Study From Car Initiative

Last updated on: 9/11/2020 at 9:30 am

With the closure of public schools and the subsequent transition to remote learning, many schools have identified a lack of adequate Internet access in the homes of some of their students, limiting the ability of those students to participate in online learning opportunities.

Networkmaine has offered assistance to the roughly 140 local schools that have their WiFi networks provided through the Maine Learning Technology Initiative in creating an additional “guest” WiFi network.  This additional WiFi network will be completely segregated from any existing network(s) at the school.  The hope is that the MLTI wireless service currently bleeds out of the building to the extent that someone could park in the parking lot and obtain service, allowing them to participate in online learning while maintaining the social distancing that the school closures are intended to facilitate. We have already heard from schools that are repositioning their WiFi access points near exterior wall and windows to help extend the outside coverage.

We have dubbed this effort Study-From-Car as a play on the phrase work-from-home that has become so prevalent in the media.

We encourage participating schools to use the hashtag #studyfromcar if they make any announcements on social media.

If your school is doing something similar and would like to have it added to this map please drop an email to us at: NOC@maine.edu or fill out the form below.

03/23/2020 – In response to the overwhelmingly positive feedback we have received, we are now including any member that has a guest WiFi service and wants to be included on our Study-From-Car map.

09/11/2020 – With the state still in the grasp of the pandemic and remote / hybrid learning models being widely used, we will be keeping this map up to date during the 2020-2021 school year. Locations will be removed if they can no longer provide public WiFi and new public WiFi sites will be added as they are reported to us.