If you're applying for the 2009 e-Rate, the $2.25 billion-a-year federal program that provides discounts on telecommunications services to eligible schools and libraries, you won't find many new additions to this year's program, e-Rate officials say. Instead, you'll find live training sessions, online videos, and other web-based resources designed to help you become more comfortable with the e-Rate application process.

e-Rate audits are increasingly becoming a fact of life for e-Rate applicants. The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) has been allowed to spend more and more money to examine applicants to ensure they are compliant with e-Rate rules and regulations. The key to surviving an e-Rate audit is to always be prepared for one by maintaining proper documentation about your e-Rate activities.

To engage today's students and get them to learn, information must be more than just words on a page, educators told publishers at a recent forum: Instead, students need relevant and interactive material, as well as resources and activities that can provide real-life experiences.

Microsoft's research arm is leading a new effort to study the use of computer games as tools to help middle-school students learn science and math.

The New York Times reports that the United States is failing to develop the math skills of both girls and boys, especially among those who could excel at the highest levels, according to a new study--and girls who do succeed in the field are almost all immigrants or the daughters of immigrants from countries where mathematics is more highly valued.

Utah Gov. Jon Huntsman Jr. signed a bill Oct. 6 that will allow as many as five school districts and five charter schools to change the way they test students by piloting computer-adaptive testing, reports the Salt Lake Tribune.

The sound of fingers tapping on keyboards filled the room as Brown University recently hosted a student competition called the Digital Literacy Contest, which is "a high-speed battle of the minds to find information online," reports the Brown Daily Herald.

Savvy internet users know that downloading unsolicited computer programs is one of the most dangerous things you can do online, because it puts you at great risk for a virus or another time bomb from a hacker. But even some sophisticated surfers could get taken in by a sneaky new attack in which criminals create fake YouTube pages--dead-on replicas of the real site--to push their malicious software and make it look like it's safe stuff coming from a trusted source, reports the Associated Press.

Use of technology in the classroom will only become more integral and transformative to education, Microsoft chief research and strategy officer Craig Mundie told a crowd of about 70 undergraduate and graduate students at Princeton University, reports the Daily Princetonian.