Research

According to a new, nationally representative survey conducted by the Education Week Research Center, K-12 educators remain skeptical that new technologies will transform public schooling or dramatically improve teaching and learning. Fewer than one-third of America's teachers said ed-tech innovations have changed their beliefs about what school should look like. Less than half said such advances have changed their beliefs about how to improve students' academic outcomes. And just 29 percent felt strongly that ed-tech supports innovation in their own classrooms.

The Federal Communications Commission is required by law to initiate a notice of inquiry and report annually on whether advanced telecommunications capability is being deployed to all Americans in a reasonable and timely fashion. This annual broadband report is incredibly important because the findings and conclusions are designed to help Congress and the FCC develop policies that ensure all Americans have robust broadband access. Reports with inaccurate data on broadband availability can skew the findings and prevent unserved and underserved areas from gaining access to broadband.

A group of senior communications experts, working with the United Nations High Commission on Refugees, released its “Global Broadband Plan for Refugee Inclusion.” The detailed report calls for “all refugees, and the communities that host them, to have access to available, affordable and usable mobile and internet connectivity.” At first glance, the idea of devoting scarce resources to ensuring refugees can go online may sound misguided.

This report profiles six key trends, six significant challenges, and six developments in educational technology for higher education.

Compared with the US public overall, which voices are represented on Twitter? The analysis indicates that the 22 percent of American adults who use Twitter are representative of the broader population in certain ways, but not others. Twitter users are younger, more likely to identify as Democrats, more highly educated, and have higher incomes than US adults overall. Twitter users also differ from the broader population on some key social issues.

The Federal Communications Commission's broadband map, which invites you to plug in street addresses to see which companies sell service there and at what speeds, is a failure. It’s built on old and fuzzy data filed by internet providers that sometimes don’t even know where they offer service. And this stunted cartography of connectivity doesn’t just sandbag house hunters researching their biggest expense; it also holds back government efforts to cover broadband gaps -- for instance, the 5G-broadband agenda the Trump administration outlined April 12 that FCC Chairman Ajit Pai said will incl

Digital provisions in the revamped trade agreement among the US, Mexico and Canada will give the US economy a modest boost, with the technology and telecommunications sectors being the biggest beneficiaries, according to an independent analysis from the US International Trade Commission. The report, a key step before Congress votes on the deal, echoes several points tech lobbyists have long argued. Jordan Haas, the Internet Association’s trade policy director, urged Congress to quickly pass the deal.

The redacted Mueller report highlighted, at least from a tech perspective, much of what we’d already known since the indictments were first announced, including of course the top-line takeaway that Russia indeed sought to use Facebook and Twitter, largely through the St. Petersburg-based Internet Research Agency, to influence the 2016 election in then-candidate Donald Trump’s favor. Particularly noteworthy is that high-ranking members of the president’s inner circle including Kellyanne Conway, Brad Parscale, Michael Flynn and Donald Trump Jr.

In what will stand as among the most definitive public accounts of the Kremlin’s attack on the American political system, the report of special counsel Robert S. Mueller III’s investigation laid out in precise, chronological detail how “the Russian government interfered in the 2016 presidential election in sweeping and systematic fashion.” The Russians’ goal, Mueller emphasized at several points, was to assist Donald Trump’s run for the White House and to damage Hillary Clinton’s candidacy.