Advanced Telecommunications

In addition to information obtained specifically about the Internet, all schools were asked about the use of advanced telecommunications in general. Advanced telecommunications, while including the Internet, refers more broadly to all modes of communication used to transmit information from one place to another including broadcast and interactive television, two-way video, and networked computers (both local and wide area networks). With the exception of the Internet, access to other advanced telecommunications capabilities were relatively unchanged since 1994 (unpublished tabulations). Schools provided information about the use of these telecommunications by schools and teachers, training for teachers, and various sources of support for advanced telecommunications in schools.

by Schools and Teachers

Seventy-four percent of schools used advanced telecommunications (including but not limited to the Internet) to access information (Table 4).

Sixty-seven percent of schools used advanced telecommunications for record keeping within schools or school districts. About one-fifth of schools used advanced telecommunications to communicate with parents or for distance learning (22 percent for each).

Schools also reported the proportions of teachers in the school regularly using any advanced telecommunications for teaching, professional development, or curriculum development. Twenty percent of public school teachers were using advanced telecommunications for teaching, 16 percent for professional development, and 15 percent for curriculum development (Table 5). These percentages showed very little variation across school characteristics. Rather, there seemed to be a core of teachers, in very diverse schools, using advanced telecommunications.

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