Is your School's Internet Access Fast Enough for Digital Learning?


Last Updated: July 24, 2013
 

At present, there is no comprehensive set of national data that can identify schools struggling with inadequate bandwidth. Administrators and policy makers need to know where these schools are, how many students they serve, or what sort of connections and hardware they are using to connect to the Internet (Learn more about this at The Broadband Information Gap). This information about the state of internet access in the classroom must be collected first before evidence-based plans for funding and implementing state or nation-wide upgrades can be made.

The SchoolSpeedTest is being used by K-12 schools around the country to create a database of the available bandwidth in America's classrooms. The online application measures the bandwidth actually experienced in the classroom by teachers and students. In less than a minute you'll know the speed of your school's Internet access and the types of digital learning it can support.

An easy, web-based, one-minute test - Any student, teacher, or other person on a school network can test a school's internet by simply visiting www.SchoolSpeedTest.org, entering the name of their school, and clicking start. The test takes about one minute and will collect upload speed, download speed, and the browser/operating system type of the device being used to take the test.

Once complete, the National SchoolSpeedTest will enable policy makers at district, state, and federal levels to identify which schools require an upgrade to their Internet infrastructure, allocate resources effectively, and ensure every teacher and student has adequate Internet access.

Learn more about this effort by visiting EducationSuperHighway.org