Kent Conrad Quotes

As technology changes the way we communicate, connect, create, consume and innovate, it is democratizing access to opportunity. Education is no exception.

It simply is not true that everything is now on the Internet, but it is true that the digital resources available through the Internet have enormous potential for education and even for self-empowerment of individuals.

Soon the digital divide will not be between the haves and the have-nots. It will be between the know-hows and the non-know-hows.

We've been working now with computers and education for 30 years, computers in developing countries for 20 years, and trying to make low-cost machines for 10 years. This is not a sudden turn down the road.

The most dramatic effect of digital libraries will not be on us, the well-booked, but on the billions of people worldwide who are underserved by ordinary paper books.

In today's world, access to the Internet is inarguably critical to function in informal and formal spaces - and the costs to digital segregation are rising.

The implications of so many people connected to the Internet all the time from the standpoint of education is incredible.

The impact of giving someone a connected smartphone is no different from giving them a real computer. I look at how my kids learn and how different it is from how I learned because the impact of these things is just so huge. Sometimes I think we don't fully internalize what it is to get the power of knowledge in everyone's hand.

We were the first urban school system in the country to wire all of our schools for the Internet.

I was inspired by the Hole in the Wall project, where a computer with an internet connection was put in a Delhi slum. When the slum was revisited after a month, the children of that slum had learned how to use the worldwide web.

I use computers and the Internet every day of my life, and yet I have absolutely no idea how they work. I'm like a labrador watching 'The Matrix.'

I don't even want to guess at what computer literacy might do to children, except to say that if cyberspace is considered a place, then there are people who are already in it and people who are not in it.

If your kid doesn't have broadband access, that's a real disadvantage for participating in modern education.

A family living at the poverty level is unlikely to be able to afford a computer at home. Even with a computer, access to the Internet is another significant expense. A child might borrow a book from a public library; but it is not possible to take a computer home.

I'm encouraging kids to use computers at their own pace to build aspirations.

Kids are finding out about the potential for discovery online from other sources; many of them have computers at home, for instance, or their friends have them.

The majority of people who don't have Internet, don't have the Internet because they don't know why they want to use the Internet.

Starting early and getting girls on computers, tinkering and playing with technology, games and new tools, is extremely important for bridging the gender divide that exists now in computer science and in technology.

Growing up, I wish that I'd had the supplies and laptops and all the new technology that's out right now.

The internet could be a very positive step towards education, organisation and participation in a meaningful society.

If you look where kids are spending time on the Net, they may have all the information in the world, but they're not accessing it.

We're in an inflection point where it's cheaper to learn to read on a tablet computer than it is to learn to read on paper. And that being the case, it's only a matter of time before every 6-year-old kid has a tablet computer, and we know for a fact, 3- to 4-year-old kids are using tablets and iPads, and 75 and 80 year olds are using them.

I travel to a lot of schools, and I see firsthand that while we do still have a lot of traditional readers, we don't have as many as we used to. And we're missing an awful lot of kids entirely... Do I want to get rid of the Internet? Obviously, I don't want that because of all the amazing things it brings.

I had had a lot of experience in bringing the Internet to Australia, and I saw that knowledge in the hands of people achieves reform.

I've heard that, but since I'm computer illiterate I don't know how it all works. But since I'm on Prodigy tonight, I'm learning a lot through my typist, Peter.