education’s digital future edf.stanford.edu
Educ 403x
Mitchell Stevens and Roy Pea
“Digital Divide” - Origins
• “Falling through the Net” - US Department of Commerce – 1995, 2000
• “Resolving the Digital Divide” - PITAC 2000
2
Digital Divides: First Conception
• US Department of Commerce (2000): – “differences in the shares of each group that is
digitally connected”
• Studied by income level, educational level, race and ethnic origins, location (home), gender, household type
• US Department of Education, NCES (2000)– Measured in students per instructional computer
with Internet access
3
Key Concept: A Shifting Center
• “As empowering and fundamental roles for technology use throughout society become more evident, issues of equitable access to technologies that make a difference to learning and teaching become more central to address” (Pea, 2001)
• This is even more evident in 2013 as the pace of change accelerates for technology in society
4
E-Rate Program as Federal Response
• Developed in 1996 Telecommunications Act; started funding ‘98• E-Rate: Schools and Libraries Program of Universal Service Fund,
administered under the direction of the Federal Communications Commission (FCC)
• Funded by a Universal Service fee charged to companies providing interstate and/or international telecommunications services
• 20%- 90% discounted support for connectivity from eligible schools, districts, libraries - $6Bil from 1998-2001 alone
• Has commonly disbursed ~$2.25Bil a year to over 4,000 service providers in over 100,000 schools - though dropped recently
5
Access to What? What Purposes? • Content Divides– High literacy levels of websites (still an issue)– English-only websites (2001 –> major changes and
Google Translate)– Lack of cultural relevance for many groups (2001 –>
many developments since!)
• Quality of Service Divides – Speed of connectivity for rich media – Broadband
• Competency Divides– E.g. Critical search competencies; Computational
thinking; Web Collaboration6
7
Beyond technologic logic to sociotechnical thinking
• “[The] big problem with the ‘digital divide’ framing is that it tends to connote ‘digital solutions, ’” that is, “computers and telecommunications,” without a consideration of the context into which that hardware would be put." (Rob Kling)
8
education’s digital future edf.stanford.edu
10
Computing and Innovation
11
12
13
14
an experiential…..
15
1. Do you program computers for at least five
hours a week (or not)?
16
2. Have you created or modified a website this
month?
17
3. Do you own five computers or more
counting your laptop, smartphone, music
players?
18
4. Have you created a computer animation, robot, videogame, or digital music lately?
19
5. Do you use Twitter or post blogs at least daily?
20