I work in a US school library with a computer lab managed by the library staff. There are many problems with the ways the technology has been implemented and maintained.

Problem one: no one has taught students how to use the Internet as one research tool of many at our disposal in a library. And it appears to me no one will. We are looking at establishing a 9th grade academy in our secondary school (for those of you across the water who might not know, that is first year of secondary school in the US) which theoretically could be used to teach students those skills, but I doubt the implementers of our (supposed) reformers have that sort of lucid vision of educating students for their future, rather than according to our past.

Problem two: the schools are all networked, and the computers are all over the place--and they are antiquated technology that often doesn't work. Why? Because there is no realistic budgetary commitment to keep the technology working at it's full potential (which means constantly replacing equipment and software).

It will be interesting to see just how much of the current "tech revolution" will remain viable in the future, now that the economic realities of replacing and/or maintaining old, outdated technology is sinking in.

We were the beneficiaries of an economic strategy developed by the computer industry to monopolize the academic markets as quickly as possible. They did this (and continue to do it) to get their products in the schools, in hopes that we would become technologically and economically tied to those products. Problem is, with the tech bubble bursting along with the recession, we are all just beginning to realize we can't keep funding technology at the expense of more important aspects of education, like infrastructure deterioration or increasing class sizes and decreasing teacher pools due to poor pay and working conditions.

BTW, I agree with Guest Paul. Mudcat is not an appropriate place to do this kind of research. I question why an MA student would come into this sort of forum to do research on government and the information age. You should be working with your professors and fellow students, and doing your own web searches to find this information, not asking in a music and BS discussion forum.