Summary

Larry Kirkman
Full Text

Larry Kirkman is president of the Benton Foundation in Washington, D.C.

Kids as producers. ... What can happen if you give kids the tools to work online and the time to be creative? Seven year olds can know their communities, study them, communicate about them, share that knowledge and act on it.

How do we help local organizations, national organizations, tap in to intelligence, to resources, to best practices? Lessons learned at the local level have to be shared. The power of a distributed clearinghouse is very important and it is what we can do on the Internet, learning from each other and creating a very powerful, horizontal network.

How do we leverage our E-rate investment? Four billion dollars by next year will have been invested in over 80,000 schools nationwide, wiring more than 1.2 million classrooms. This is an enormous commitment. What does it mean for the school now to have the ability to connect to the community? Are community technology centers, youth centers, a leverage point for that $4 billion investment?

TOP