How Can Technology Remove Barriers to Learning?
By Removing the Barrier of Geography Thanks to the Internet, students everywhere now have access to the world. Sixth-graders at the Tikigaq School in Point Hope, Alaska, used the e-mail based KIDLINK project to correspond with peers around the globe. Even though these children of fishermen were puzzled by strange sounding careers like orthodontist and seismologist and had to describe what it meant to slice muktuk with an ulu, they discovered, as one said, when you look at people, they look real different, but when you look at their words, you realize we re alike on the inside. A student surrounded by the brick canyons of inner city Chicago or by the sandstone canyons of New Mexico can view the American Memory materials at the Library of Congress Web site as easily as she or he can view interactive science exhibits at San Francisco s Exploratorium Web site. Distance learning, brought to the classroom via the Internet, satellite video, fiber optic, or even cable, also allows students to
