Spencer Abraham Quotes

In Congress, I'll work hard to encourage investment in education, particularly with respect to technology and bridging the digital divide.

We are having trouble finding teachers to teach STEM. We also need to make sure schools have the resources. Some communities have multiple computers for each student in their schools. Other schools don't have textbooks, let alone computers.

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.

How absurd that our students tuck their cell phones, BlackBerrys, iPads, and iPods into their backpacks when they enter a classroom and pull out a tattered textbook.

One of the arguments here at OLPC is, if 100 million kids could have an Asus running Windows, is that better with two million kids running the XO? And the answer is yes. We want kids connected and the largest possible number is the goal.

Access to computers and the Internet has become a basic need for education in our society.

Technology tools such as laptops are the kind of help that we need. A program that provides laptops for all youngsters would close a gap that most of us are not aware of, or will not admit to, which is a tremendous gap in the poor communities.

I have a PC because I don't know how to use a Mac. Actors always have Macs with them, and when I try to use someone else's, I can't get the hang of it. It's very strange; I don't like it.

I come from Montana, and in eastern Montana we have a lot of dirt between light bulbs. It is expensive trying to bring the new technologies to smaller schools to upgrade their technologies to take advantage of distance learning.

I don't take for granted all the blessings that I have, and as soon as I heard about Computers for Youth, I really wanted to be involved. Anyone who knows me knows how much time I spend on computers. I'm a computer addict. Every young person deserves to have a computer in his or her home.

We need to really focus on getting this digital equity across the board in all of our public school systems, for both girls and boys.

The vast majority of people do not have, nor will they ever have a personal computer. They haven't been exposed to Windows or Office, or anything like that, and in their lives it's unlikely that they will.

Right now, 70 percent of the people don't have computers. And where they're needed most, people don't have them. We think this will enable anyone to own a computer. We're aiming at everybody who uses a computer as an information access device. The original idea was to build one cheaply enough to put one on every desk.

We should set a national goal of making computers and Internet access available for every American . . . we must help all Americans gain the skills they need to make the most of the connection.

We culturally decided, as the personal computer came in, that it was for the boys.

I was the first to advocate the Web. But I am very troubled by this thing that every kid must have a laptop computer. The kids are totally in the computer age. There's a whole new brain operation that's being moulded by the computer.

While the technology revolution has yet to reach far into the households of those in developing countries, this is certainly another area where more developed countries can assist those in the less developed world.

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.

We're building what I call 'software apartheid.' We're in the process of creating a divided society: those who can use technology on one side, and those who can't on the other. And it happens to divide neatly along economic lines.

As parents we're not nearly as computer literate as our children are.

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.

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.

We can close the gap and improve what happens in the classroom by using educational technology that is the same high quality everywhere.