The E-rate has also benefited Rhode Island's rural areas. The rural Foster School District saved enough on its wiring and Internet costs for the superintendent to purchase low-cost and refurbished computers for every student who did not already have a home computer. Parents and students in this rural area now access online school and academic information, as well as e-mail teachers, other students and parents. In the rural Hope Valley elementary school in Chariho students participate in Bug Scope, a popular educational program where students send insect specimens to the University of Illinois. The insects are examined with an electron microscope and the pictures are posted on a website created by the students.
Students then identify various parts of the specimen and compare different insects.
Without the connections and savings brought by the E-rate, they would not have built this partnership. The E-rate program helped encourage additional funding for technology by inspiring confidence in Rhode Island's technology agenda. Rhode Island expects to be notified shortly whether it will be given two awards from the Gates Foundation. These classrooms will be fully technology capable, including networking capabilities, projection devices, one new computer to every four students, and intensive training in the use of this technology for instruction. The department is sponsoring a pilot video conferencing testbed with the objective of developing and testing methods for enhancing instruction and supporting leadership activities with advanced video technologies.