Tech drive brings O'Keeffe back to his salesman days

HE once had to knock on doors to get people interested in encyclopedias, but now Batt O'Keeffe is putting them into the country's 4,000 schools. As a door-to-door salesman for World Book in the 1980s, he is said to have one of the best sales records in the country supplementing his income as a lecturer in Cork Regional Technical College.

But now as Education Minister, he does not need to use his selling skills anymore as his department is paying almost €500,000 to provide every primary and second-level school with online versions of World Book and Encyclopedia Brittanica.

The online resources use text, video clips, three-dimensional simulations, research aids and other new media in giving information to students.

The provision of a teaching laptop and digital projector for every primary school class in the coming months will add to the potential educational uses of the service.

"Making these encyclopaedias available online to schools free of charge demonstrates our commitment to providing digital reference content to teachers and students in a way that encourages learning through technology," the minister said.

The Department of Education pays an annual fee of €450,000 to Encyclopedia Britannica and World Book to allow schools use the online resources.

The €150 million plan to give a laptop and projector to every classroom within three years was announced by Mr O'Keeffe last October. However, the investment was likened by the Irish National Teachers' Organisation (INTO) to supplying new cars with no roads to drive them on, because of the inadequately slow broadband service in hundreds of schools. A 2008 report found one-in-three schools uses satellite broadband, which is so slow and unreliable that many teachers no longer use it.