Random quote, strange world

“President Bush has set out a bold vision for broadband in America, establishing a national goal for ‘universal, affordable access for broadband technology by the year 2007.’”

See Remarks by President Bush on Homeownership, Expo New Mexico, Albuquerque, New Mexico, March 26, 2004, available here.

Promoting Innovation and Economic Security through Broadband Technology: The President has called for universal, affordable access for broadband technology by the year 2007 and wants to make sure we give Americans plenty of technology choices when it comes to purchasing broadband. Broadband technology will enhance our Nation’s economic competitiveness and will help improve education and health care for all Americans. Broadband provides Americans with high-speed Internet access connections that improve the Nation’s economic productivity and offer life-enhancing applications, such as distance learning, remote medical diagnostics, and the ability to work from home more effectively. The Bush Administration has implemented a wide range of policy directives to create economic incentives, remove regulatory barriers, and promote new technologies to help make broadband affordable. The President believes that lowering the cost of broadband will increase its use and availability. – from the White House website.

I think President Bush missed his goal. There’s less than a month to go, and I’m just not seeing that universal broadband access.

Some disconnected thoughts…

This will be a somewhat choppy, scattered blog, but I want to get some thoughts down.

I had my first experience today with a PDF that wouldn’t let me copy. Even when I selected the pointer cursor, nada. It wouldn’t let me select text. I was able to do a screen shot and then copy the image, then paste it into a word document. But of course I can’t format it since it’s technically an image. Foiled! Made me think about Lessig and copyright laws. Given that my use of the passage was for an academic paper and considered fair use, shouldn’t I be able to copy and paste a few lines? But no, the author’s East Coast code was being protected by West Coast code, protecting the document beyond what East Coast code even intended. I thought it was really small-minded of the publisher (I assume it was the publisher’s decision) to make it so difficult. I ended up using the passage, but had to do it the old-fashioned way and typed it out. Take that, PDF! In the end, I think it ends up hurting the author and lowly graduate students like me.

As for sharing something from my final paper, I have to admit that there’s nothing to show. I’m doing triage with my final assignments, so won’t be working on the paper until this weekend.

However, given Professor Shulman’s prompts, I do have a few thoughts:

++ what is the central question you paper speaks to?
I’m going to stick with the metaphor of a footbridge that I used in my project outline, at least as a guide. The digital divide, particularly when it’s applied to global problems, is so big and overwhelming, so I tried to think about my little piece of service-learning, or any kind of similar program and what kind of impact it could have. If the digital divide is something we want to ideally eliminate, then I see my service-learning as a small footbridge across something that would, in a perfect world, not exist.

++ what are the most relevant theories?
I find social capital theories to be really compelling, and as I do a literature review, I’m finding the digital divide and social capital often appear together. I didn’t include that in my project outline, so there may be some finessing before the final paper is done. But in brief, the idea that our society has less social capital than earlier times, and the idea that ICT could potentially be used to increase social capital – that’s interesting to me. And when I’m participating with students in the Community Workshop Series, I like to think that we’re building some social capital, and helping them to acquire skills to build some more. It’s encouraging that some of these 80-year-olds can use e-mail to keep in touch with their loved ones, and as their hearing goes, they’ll have a way to communicate. One of my grandmother students told me that she is now using Gmail chat to keep up with her grandchildren. Love that!

++ who are your straw people?
Hmm. My straw people are probably people who either think the digital divide is not a priority, given all the other big issues we face. Or those who think free computer classes at a public library isn’t helping anyone, at least in comparison to bigger digital divide issues such as access.

++ what are your tentative findings?
Tentative findings: I’m getting a lot out of the service learning because someone else did a ton of legwork. I’m told that the UNC staff person who got this program off the ground is a big proponent of service learning, particularly for MLS students ,and really gets the issues with the digital divide. Other graduate students get it, the director gets it, the public library gets it, and lots of people show up for the classes who really learn something valuable. So, I think that made my experience really sing, and now I get it.

Not sure yet how this will work into the paper, but I’m really drawn to this concept of social capital. Even if I’m only helping someone to complement his social network through email, I think it matters. Even if that person never votes, never gets involved in politics and doesn’t use the Internet to get informed – just stay in touch with people, or find support groups or chat rooms, or feel a little bit better with this new tool to communicate across space and distance. That would be enough to make it all worthwhile.

Social Capital and the Digital Divide

I thought this article in the Bloston Globe was fascinating –

A Friend in Need

In the article, author Thomas Sander writes,

“Americans worship wealth and bemoan the material possessions they lack. In 2005 (the Year of Rediscovered Class Consciousness?), we seem to be waking up to the material class gaps that have grown for almost 40 years, since 1967.

But attention to this real and important economic class gap could blind us to an equally troubling, less visible gap between the classes — a social capital gap. ”Social capital” describes the benefits of social networks. Having friends and being involved in groups not only secures jobs — more Americans get jobs through who they know than what they know — but improves one’s health, education, and happiness.

My service learning at the local library makes this issue real for me. A lot of the people are trying to acquire computer skills so that they’re employable, and to learn how to write and edit a resume. One woman asked if she could list me as a reference on her resume, and it struck me that I might be the closest thing to a business associate in her social network. Having access to someone with computer skills is a no-brainer for most of us, so it’s so hard to imagine what kind of network a person has, or doesn’t have, that she would need to take a formal computer class and ask a near stranger to stand-in as a reference.

Sanders continues:

“How can we close the social capital gap between rich youth and poor youth? … While people have to make friends voluntarily, one can certainly publicize the benefits of such friendships and dramatically increase the opportunity. For example, having youth at age 18 perform a year of mandatory national or community service in diverse groups would likely increase cross-race and cross-class social ties.

Moreover, we ought to ensure that in our rush to teach the 3 R’s in inner city schools we don’t forget to teach the 2 C’s (connections and community). Youth, especially poor youth, ought to learn about social capital and understand the social cost they’ll pay for not building these ties. Skills are also important: Institutions like churches and unions were cornerstones in teaching poor Americans how to run meetings, petition others, mobilize comrades, and build lasting friendships. Given the declines in union membership and church-going among poor youth, we must find other settings to cultivate such skills.”

Maybe it’s too much to expect that a series of computer workshops can close the digital divide and solve the world’s problems, but imagine the hand-up these people get as they learn to navigate what is essentially a new language, with new norms, new connections and new opportunities. Perhaps most of the people in the workshops will go out into the world and shop, but maybe a few will discover ways to build bridges to networks, get some social capital out of their efforts and move up the socio-economic ladder. And what if we taught ICT skills to community leaders who could mobilize their members, helping them access some of the powerful networking opportunities available on the Internet? Not just for jobs, but for well-being, health, information gathering, all the things that privilege the digitally literate classes?

Consider this shocking story of poverty in Virginia, where some of the rural poverty equals that of non-industrialized nations.

“Outside the gates, people lay in their trucks or in tents pitched along the grassy parking lot, waiting for their chance to have their medical needs treated at no charge — part of an annual three-day “expedition” led by a volunteer medical relief corps called Remote Area Medical.

The group, most often referred to as RAM, has sent health expeditions to countries like Guyana, India, Tanzania and Haiti, but increasingly its work is in the United States, where 47 million people — more than 15 percent of the population — live without health insurance. Residents of remote rural areas are less likely than their urban and suburban counterparts to have health insurance and more likely to be in fair or poor health.

Even after Katrina, it’s shocking to learn that this kind of poverty exists in America. Medical volunteers follow-up with these patients by phone after they have their fleeting visits, but imagine if the patients had universal access to the Internet, and could belong to an online social network tailored to their specific circumstances, say by health condition or through a RAM medical network that helped monitor remote patients.

Quite a long post with quite a bit of rambling, but it struck me that there’s a real role for ICT to help build social capital by helping people across the digital divide, either by teaching them skills or providing, at the very least, some kind of access.

One last link and then I’m done! This one covers an online social network built to help India’s seriously poor working class find employment:

Internet Revolution Reaches India’s Poor

I’m doing my service-learning in a fairly affluent town in America, so it’s easy to think that we’re not making a dent in serious social problems. I read articles like the ones I’ve mentioned here, and it makes me realize there’s unlimited potential for this kind of work.

Googling while logged in…

In Professor Shulman’s October 10, 2007 CourseCast, he commented, “When I’m Googling logged in, it’s very different than when I’m not logged in. They are two very different experiences. I don’t know how I feel Googling when I’m logged in…pretty bad, actually, now that I think of it. This is part of the paradigm that’s shifting so fast we can barely grab it.”

This caught my attention, in light of a post that Fred Stutzman made in his blog, Unit Structures, about the presence of Google Toolbar on university computers.

Noting that some university computers have installed Google Toolbar, Stutzman writes that “Once one of the ‘advanced’ features is enabled, the Google Toolbar sends all sorts of information to Google, including ‘the log information and additional information, such as the URLs you visit or the text on the page.”

He continues, “Would a university export its user’s server logs to third parties in any other circumstance? Not without a subpoena.”

It’s getting difficult for people with average levels of digital literacy to understand privacy issues, much less for late-adopters.

My husband, an attorney for the UNC system with expertise in intellectual property, copyright and information technology, says “I have no expectation of privacy on a public computer.” But he also says that he hasn’t looked at the issue, other than to recognize that academics are concerned about it.

As Professor Shulman noted, the paradigm really is shifting fast. Interesting to think that people on the disadvantaged side of the digital divide could be on the advantaged side of the privacy divide.

Semantic Web: High-Speed Chase and the Digital Divide

I read articles like this one in Read/Write Web, and think about my class of students learning Microsoft Word. Do they read articles about the Semantic Web? If they do, does it give them heart palpitations?

In the article, writer Richard MacManus discusses a shiny new Web application called Twine, which founder Nova Spivack refers to as a knowledge networking application.

MacManus writes, “It has aspects of social networking, wikis, blogging, knowledge management systems – but its defining feature is that it’s built with Semantic Web technologies. Spivack told me that Twine aims to bring a usable and scalable interface to the long-promised dream of the Semantic Web.”

I think about the information tools I’ve either learned or improved over the past year: Second Life, wikis, blogs, Movie Maker, screencasting, Blackboard, Facebook, UNIX, Excel, Access, news readers, Powerpoint, not to mention my adventures into the university databases. I keep thinking about these tools in relation to the students in the Community Workshop Series, and I’m impressed that they took the step to sign up. It could be so easy to feel overwhelmed. So when I read about knowledge networking, I think about people learning Word for the first time, maybe even holding their first computer mouse.

Each time some venture capitalist gets together with a bright team of researchers, the digital divide gets deeper, wider and weirder.

Myth of the rational voter meets high-speed democracy

Bryan Caplan, an economics professor at George Mason University, wrote in “The Myth of the Rational Voter: Why Democracies Choose Bad Policies,” that elections shouldn’t be decided by the average voter because the average voter is uninformed. (Unfortunately, that’s an observation that seems to be backed by decades of research, in which voters were asked questions about candidates and the political process that they could not answer.)

You can read a review of Caplan’s book by Louise Menand called, “Fractured Franchise: Are the Wrong People Voting?” I highly recommend it.

I was thinking about Caplan while watching Professor Shulman’s September 19 CourseCast video, in particular during this slide about High-Speed Democracy:

When I think about America’s campaign finance rules, our largely rigid two-party system, a reportedly uninformed electorate, the strange impact of the electoral college and how far we’ve moved away from a representative Greek polis, I’m not so sure I even know what democracy is anymore.

I don’t agree with Caplan’s ideas that only the informed should be able to vote, but his idea was so rattling that I haven’t stopped thinking about it for several months. And when I think about throwing high-speed democracy into the mix, I don’t necessarily see the opportunity to create a more engaged electorate.

It seems that technology has created an extra barrier for voters; we have to be aware of the issues, educated about the candidates, and motivated to speak out and/or vote. We now have to understand the technology that will gather the information, track the information, give us access to public debate, and then do the actual voting. It’s hard enough to find the time and energy to do one, much less the other, not to mention the financial barrier to access technology.

I think democracy is getting a lot trickier, even though citizens may have more access to public forums through read/write technology. Citizens have to understand the issues, have access to technology, and know how to use it. Will that really make our democratic system more just? Will the electorate really become more informed, engaged and motivated?

I must really be down today, because I’m finding all kinds of reasons to be cynical. There’s also the 2007 Pew Research Center for the People & the Press that found American citizens were less informed about current events than they were in 1989. So, the web is really working for us?

At my most cynical, I find myself thinking that all ICTs have done is to create demand for a new kind of campaign consultant. We’re watching the lines be re-drawn, and only the very nimble seem able to benefit and keep up.

I worry.

Digital Sisters: Service Learning Opportunity

In case anyone is really stuck trying to find a service-learning project, perhaps this link will provide some ideas:

Digital Sisters: A Technology Social Services Agency
You can actually volunteer virtually, or, if you’re really enthusiastic, you could create a volunteer program in your community. They are physically located in Washington, DC.

Here’s a snapshot from their About Us page:

Digital Sisters (DS), Inc. is a 501(C)3 non-profit organization created to promote and provide technology education and enrichment for women and children who are traditioanlly underserved.

If the technology field is any indication of messages sent to women and girls research has shown that women have the least penetration in technology fields. This number decreasing by the inclusion of ethnicity and socio economic factors. Young girls are continuously sent daily messages that technology is “not for them.”

Working through enhance partnerships with community based organizations, corporations, technology centers and local schools, Digital Sisters provides assistance in closing the gender gap in technology that is plaguing single mothers. We have developed and implemented programs that promote needed life skills training and address the impact of the lack of technology skills on families. Our educational philosophy is based on a participatory and interactive learning approach.

By providing support through in and out of school activities, community outreach and professional workshops, Digital Sisters empowers women and girls which further strengthens families.

Our programs focus on the participants’ current goals; talents, abilities and interests, then begin to explore opportunities in technology. Sessions stress acquiring skills and knowledge that enhance self-confidence. Activities include hands-on experiences in the computer lab, speakers, and field trips. All programs are designed to provide technology education, increase awareness of gender equity, develop skills, to assist in personal growth, enhance learning, and to build self-esteem.

Digital Sisters’ programs and services will help participants to gain knowledge that can help to combat the alienation, apathy, discrimination and non-participation in technology related environments for those who are disadvantaged.

We provide innovative programs to assist traditionally underserved communities in creative, expressive and cooperative methods of learning utilizing technology empowerment strategies. Digital Sisters provides opportunities to families and individuals that might not otherwise get assistance every single day!

In addition we provide program planning and technology curriculum development for local schools, community technology and learning centers utilizing our technology empowerment strategies.

Self-perpetuating Digital Divide

For the most part, we’ve been looking at the digital divide as something to bridge. But I was reading an article called Cyberkids: Exploring Children’s Identities and Social Networks in Online and Offline Worlds (Valentine, Holloway, 2002), and I realized that there can also be a self-perpetuating digital divide.

In Holloway and Valentine’s study, they study “primary, empirical material demonstrating how online spaces are used, encountered, and interpreted within the context of young people’s offline everyday lives.” Their study isn’t about the digital divide, per se, although they recognize how it influences children’s offline and online usages, and note that attitudes differ depending on offline circumstances, namely socio-economic status.

Holloway and Valentine note that working-class attitudes toward computer technology varied from affluent attitudes. The children living in more working-class towns were less likely to get online at home because their parents either lacked the means to buy a computer, or didn’t want to pay for Internet access unless it was necessary. (Apparently local calls aren’t free in Britian, at least during the time the article was written). But what was interesting was that the more affluent kids perceived the use of Internet-connected PCs as something conjoined with sociality and communication. Less affluent kids viewed Internet-connected PCs as being negatively conjoined with “too academic,” or “too geeky.” All of these kids had access to the Internet at school, based on British attempts to bridge the digital divide through the school system. And yet, social attitudes to that access was conceived in very different ways.

“ICTs positions these [technoenthusiastic] children very differently, recontextualizing their off-line identities in negative ways. For example, boys who are technologically competent and interested in PCs generally have poor social standing within [non-affluent] schools. In popular culture, “techies” are commonly represented as being physically unattractive, wearing glasses, and having bad skin and poor fashion sense. In other words, their bodies are regarded as a product of their obsession with computers–of too much time spent staring at a screen.”

I would call this a self-perpetuating digital divide, although the article doesn’t delve into the nature of these attitudes so much as compare the differences between their affluent peers. Is this a common problem within the digital divide? And if so, how pervasive is it among lower socio-economic groups? We assume that underserved groups want and need access to computer technology, but what happens when we encounter cultures that perceive association with technology in a negative way?

Get 1, Give 1

Nicholas Negroponte, Chairman Emeritus for One Laptop Per Child, was in the news with the announcement that the Give 1, Get 1 program officially launched.

Writes author Steve Lohr in Buy a Laptop for a Child, Get Another One Free:

“One Laptop Per Child, an ambitious project to bring computing to the developing world’s children, has considerable momentum. Years of work by engineers and scientists have paid off in a pioneering low-cost machine that is light, rugged and surprisingly versatile. The early reviews have been glowing, and mass production is set to start next month.”

The program allows Americans and Canadians to buy two laptops for $399, with the intention that the second one goes to a child in a developing nation. The donated computer is tax deductible.

No mention of “digital divide” in the article, but that’s essentially what these computers address. Negroponte is quoted as saying he’s disappointed with the initial response, although governments across the globe are beginning to order them.

Perhaps there’s a way they could be tied in with Kiva.org, an online micro-lending program that helps entrepreneurs around the world.

(Too much jet-lag for a lengthy post, but was glad to see this program take off and wanted to capture the link.)

Service Learning: Some Examples

Since it will be at least a week before I get started on my own service learning experience, I decided to troll around for examples of people bridging the digital divide. I came across an article on the Digital Divide Network about teens helping seniors with computers and was impressed. Sixteen-year-old Angie Groh decided to teach computer literacy to seniors in her small town (population 400) in rural Iowa.

Teens Teaching Seniors: The Digital Divide on a Local Level

I gathered from her story that Groh had difficulty getting the word out about her free classes, which is a similar challenge facing Fight Against the Digital Divide, the group at UNC’s Campus Y that I may work with. Because Community Workshop Series, the other group I’ve contacted, has an ongoing relationship with four local public libraries, they seem able to focus on staffing instead of marketing.

Another really useful article:Connecting the Digital Dots: Literacy of the 21st Century published in November, 2006, by Educause Quarterly. I particularly appreciated the authors’ attempts to define digital literacy. They distinguish digital literacy from visual literacy, and go on to say:

“Weaved throughout the definitions of each term are a host of other subclassifications including information literacy, lateral literacy, and reproduction literacy. Specifically, each term defines skills inherent in a digitally or visually literate individual. The variations in terminology, including redundancies, represent the newness of this phenomenon. The lack of extensive or at least longitudinal research related to digital literacy and, most importantly, to its impact on the learner, also helps explain such variations and redundancies. Nonetheless, a common understanding has emerged—a leitmotif that characterizes a unique environment. Literacy, in any form, advances a person’s ability to effectively and creatively use and communicate information.”

I hadn’t thought about digital literacy in a plural sense, breaking down the different skill sets into information, lateral and reproduction literacies (the authors don’t go into this in much depth in this article). It’s probably not their intention, but the authors made me realize that becoming literate is an ongoing process. Dr. Shulman mentioned in a class that the purpose is to create life-long learners, which for some reason makes this whole experience a lot less intimidating. That takes the focus off the skills and puts it on the process. And I liked how the authors clarified the goal of digital literacy:

“Ironically, while some see the profusion of realities as threatening to us, to our children, and even to democracy, the new media is nothing if not simply another way of viewing our world, of interacting with one another, of opening ourselves to learning in realms of possibility we never conceived of before. In our development as higher-order thinkers, multiple realities are far less important to our survival than our ability to understand what we see, to interpret what we experience, to analyze what we are exposed to, and to evaluate what we conclude against criteria that support critical thinking. In the end, it seems far better to have the skills and competencies to comprehend and discriminate within a common language than to be left out, unable to understand.”