We often discuss the use of technology for purposes of entertainment, but it’s important to recognize that it can also be used for educational purposes.

Our sister organization Cable in the Classroom, the U.S. cable industry’s education foundation, is dedicated to this mission: To foster the use of cable content and technology to expand and enhance learning for children and youth nationwide.

A few years ago, CIC launched the Leaders in Learning Awards (LIL) in order to recognize outstanding educators, administrators, policymakers and other community leaders at the forefront of innovation in education.

There are profiles of this year’s winners on here; there is a short video and an audio interview on each winner.

All of which is simply prelude to announcing that the application process has opened for the 2009 LIL Awards. LIL winners – who typically represent a national cross-section of cable systems, programming services, schools and other educational institutions – are recognized annually in Washington, D.C., at the annual Leaders in Learning Awards Gala, scheduled for June 10, 2009. Winners receive a $3,000 cash stipend, an all-expense-paid trip to D.C., and the chance to visit with Members of Congress and other federal officials.

The application period will expire on Wednesday, December 17, 2008. If you know of a deserving educator, administrator, public official, or community leader at any level, in all disciplines, and in all kinds of learning settings, then suggest that they enter.

Kyle posted a few weeks ago about his interview with Robert Scoble of FastCompany.tv. Scoble’s video of the interview is online now and embedded below.

Enjoy!

The cable industry has consistently demonstrated its commitment to policies that ensure all Americans have access to affordable broadband. This includes:

• Proposals to create a fund tailored to expanding broadband into unserved areas.
• The Broadband Data Improvement Act which would improve federal data collection regarding where broadband services have been deployed in the United States to achieve the goal of ubiquitous broadband availability for all Americans.
• Tax credits or other tax incentives to providers that build out in rural areas that are unserved by an existing broadband provider.
• Reform of the RUS broadband loan program so that funding is targeted specifically to unserved areas.
• Expansion of the FCC’s Lifeline and Link-Up Programs to help ensure that broadband access is extended to low-income households.
• Public-private partnerships to provide broadband in unserved areas.

We recognize that the government can play an important role in making certain that the economic and social benefits of broadband connectivity are extended to all areas of this country. While broadband deployment to every community in America merits the full attention of policymakers, legislation calling for “network neutrality” or government intervention into the operation of networks would undermine the goals of broadband deployment and adoption.

The government’s consistent light regulatory touch since the introduction of broadband has worked. Only that continued regulatory freedom is likely to spur the investment and innovation that consumers have come to expect.

The cable industry is on the verge of making the leap — from “broadband” to “wideband” — with a technology which can enable dramatically higher download and upload speeds. Several weeks ago, for example, Comcast launched a “wideband” service in Minneapolis-St. Paul that offers speeds of 50 Megabits per second. Comcast expects to have wideband available to 20% of its systems by year-end 2008 and to all homes passed by mid 2010.

The efforts of broadband network providers to build larger and faster networks have helped ensure the success of countless numbers of new Internet businesses and applications. Despite concerns about alleged limited access to broadband, use of Internet video on demand has grown at the most dramatic rate. In February 2008, nearly 135 million U.S. Internet users spent an average of 204 minutes viewing 10.1 billion online videos. YouTube represented 34% of those online videos, or nearly 3.5 billion.

For years, net neutrality proponents have argued that without government intervention, broadband providers would stifle competing services and content providers; Internet development and usage would stagnate; and consumers would be unable to use their broadband connections to download video or access other emerging applications. In fact, cable’s investment in broadband has driven innovation and investment in new content and applications at the edge — the exact opposite of what was predicted by advocates of net regulation.

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You’ve heard about those DTV converter boxes that you can get a coupon for. News today that the Consumer Electronics Association (CEA) has partnered with the National Association of Broadcasters (NAB) on an upgrade of the nine-year-old site AntennaWeb.org, “an online antenna mapping program designed to help users determine the proper outdoor antenna to use in order to receive free local broadcast channels.”

In other news, the DTV Transition Coalition, of which NCTA is a founding member, put out a media release on Friday pointing out their tremendous growth in membership. It’s a long and varied list that includes “consumer groups, broadcast, cable and consumer electronics companies, retailers, civil rights and grassroots organizations, trade associations, and state and local government organizations.”

CTAM, the marketing association for the cable industry, released a study this week that looked at different consumer segments (particularly ones that are influential in the spread of hi-tech), their technology adoption, the decision-making process, and content viewing behavior.

The study drilled in on two influential groups – future shapers and future makers, who collectively represent 30% of consumers. Most people these days have heard of early adopters, a term created by Geoffrey A. Moore in his book Crossing the Chasm, which discussed the gap that exists between those consumers who will adopt new tech products and services early in their lifecycle and the “early majority” users, who are pragmatists and will wait longer.

A Light Reading article on the study explains their significance:

…future shapers (10 percent) are the early adopters of technology who readily spread the word and whose opinions are sought out. Future makers (20 percent) are second stage adopters who will tout the benefits of new technologies. The largest group of consumers is classified as today consumers (40 percent) who wait until technologies are proven before adopting them.

(For more on the significance of influencers, see Malcolm Gladwell’s classic The Tipping Point.)

The CTAM study, Future Shapers and Makers: An Examination of Consumer Segments, conducted by TNS Media & Entertainment, found:

Almost half of today’s technology influencers are choosing television service provided by their cable company over a satellite or telephone company provider. Forty-six percent of technology’s earliest adopters choose cable, while 26 percent chose satellite and 2 percent chose to receive video services from their telephone service provider.

From the article in Multichannel News:

Doing their homework is what sets the future shapers and future makers apart. According to the survey, 67% of future shapers and 59% of future makers are likely to get information about TV services from the Internet, compared to 45% of today’s consumers. The two influencer groups are also more likely than others to obtain information from TV, newspapers, and magazines.

According to the survey, 89% of consumers are concerned primarily with the reliability of the provider, over price

In addition, the study examined the trend in watching video on alternative platforms, such as laptops, portable DVD players or devices like iPods or iPhones. The study found that 37% choose a desktop computer or laptop as their preferred method. You won’t be surprised to learn that younger consumers are most likely to watch programming online, coming in over 50% greater in their tendency to watch video on desktop computers or laptops.

UPDATE: Along these lines, it’s probably worth pointing out another study that came out this week.

In a study conducted by Canadian research firm Solutions Research Group, nearly 80 million Americans, or 43% of the online population, watched a TV show on the Internet, as of November, up from 25% a year ago.

You can read the press release on the Digital Life America study here.