Smith says that some of the preferred sites required half an hour to load, when even a few minutes was too long. Smith has seen a significant increase in Internet use since DSL removed those frustrations. Heavily accessed and thus sluggish sites are now available on demand. Photos require no wait. Music flows smoothly.
Satellite images zip right in.
Smith makes heavy use of sites funded by advertising or established as promotional efforts rather than sites requiring subscription fees. She has toured education sites that require subscription fees, but no matter how impressed she might be with these resources, she has no budget for them. Indeed, she expects the district's subscriptions to print products to dwindle. But now the swift availability of Internet resources makes that a much less frightening prospect. Mary Axelson edits the Heller Reports ' newsletter, Internet Strategies for Education Markets .