As a school bus rider in my younger days I’m no stranger to perfectly good educational time wasted. But thanks to the Aspirnaut Initiative, a pilot program that provides school kids with Wi-Fi internet access and course materials on long, rural school bus rides, some students in rural Arkansas are becoming more productive. The initiative, launched by kidney specialist Billy Hudson and his professor wife Julie, is currently providing selected students laptops to complete advanced courses while riding the school bus. All the students in the rural Sheridan school district south of Little Rock have access to video iPod’s filled with National Geographic and Discovery Channel science videos. Aspirnaut hopes to eventually expand throughout Arkansas and possibly into Tennessee and Kentucky.
Despite its obvious boon to student productivity the program does have its detractors. Among them, those that believe exposure to Wi-Fi radiation promotes cancer and cognitive impairment in younger children and those that think it will potentially lead to the closure of more rural schools. Until I see scientific evidence of either, I think this program is a definite plus.
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