To this quite correct observation that measurement depends on the object measured, I would like to add a few thoughts.
First of all, the digital divide is qualitative and not easily quantified. If a bus stops at a corner and picks up five passengers, each pays two dollars, it is easy to determine that the bus has taken in ten dollars of revenue at that stop. How does one quantify a lack of interest in computers, being so hungry that one cannot think academically, let alone spend productive time at a computer or being interested in school and learning about computers but having a father who regularly beats up a child at home while drunk. I do not think that all phenomena that need to be studied lend themselves to statistical or numerical analysis and the digital divide is in this direction of tough to quantify. Regarding how one defines the digital divide, it is a matter of concern that the focus of many in understanding this situation is only on computer or its equivalent and internet access. Not much is said in any literature that I have read concerning the digital divide regarding teaching skills in and providing access to bibliographic databases, like but hardly limited to ERIC, PsychINfo, General Science Abstracts, Social Science Abstracts, Inspec, Compendex, Medline, CINAHL, Art Index, ABI Inform, Business Source Premier, Academic Search Premier and many many more. Oceans of ink have spilled regarding some of the dangers of the internet to children. Try a microscope or a telescope or both and one will be hard pressed to find hate group literature or pornography or violent content in the many databases out there like those listed above. Indeed the content is these tools is highly quality controlled in the sense that the coverage of the database is very precisely defined. The searching software in the better databanks, furthermore, is much richer in capabilities than that provided by search engines. One can use them to find quite on topic reponsive results to complex and convoluted research topics. Without databases, source lists like the one mentioned in the post that I am responding to would be a very unlikely outcome of searching the internet with the search engine tools of today. Finally, as a very intelligent librarian from North Carolina, pointed out in a talk he gave recently, the emphasis in libraries (that was his focus but for the word libraries could be substituted education) needs to be on learning and teaching needed knowledge and skills and technology and devices are only to be discussed and of importance for their role in facilitating and improving this mission and not as a discipline or subject in their own right. Hence computer skills should be taught and taught well but at the same time emphasis should be ongoing in showing how these skills facilitate gaining or using or expressing knowledge and learning in the various intellectual disciplines. The expressed prize for learning Word should not be that it facilitates learning PowerPoint, but rather that Word expedites writing and packaging a well written document about a topic such as history or literature. I often wonder if we would not be better off if we thought in terms of the educational or knowledge divide rather than in terms of the digital divide and not in terms of lack of access to the internet, but rather to lack of access to the important information on the internet. Sincerely, David Dillard Temple University (215) 204 - 4584 [EMAIL PROTECTED] <http://groups.yahoo.com/group/net-gold> <http://www.edu-cyberpg.com/ringleaders/davidd.html> <http://www.kovacs.com/medref-l/medref-l.html> <http://listserv.temple.edu/archives/net-gold.html> <http://www.LIFEofFlorida.org> World Business Community Advisor <http://www.WorldBusinessCommunity.org> ===================================================== On Thu, 30 Sep 2004, Kenan Jarboe wrote: > Yoni, > David has posted some very good references. But let us keep in mind that a > standard measure of the digital divide requires a standard definition of > what is the digital divide. And I will not repeat the numerous discussions > and debates on that subject that have been held on this forum. Suffice it > to say that if you pick a definition, a measure will follow -- and there > will be legitimate disagreement as to whether that is the right measure. > Ken > Kenan Patrick Jarboe, Ph.D. > Athena Alliance > 911 East Capitol Street, SE > Washington, DC 20003-3903 > (202) 547-7064 > [EMAIL PROTECTED] > http://www.athenaalliance.org _______________________________________________ DIGITALDIVIDE mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://mailman.edc.org/mailman/listinfo/digitaldivide To unsubscribe, send a message to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the word UNSUBSCRIBE in the body of the message.
