August 16, 2009
It became almost cliche. Something that I heard so much that it began to be annoying, and I cringed at it the way I do when I hear some oldster say he enjoys ’surfing’ the web. Maybe others tired of hearing about it too. The digital divide may not be getting the attention that it was ten or more years ago, but that does not mean it is no longer an issue. Kathryn Montgomery points out in her book, “Generation Digital, ” that, “While public policies have helped ensure greater access through schools and libraries, they have not yet erased the troubling gap between children with access at home and those without it.”
I work in a school where I see this troubling gap each day. About half of my students each year have access to the
internet and reliable computing technologies, while the other half remains without. Most can’t even go to the library,
because that would require their parents to be available to take them instead of being at their second or third job. Our school site makes an attempt, but its computer lab is under-utilized and the administration is married to a program that basically ammounts to digital test prep rather than any creative or interactive use of our machines.
But then I began to consider the bigger picture and what the digital divide means on a larger scale. Turns out that as of 2005, the United States was number 11 on the list of most connected countries on the digital access index. This article discusses efforts to increase the availability of computing technologies in places that are truly on the other side of the digital divide, like most of Sub-Saharan Africa. As of the publishing of that article, only 3% of Africans had internet access. Makes my complaints about 50% in my class sound like whining.
world wide digital divide
Some folks will say that the falling prices of computers and bandwidth will inevitably lead to technological equity. However, many families in my district, across the country, and around the world have virtually no disposable income, and will continue to live on the non-digital side of the digital divide.
