Publisher Launches Computer Network for Schools

By Debra Viadero

Scholastic Inc., the well-known publisher of classroom periodicals, last week launched what it says is the nation's first computer network aimed exclusively at teachers and students.

The new service, which carries a $295-a-year subscription fee, allows classes to use their computer modems to carry on electronic conversations with authors, scientists, policymakers, and other students around the country.

Pupils who are plugged into the network, for example, will be able to talk by computer with such children's-book authors as Frank Asch and Virginia Hamilton, to ask questions of journalists who covered the floods that ravaged the Midwest this past summer, and to carry on science projects with students in other...