network (LAN), wide area network (WAN) or the public switched telephone network (PSTN).

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Jennifer Radloff</span>

Jennifer Radloff is a South African feminist activist and a pioneer on Information and communications technology (ICT) for social justice. She works for the Association for Progressive Communications (APC) in the Women's Rights Programme and is a board member of Women's Net.

Josephine Pon is a Canadian politician who was elected in the 2019 Alberta general election to represent the electoral district of Calgary-Beddington in the 30th Alberta Legislature. She is a member of the United Conservative Party. She was a member of the Standing Committee on the Alberta Heritage Savings Trust Fund and the Special Standing Committee on Members' Services. She previously was Alberta's Minister of Seniors and Housing from 2019 to 2022.

References

  1. ↑ Archived: "What Is SchoolNet" https://web.archive.org/web/20070224224427/http://www.schoolnet.ca/home/e/whatis.asp
  2. ↑ "Two Canadian Models of Communities on the Net: SchoolNet and Community Access (www.schoolnet.ca)" by Alan L. Cobb https://books.openedition.org/uop/1383?lang=en
  3. ↑ SchoolNet https://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/schoolnet
  4. ↑ "26 Nov 1995, 7 - Edmonton Journal at Newspapers.com". Newspapers.com.
  5. ↑ Government of Canada "Canada's SchoolNet" https://publications.gc.ca/collections/Collection/C2-486-2000-3E.pdf
  6. ↑ "MOO Canada, Eh? Is a Social-themed MOO (MUD, Object-Oriented)".
  7. ↑ Nolan, J., & Weiss, J. (2002). "Learning Cyberspace: An Educational View of Virtual Community." In Renninger, A., and Shumar, W. (Eds.), Building Virtual Communities: Learning and Change in Cyberspace. Cambridge UP.
  8. ↑ Internet Society Proceedings https://web.archive.org/web/20160103125443/https://www.isoc.org/inet97/proceedings/G5/G5_2.HTM
  9. ↑ Ottawa Citizen https://www.newspapers.com/image/465761523/
  10. ↑ "Digital Literacy in Canada: From Inclusion to Transformation" Media Awareness Network https://mediasmarts.ca/sites/default/files/pdfs/publication-report/full/digitalliteracypaper.pdf


This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.