WISH TV: A Wish Come True for Schools and Students?

[Andy Carvin <acarvin@GLOBALSCHOOLHOUSE.COM>]

Digital Beat Extra -- EdTech 8/1/2000

WISH TV:
A Wish Come True for Schools and Students?
        by Andy Carvin


Introduction

On July 18, the U.S. Congress played host to an announcement of a new
educational Internet service that pledges to help bridge the digital divide.
WISH TV, which stands for WorldGate Internet School to Home Television, is a
set-top box that allows users to connect to the Internet by means of their
television and cable service. Starting this fall, WISH TV will be provided
for free to over 1,500 fourth grade students and their schools in Ohio,
Louisiana, Connecticut and Illinois. Like other low-cost Internet devices on
the market, WISH TV offers users a chance to go online without having to buy
a fully-equipped PC. But will hidden costs and limited software make them
less palatable to schools and families?

Hal Krisbergh, CEO and chairman of WorldGate Communications, hosted the
bi-partisan announcement along with Rep. Billy Tauzin (R-LA), Chairman of
the House Subcommittee on Telecommunications, Trade and Consumer Protection,
Rep. Ed Markey (D-MA), Ranking Minority Member of the Subcommittee and
William Kennard, Chairman of the Federal Communications Commission. "We
believe that the WISH TV initiative has all the right ingredients to really
attack the problem for children who are growing up in the Internet world
without equal access," said Krisbergh. "Now these fourth-grade students,
regardless of their economic level, will have the opportunity to access the
power and information of the Internet in their homes and their schools. The
information age is moving at a rapid pace and we need to do everything in
our power to make sure no child is left behind."

Rep. Markey concurred with Krisbergh's sentiments. "WISH TV provides real
solutions for equal access to interactive learning," he said. "By connecting
the classroom to the home - students, parents and teachers are able to
collaborate on projects, receive homework assignments and expand the
existing school curriculum. Financial and technological impediments are no
longer barriers to accessing the wealth of information on the Internet."

Unlike similar TV-Internet services such as WebTV, which utilizes telephone
lines for Internet connectivity, WISH TV offers Internet access at higher
connection rates because it employs cable lines for data transmission. The
set-top devices would be donated to schools and students by Motorola and
Scientific Atlanta, while local cable operators would supply connectivity.
"Cable access to the Internet in schools and at home opens up unlimited
opportunities for all children to benefit from Web-based learning and
communicating," said Jerry Kent, President and CEO of Charter
Communications, one of several local cable operators that are partnering in
the initiative. "By removing technological and economic barriers for
students, parents and schools, the digital divide can be closed."


Free vs. Function:
Is WISH TV the Holy Grail of the Digital Divide?

Whether or not the initiative closes the digital divide in participating
communities, however, remains to be seen. While low-cost Internet devices
such as WebTV, I-Opener and NetForAll are proving to be successful tools for
introducing families to the Internet, the WISH TV program raises some
questions. As countless U.S. schools wire their classrooms to the Internet,
the vast majority of them have developed multi-year technology plans that
lay out how technology will be integrated into teaching practices. Schools'
IT programs often attempt to make the most out of Internet access as well as
leverage previous edtech purchases, such as educational CD-ROMs and software
suites for word processing and other in-class activities. The WISH TV
device, despite its high-speed Internet access, does not offer the
functionality to run these software packages.

This issue of functionality has not been totally ignored by the developers
of low-cost Internet devices, however. Earlier this year, Larry Ellison of
Oracle Corporation founded the New Internet Computer Company, which to date
has given away over 2,000 of its New Internet Computers (NIC) to schools in
Dallas and Chicago. The NIC, which retails for just under $200, is a
so-called thin-client device -- a streamlined, bare-bones computer without a
hard drive that accesses software over a network or via its CD-ROM drive.
Unlike WISH TV boxes, NICs have significantly lower monthly access costs
because they can connect to the Internet through an ISP and their current
telephone line, without the need for cable service subscriptions.
Telephone-based connectivity is admittedly slower than the speeds offered by
WISH TV's cable Internet service, but low-income families going online for
the first time might find the NIC more attractive because of the lesser
monthly expense. (Ellison's NIC Company has also teamed up with the ISP
NetZero to offer free Internet access, but users must reveal family
demographic data and put up with streaming banner advertisements.)

No matter which side one might take in a WISH TV-versus-NIC debate, the fact
remains that educational multimedia developers have yet to create a
significant quantity of curricular resources specifically designed for
set-top boxes and thin-client PCs. While future classrooms may take fuller
advantage of these devices, few schools to date have been able to solve
their edtech needs solely through these low-cost machines. For now, WISH TV
and NICs might be relegated to limited classroom use as more powerful PCs
continue to conduct the lion's share of edtech curricular activities.


Reading the Fine Print:
The Eventual Costs of a "Free" Service

It is also worth noting that WorldGate and its partners only plan to offer
one year's worth of WISH TV for free. After that, both schools and families
would have to cover the connection costs, which include subscriptions to
both an Internet service provider and a local cable operator. Because cable
providers have varying service rates, no monthly price has been named as of
yet. However, the service easily could cost $60 per month or more -- $20 for
ISP service and $40 for cable service. Considering that many families
struggle to pay $20 a month for basic Internet service, it is unlikely that
WISH TV would truly bridge the digital divide in low-income communities.

"I already feel sorry for the impoverished parents who will have to endure
their children's cries for them to pay for WISH TV after having it free for
one year," worries Randy Green, an educator at the High School for Law
Enforcement and Criminal Justice in Houston, TX. "I suppose that my family's
income would fall into the lower-middle class category; I also grew up in an
impoverished family. With my background, I know that cable TV and cable
Internet access fees are exorbitant monthly bills for many families to pay.
I feel strongly, too, that children given WISH TV for one year will want
what other children have: color printers, games and game accessories, and
audio and video capabilities. All of this will prompt children to pressure
their impoverished parents to spend money in ways that they should not."

"Maybe a program like WISH TV will help parents understand the power of the
Internet for their kids and help connect their kids at home to what's going
on at school so that at the end of the free year, they'll find a way to
continue it," says Karen Work Richardson, a communications teacher at Saint
Clare Walker Middle School in Middlesex County, VA. "I hope schools would
use it as a way to increase school/community involvement and allow parents
to be involved in school even though they can't always get to parent/teacher
conferences."

However, Richardson expresses concern over accepting free technology without
integrating it into the school's long-term technology plan. "I appreciate
business support of education -- and certainly a year of free high speed
access would be great -- but let's take some time to really plan programs
before we put them into place and then help schools find funding for the
following years."

Opponents of commercialization in schools are critical of the program's
one-year-free clause. "At first glance, it looks to me that WISH TV is using
schools to market their product to poor families," comments Andrew
Hagelshaw, Executive Director of the Center for Commercial-Free Public
Education. "We are immediately suspicious of this idea... because it seems
as though this new product wants to use schools to grab a fast chunk of
market share for their future service."


Conclusion:
When You WISH Upon a Star...

Undoubtedly, set-top devices have a role to play when it comes to bridging
the digital divide at home. Not every household has the means to invest in a
full-fledged PC; low-cost Internet devices fill a significant niche by
providing basic Internet access at reasonable rates. The WISH TV service,
however, will not offer a similar advantage to families as long as it plans
to introduce high-price monthly service costs following the first year. As
for schools, it is less likely that WISH TV in its current form will make a
serious impact when it comes to integrating communications technology into
teaching practices. Schools cannot develop long-term IT implementation
policies for a technology that offers limited functionality and
unpredictable future service costs.

If the vision of a wired school is ever to succeed, we must also come up
with successful strategies for offering home Internet access to all students
and their families. Set-top devices are an intriguing first step, but the
companies supplying them must find ways to offer purchasing methods that are
reasonable to low-income families. Can we truly expect to bridge the digital
divide if our solutions are affordable for a limited time only?


Related Websites:

WorldGate
http://www.wgate.com

Center for Commercial-Free Public Education
http://www.commercialfree.org

WebTV
http://www.webtv.com

NetForAll
http://www.netforalltv.net/

I-Opener
http://www.i-opener.com

New Internet Computer Company
http://www.thinknic.com/

NetZero
http://www.netzero.com

High School for Law Enforcement and Criminal Justice
http://www.houstonisd.org/LECJ/

St. Clare Walker Middle School
http://seahawk.scwms.mcps.k12.va.us

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***********************************
Andy Carvin
Senior Associate
Benton Foundation
andy@benton.org
http://edweb.gsn.org/andy
http://www.DigitalDivideNetwork.org
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