![[Imagemap]](/TECH/images/nav_tech.gif){kind=small}
January 31, 1996
Web posted at: 8:45 a.m EST (1345 GMT)
From Correspondent Susan Reed
SAN CARLOS, California (CNN) -- Third-, fourth-, and fifth-graders are wandering the world, even the universe, without ever leaving their school's computer lab.
Arundel Elementary School in San Carlos, California, is perhaps the most wired school in America. Drop in any time and you can find one child looking at Jupiter, another peering at satellite-relayed pictures of northern Canada.
It's all there on the World Wide Web on the Internet. Every day, Arundel students from kindergarten to the fifth grade log on to computers in the lab and in the classroom.
Teacher Judy Garber says it's hard to get the kids away from the computers. They don't even want to break for recess.
The Internet has opened the world to them. Now these children can go to any library on Earth to access information. They can even visit a child in another country.
Visiting other children's home pages happens to be Laura Bacon's favorite pastime while browsing the Web. She recently visited Peggy's page, the creation of an elementary school student in London, England, that contains a scrapbook that includes pictures of Peggy, her school, her mom, dad, and friends -- and, of course, her e-mail address.
Wiring Arundel elementary is the brainchild of Sun Microsystem's chief scientist John Gage, who is part of Net Day '96, which aims to connect 12,000 California schools to the Internet.
Companies like MCI, Netcom and AT&T are offering free dial-up access to California schools for one year. Gage says putting a computer in every classroom is a realistic goal.
Vice President Al Gore paid a special visit to Arundel Elementary on January 19 to help raise awareness for Net Day '96. He and the Clinton administration enthusiastically put their stamp of approval on this school of the future. Students do, too.
"You just learn a lot faster," says one.
"I like being able to go wherever in the world and get information on whatever we want to," says another.
States like Tennessee, Florida, West Virginia, and North Carolina are already spending tax dollars to connect kids in schools to the Internet, but in California -- a state short on education funding -- wiring schools is a volunteer effort.
It cost only $10,000 to wire Arundel. That's because many people volunteered their labor, and equipment was donated by major corporations. Without that, the cost would have been 20 times higher.
But critics argue money should be spent on teachers instead of computers and there's disagreement on how much wiring the nation's schools will cost; the Clinton administration estimates $10 billion dollars. Other experts predict it will cost as much as $50 billion.
Jeremy Rifkin, the author of the book "The End of Work," says spending tens of billions of dollars on hardware and software takes away money meant to improve the quality of teaching in the classroom and other basics that are required for a good education.
Fans of computers argue that these machines are the basics -- the reading and writing machines of the future.
Copyright © 1996 Cable News Network, Inc.
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.
External sites are not endorsed by CNN Interactive.