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The temporary computer lab, was set up to help promote technology in Indian education at a conference in Tulsa.

TULSA, OK - Students at an Oklahoma Council for Indian Education fall conference received training on a computer network designed and set up by Cherokee Nation of Oklahoma (CNO) employees earlier this month.

"The idea behind the computer labs was to make Native American students more comfortable and familiar with how to access information through the Internet," said Shelley Butler-Allen, the associate education director for the Cherokee Nation who helped organize the conference. "Native American students need to be brought up to par with the rest of the students in America in regards to computers and the Internet."

Butler-Allen cited statistics that show that just nine percent of all Native American households have a computer, and just eight percent have Internet access.

"Native Americans are definitely on the wrong end of the digital divide," Butler-Allen said, referring to the technological gap between those with computer access and those without. "That’s why it’s an important first step to help students and instructors as much as we can. We couldn’t have done it without Cherokee Nation’s information systems’ employees putting the lab together."

CNO information systems employees Matt Drewes, Richard Lucas and Jeff Carroll set up a network of five donated computers at the Sheraton Tulsa Hotel earlier this month for a series of workshops over a two-day period. The Cherokee Nation of Oklahoma provided the computers and dial-up Internet access for the trainees. Lucas and Carroll set up a temporary network and configured the computers to have printer access and file sharing, which required networking hardware and wiring.