America Online and Dell to Provide AOL@SCHOOL on All Deli Computers Sold to K-12 Schools in the US - contract information - Brief Article

Information Superhighways Newsletter, June, 2001

America Online Inc. and Dell announced an agreement under which Dell will provide the free AOL@SCHOOL service preloaded on all computers that it sells to K-12 schools in the US. Dell will be the first hardware vendor in the industry to provide AOL@SCHOOL factory-installed to its customers. The companies made the announcement at the Florida Educational Technology Conference.

AOL@SCHOOL is a free on-line learning tool designed to help schools make the Internet a more effective part of the classroom experience. While 95 percent of schools in the US are now wired to the Internet, studies have shown that educators are not certain of how to best make use of the Web's vast educational resources.

AOL@SCHOOL applies America Online's hallmark focus on convenience and ease-of-use to the problem, providing a series of safe, age-appropriate learning portals with easy-to-follow connections to online content that has been selected by educational experts. Preloaded on Dell computers, AOL@SCHOOL offers schools the ability to provide students with such communications features as e-mail and instant messaging, at the discretion of school officials. The service also features an education-focused search engine, AOL's unique safety controls to protect students from inappropriate Internet content, and special portals for teachers and administrators.

Since its launch in April 2000, AOL@SCHOOL has been supported by Florida Governor Jeb Bush, Virginia Governor Jim Gilmore, and Maryland Governor Parris N. Glendening, who are encouraging school administrators to incorporate the AOL@SCHOOL on-line learning system into their K-12 curriculum.

The AOL@SCHOOL software includes a State Focus feature, which provides locally oriented information selected by state education officials. The State Focus feature offers states live content windows in each of AOL@SCHOOL's six learning portals, which can then be programmed to spotlight information targeted for different age groups of students, as well as teachers and administrators. AOL@SCHOOL will be available on Dell OptiPlex GX100 desktops and Latitude C600 notebooks in February and is scheduled to be available on all OptiPlex and Latitude models by April 2001.

According to Dataquest/Gartner Group, Dell is the number one supplier of PCs to the US education market, the number one supplier of computer systems in the US overall, and number two worldwide.