Communicating easily with other educators is a significant benefit for teachers who spend most of their time in the classroom and, consequently, have traditionally had little contact with other professionals with whom they could share experiences and ask questions. By contrast, today there are dozens of education-focused discussion groups on the Internet, addressing a wide range of topics from best practices in distance learning to reviews of new software and textbooks. For example, a science teacher we met in the Hueneme School District is constantly sharing his experiences using his school's new educational technology with other teachers through the Internet. Connecting to the NII helps teachers such as this one form a learning community that can advance a variety of educational goals. On the system, we can respond to each other at our convenience and we avoid the 'let's talk later' syndrome that is part of working with children.
Parents also benefit through increased connection with their children's learning process.
At the Dalton School in New York, for instance, parents use electronic mail extensively to discuss classes and the performance of their children. Parents and children at the Union City school in New Jersey make use of the lab after-hours to work jointly on assignments. While this report focuses primarily on the benefits the NII can bring to schoolchildren, the necessary infrastructure, once deployed, can clearly benefit other constituencies as well. Once in the school, computers and networks can provide wide access to services provided by the information superhighway. The Ralph Bunche School in New York offers use of its computers to parents, who come in after hours to develop computer and network literacy and accelerate their learning of English.