By building their own information infrastructures and by providing avenues of access to their human and information resources, schools can continue to be the hub of their learning communities. That Schools Can Implement Telephone service reaches virtually every home . Through voice mail, many school districts have provided accounts for all schools including all teachers and staff members. Voice mail makes it easy for the community to reach out to the schools for guidance, for information or assistance for their children, or to find out about learning services for adults in the community. While some voice mail systems run on sophisticated telco hardware, all a district needs is the telephone service and a microcomputer to offer voice mail to teachers and schools.
Cable television is an old technology and many districts operate cable channels.
Some are redefining the mission of their stations to be Community Learning Channels. Programming on these channels is usually designed to accomplish three things. First, during hours school is in session, the curriculum is supported with teleconferences, surrogate field trips, or broadcasts whose content directly correlates with one or more elements of the curriculum. Secondly, the hours immediately after school are devoted to live, interactive programming around such needs as homework assistance. These shows often feature teachers and students who work on the air, live, with children at home in need assistance with homework problems.