The parents of students in the district and the students themselves are a local resource. Parents with computer experience are often
willing to share their knowledge and experience. Parents and can also provide money through activities such as fund-raising. Shown the
benefits of new technology to their children, parents are often willing to help. Technology companies in the area can provide both
equipment and services for the district in return for publicity for their donations.

Local higher educational institutions such as universities or community colleges can also provide knowledge and expertise. Most of these
institutions have already networked their facilities and can share their experiences with local districts. While they cannot usually provide
any money, they can often share their network resources such as Internet connectivity at a substantially reduced rate when compared
with commercial services.

Another way to get reduced prices on equipment and services is to form partnerships with local vendors. Although this does reduce the
costs, it can be risky. If the vendor provides bad service, inferior equipment, or is simply difficult to work with, the partnership can
become a burden. To avoid this, a district should negotiate contracts with the vendors specifying the level and quality of service the
district expects.

Along with help from local resources, the state or federal government can also provide help. Many state boards of education plan to
implement statewide networks and to provide access to this network for districts. For example, the Illinois State Board of Education
(ISBE) currently plans to create a statewide network connecting all the regional offices around the state. Their goal offers Internet access
to districts through the regional offices. They have also established Technology Learning Centers at several of the regional offices.
Experienced network staff work at the centers and can provide technical support to a district. Although these offices are only for Illinois
schools, similar initiatives are planned by other states.

On a national level, groups such as the National Science Foundation (NSF) and the National Center for Supercomputing Applications
(NCSA) offer both help and money through grants. Getting a grant from one of these organizations can provide a starting point for
networking the district.

Besides getting help and money from people, companies, and government institutions, districts can look at what other school districts
have done. Districts can look at this information online, as most districts want to announce their presence on the Internet as soon as they
connect.

Unfortunately, the material that a district wants to look at is online and may be difficult to access before the district networks its schools.
One solution to getting quick access to the Internet is to connected one or a few machines. Connecting a single machine through a
commercial provider such as America Online, Compuserve, or a local Internet provider is relatively easy to do and most of the companies
provide excellent and extensive help during the process. Another easy way to access the online information is to visit another district that
connects to the Internet. In the process, you can also speak with that district about what they did right and wrong while networking their
district. Either approach will allow a district to access online material before networking the district.

Once online, it may be difficult to find useful information at first. Visiting other districts that are online such as the Champaign/Urbana
web page, the NCSA web page, or the K-12 School Networking Project page is a good place to begin. The URLs (Universal Resource
Locators, explained in Appendix A) of these pages and Table 2-1 lists some of them.

URLs of good starting points on the Web.

- Champaign and Urbana Districts     (http://www.cmi.k12.il.us/)
- Mahomet-Seymour District     (http://www.ms.k12.il.us/)
- NCSA     (http://www.ncsa.uiuc.edu/Edu/EduHome.html)
- K-12 School Networking Project     (http://choices.cs.uiuc.edu/schools/)
- University of Illinois College of Education     (http://www.ed.uiuc.edu/)
- Illinois State Board of Education     (http://www.isbe.state.il.us/)
- US Department of Education     (http://www.ed.gov/)
- Yahoo     (http://www.yahoo.com/)

In addition, there are search tools available on the Web that will allow topic or keyword searches. One of these sites, Yahoo, already has a
section of its index devoted to K-12 school resources, including links to several hundred schools. Most district web sites will also have the
name of their technology coordinator who will usually be able to answer questions about their network.