We are just beginning to realize the potential that our local area network (LAN) provides for our students. Currently, many have basic knowledge and limited experience searching for information throughout the Internet. As they become more skillful and aware of what is available, students will be able to use e-mail to send and request information or to correspond with pen pals at other schools throughout the state, the nation, and world. They have access to the Hawaii state system, FYI, which provides online information about events and state government, and even access to the state library system. Eventually, students will be able to request online any book in the entire state public library system. Using search engines and directories, they are able to access Web sites from around the world, including places such as the Library of Congress, the Louvre, or the Smithsonian Institution. This capability enables our students to tap the unlimited information resources available on the World Wide Web.

One of the most powerful capabilities that our own Web site provides is the ability to produce Web pages to make available locally developed information for other Internet users. Within our Keaukaha Web site, we have developed pages and links to help teachers and students develop local oral history projects. Teachers will be guiding their students in collecting oral histories from family and community members in the upcoming years. These histories will be incorporated into our Web site as resources in Hawaiian and English that will be available to Internet users throughout the world. We have plans to develop rainforest pages in both English and Hawaiian to provide information about the unique flora, fauna, and ecology of our local rainforests. Digital photographs and Hawaiian language descriptions of culturally significant sites in the Keaukaha area are also now posted on the school Web site. Kahealani Nae'ole-Wong also created a virtual exploration of Vietnam, based on a portion of her summer CTAPS (Consortium for Teachers of Asian Pacific Studies) travel seminar experiences. For all of our projects, we are encouraging others to link to our site to create a stronger relationship between our students and the outside world, and to be able to see the similarities and differences between their life in Hawaii and the cultures and lifestyles in other parts of the world.

We are hopeful that we can continue to upgrade the speed of our connections to the wide area computer network and the Internet to provide the capability for interactive video conferencing. This will be particularly beneficial to kaiapuni students throughout the state by providing access to a larger number of fluent speakers of Hawaiian. The Hawaii Department of Education is also vigorously pursuing distance-learning options, which will enable students to take courses through a combination of online, interactive television, and face-to-face encounters. Although the current offerings are developed for secondary students, the LAN capabilities will make it more feasible for a wide range of students throughout the state to take courses tailored to their interests and capabilities. Such classes can be especially important to the immersion programs throughout the state, as they are faced with scarce resources and limited numbers of Hawaiian language teachers, particularly in remote locations.

Additional software programs are being translated into Hawaiian. Currently, immersion students must use English-based keyboarding skills computer programs to boost their proficiency. A typing tutor program is currently being translated so that students will have a program specific to the keyboard setup that they use when writing in Hawaiian.

As more and more speakers and writers of Hawaiian develop, there will be an expanding need for additional technological advancements. Access to a complete, unabridged Hawaiian-English dictionary online would be a great resource, as would integrated Hawaiian spell-check programs for common word-processing programs. Perhaps the students currently in immersion classes will develop both the linguistic skills and the technological skills to create such programs in the future. With significant numbers of native Hawaiians living outside the state, Web sites such as Kualono and others developed at immersion schools can play an increasingly important role in helping these emigrants to maintain connections to their culture and language. As more and more people become literate in Hawaiian, the Leokï site will need to be expanded to provide services to those who wish to communicate in Hawaiian with e-mail.

These are exciting times for the Hawaiian language and culture. Little more than a decade ago, there were predictions of the extinction of the Hawaiian language within the next 25 years. There has been extraordinary progress, however, "there are probably less than 1,000 highly fluent native speakers of Hawaiian living today...9,972 residents of Hawaii and 5,433 residents of other states claimed to speak Hawaiian at home..." (Wilson, in press). Because these statistics are from a 1993 U.S. Census Report representing 1990 data, the figures are probably higher now. The survival of the Hawaiian language and knowledge of Hawaiian culture and customs appears secure because of the establishment of the Punana Leo immersion preschools, the devopment of Ke Kula Kaiapuni Hawaii (Hawaiian Language Immersion Program) within the public school system, and other coordinated efforts. Enrollment in these programs continues to grow, with a 23% increase between 1995 and 1996 alone (Wilson, in press).

Students in the Ke Kula Kaiapuni Hawaii program have learned Hawaiian through many means, from traditional mele (songs) and oli (chants) and classroom content instruction in a second language, to lessons taught by the kupuna. in the community. But, perhaps just as important has been the incorporation of modern technology to assure the survival of this ancient language. This blending of cultural and linguistic knowledge with technological competence will enable our students to remain firmly rooted in their cultural heritage and be prepared for success in the future. For these students, it is clear, as the Hawaiian proverb states, "Aole pau ka ike i ka hlau hookahi": Knowledge is gained in many schools.

Selected Hawaiian World Wide Web Sites:

Kualono	Keaukaha Elementary	1996 Year of Hawaiian Language
Hawai'i Department of Education	Nation of Hawai'i Homepage	Hawaiian Language