Most community colleges cannot match the budgets and endowments that are typical of four-year colleges and universities. But that doesn't mean they are lagging in terms of educational technology: In a recent survey on technology integration in higher education, community colleges actually scored slightly higher than four-year institutions.

What motivates a growing number of virtual-school students to forgo the traditional school structure and take their classes entirely online? At the Virtual School Symposium hosted by the North American Council for Online Learning last month, virtual-school students explained they like being able to progress at their own pace--and some said they appreciate being able to take classes not offered by their traditional, bricks-and-mortar school.

A Missouri mother on trial in a landmark cyber bullying case was convicted Nov. 26 of three minor offenses instead of the main conspiracy charge in a cruel internet hoax that allegedly drove a 13-year-old girl to suicide.

Schools and libraries can begin applying for 2009-10 e-Rate discounts on Tuesday, Dec. 2, and they'll have until 11:59 EST on Thursday, Feb. 12, to submit all necessary Form 471 application materials, says the Schools and Libraries Division (SLD) of the Universal Service Administrative Co., the agency that administers the program.

Higher education is discovering that Google isn't the only game in town. The search-engine giant, along with competitor Yahoo, has long been the most-used search site, but other search tools have surfaced in recent years that could help college students do more in-depth research of video and audio files and web sites that have cluttered the internet.