While Broadband for America (BFA) continues to provide meaningful insights into broadband trends among different demographics, I would like to take a moment to focus on the affect of broadband on children.  Broadband has become an integral part of our daily routines as well as the routines of children.  Children are using the Internet at a very young age, in fact, kids between 2 and 11 years of age now spend 63% more time online than they did just five years ago.   Broadband proliferation has had a profound effect on not only the access, but also the quality of education available to kids around the world.

BFA does a great job of shedding light on these trends and examining the role broadband has played in children's education. A key study that has been highlighted by BFA shows that students with broadband access have an increased exposure to new ideas and developmental concepts.  This could partly explain why a 93-page report on online education, conducted by SRI International for the Department of Education found “on average, students in online learning conditions performed better than those receiving face-to-face instruction.”

We believe in the power of the Internet to educate children, so much so that we recently launched a comprehensive educational website for kids that emphasizes games as a fun way to teach kids math and language arts.  We worked with a team of teachers to provide learning tips, homework help and worksheets for students between kindergarten and sixth grade.  Thus far, anecdotal evidence from our users serves to support the conclusions drawn in the aforementioned studies. 

As broadband proliferation continues to expand, we hope parents, teachers and kids will increasingly turn to the web for educational resources.  To learn more about educational resources, math games, and sign up for educational newsletters online please visit GameClassroom (www.gameclassroom.com). 

Josh Solt joined Earlier Media in 2008 as Chief Operating Officer and currently serves on the board of Irvine University.