Distance Education and the Bush Alaska Scenario

Damon Hargraves of the Bering Straight School District came and spoke in our Ed Tech class last month on technology in the Bush of Alaska. What I discovered was disquieting and also very intriguing. First of all, as many of my classmates have noted, there is a lot of money for Bush schools that allows for them to purchase the equipment and technology necessary for their students' education plus more than the minimum! Urban schools don't have that type of funding (or at least we don't see it used for such things). The second thing I noted was that this sort of technology could not only link outlying villages, but it could also link the home schooled community to teachers and networks unlike anything ever seen! What the possibilities for open wiki pages and public pages and sites are beyond fathoming. I would really enjoy learning more about this technology so that 1) I can tap into the funding machine that sponsors these ventures, and 2) So that I can reach new students in fresh and exciting ways around the nation and even around the globe!