Joe Biden is betting big on small networks to close the digital divide
Image: Alex Castro / The Verge
Like hundreds of school districts across the country, Edgecombe County Public Schools in North Carolina had to move their coursework online to keep their students safe during the coronavirus pandemic. Worksheets became websites and school assemblies became Zoom conferences with outside speakers.
But for students without a stable internet connection, teachers had to hand-deliver packets of homework that would normally have been put online. In assemblies, students are asked to turn off their cameras so their streams don’t cut out.
“We just let the speakers know, our students are probably not going to be on camera. And it’s because we don’t have good internet speeds out here,” Arlane Gordon-Bray,...
The Verge is an ambitious multimedia effort founded in 2011