As the projects profiled in this report demonstrate, each effort to extend information technology has been an adventure and a learning experience. Often, participants end up in places they never expected to go.
When Archie Prioleau and his Foundation for Educational Innovation in Washington, D.C., set out to take students on virtual visits to distant museums, for instance, nobody could have predicted that he eventually would end up with a new theory of schooling, a new design for school computer laboratories, and a new community-wide project to train students in the skills needed to be computer network operators.
And who would have guessed when the Newark Public Schools set out to build a computer network linking medical professionals with residents of a low-income housing development that residents would use the computers not only to obtain health information but to form a wide range of support groups and persuade a landlord to build a new recreation center? Or that when the Children's Alliance of New Hampshire sought to computerize and standardize screening procedures for social service agencies that the organizations would seize the opportunity not just to streamline their administrative procedures but to marshall resources in ways that will strengthen the social safety net?
These and numerous other telecommunications projects show that the information revolution is not so much a process by which technology is changing society as one in which people are using technology to pursue their own goals for economic growth, educational opportunity, public safety, improved health, responsive government and strong communities.
These projects also show that the desire to use the emerging tools of the information age is at least as great perhaps greater in isolated rural areas and troubled inner cities as in the suburbs, as great among racial and ethnic minorities everywhere as among the more affluent and connected majority. Indeed, some of the biggest success stories from these early stages of the information revolution involve cases where isolated or low-income individuals and communities whether teenagers running a web-design business in California or residents of impoverished neighborhoods in St. Louis using computers to trade with each other for services they cannot afford to buy have used technology to help themselves.
Perhaps most important, though, these projects demonstrate that the effort to create a seamless information infrastructure is a job for everyone. The relative roles of players change from situation to situation. In Minot, North Dakota, and Chicago, universities took the lead, while in Munhall, Pennsylvania, the police department led the initiative. In New Orleans, a nonprofit "free- net" spearheaded the effort, while in Phoenix, Arizona, city government did. In many cases, new information networks became possible only when diverse community institutions looked beyond their own immediate interests and forged cooperative relationships with each other. And the participants say the new spirit of collaboration that the technology projects have helped foster ultimately may prove to be as valuable as the actual infrastructure that is getting built.
In some cases, benefits are tangible and quantifiable. The increase in stolen-vehicle recoveries in Utah clearly attests to the value of putting police online, and the cost effectiveness of electronic nursing services over in-person home health visits is unquestionable. In other cases, the results may be harder to quantify, though they are no less real: witness the new sense of pride and self-worth shown by East Palo Alto youths able to support themselves and provide a public service designing web pages for community nonprofit groups, or the quiet competence with which high school students in Mississippi are helping not only their own schools but neighboring ones as well to install their own networks.
Perhaps the best evidence of the value of these projects is the fact that in most cases their sponsors have decided to continue them after their federal grants have expired. The decision of the Southern Ute Tribal Council to maintain its computer network, and the Louisiana State Legislature's agreement to finance expansion of the Greater New Orleans Free-Net leave little doubt that people are convinced of the value of an up-to-date telecommunications system.
The future of the information infrastructure is as hard to anticipate as the rapidly changing underlying technologies themselves. However, we now have a growing number of models that can help those involved in future efforts to make informed choices. With flexibility to adjust to changing conditions and learn from experience, and with a willingness to work together, our possibilities are limited only by what we ourselves can imagine.
Source: U.S. Department of Commerce
National Telecommunications and Information Administration
Office of Telecommunications and Information Applications
Last Modified: 18 Dec 97