Low Bandwidth Slowing Classroom Innovation

As teachers and students have embraced web-enabled applications, videos, and Internet-assisted research, schools need the broadband capacity to keep up with hungry minds.

Unfortunately, according to a recent PBS survey of 1,401 full-time teachers K-12 and 197 pre-K teachers, speed issues are commonplace.

While almost a third of K-12 teachers (60%) frequently use digital media in classroom instruction, their ability to stream and download content is being throttled by infrastructure issues like low speed and bandwidth. According to the report:

"More than three-quarters of the teachers (75%) said they sometimes had problems streaming video, with a quarter saying they did often or all the time, vs. only 4% who said they rarely if ever did.

"Problems with streaming video include skipping, pausing or constant buffering, indicating that computing devices or technology infrastructure, or both do not yet have the capacity to handle teachers' increasingly Internet-dependent instructional activity."

The National Broadband Plan recommends 1 gigabit per second Internet connections to schools and libraries. The Speed Matters campaign fully backs this initiative and encourages an expedited rollout.

Deeping Connections: Teachers Increasingly Rely on Media and Technology (PBS)