The problem is that the New York Times reporter doesn't understand that technologies are fluid.. if I can use that as a descriptor.The state of the art is constantly changing and users have to adjust to continue to be good users. Sometimes they have to buy a number of devices that modify or change use.
How we use the tools, how we see the use of technology is based on a number of modifiers. One of those modifiers would be the people who are using it. I am not sure how the cultural base should be defined but I suppose the minority groups should be descriptors, but, should include those who speak English and those who do not. They never mentioned those who may have to have some adaptability to be able to use it because of disability. They never mentioned the applications of technology everywhere in society. Some of the new technologies are not available to all for applications at home, in medicine, in school, in the office, etc. The government often uses fuzzy modifiers too. All of the schools are wired? Well , what constitutes wired? A cable drop in a school in the office. A lab in a high school? There are other ways now of connecting . There has to be a reason that there is a big struggle for wi-fi and that is that the citizens of many cities don't have connectivity. Having a computer, or a computer lab does not constitute fluency of use. Remember that during Katrina first responders did not have use of technologies. As people watched that gathering storm, there were modifiers that made them decide on actions to take. We may never know the whole story of what happened but we know that the digital divide in that case was information, and emergency service difficulty with a breakdown in communication. There was a considerable Latino and Vietnamese part of the citizenry, whose needs were not covered by mainstream media for the most part. That was a digital divide. The problem of Katrina was one heck of a digital divide for all the world to see. Information was a modifier and transportation was also. Permission was not granted for some to use the information they had and or to travel out of the place. But the most interesting thing about the legacy of Katrina is that the Hollywood and television lenses were not there, we were seen in all of our separate but unequal economical apartheid practices. You may remember " Invisible Man" by Ralph Ellison. That literature was not a quirk, and could be written again, with an update. Ralph might be blogging , is all and his companion could have been the coyote in Central Park. Research in the past decade has shown that computer technology is an effective means for wideningeducational opportunities, but most teachers neither use technology as an instructional delivery system nor integrate technology into their curriculum. This qualitative study examined the classroom practice of 30 “ tech-savvy” teachers who used computer technology in their instruction, how much they used it, the obstacles they had to overcome to succeed in its use, and their general issues and concerns regarding technology. No Child Left Behind, according to the NYTimes has reduced many schools to teaching two subjects, reading, and math. Apparently some of the kids do get Physical Education. Yippee...no science, and humanities, and then afterschool more of the same. No wonder the children don't like school as we have created it. If one is in very rural and distant areas, some of which at this time are being connected with wi-fi in a variety of schemes, the struggle is to create communities of connectivity. Think of the people in Navajo .. the land of the Navajo. Few, sparse phones some 60 miles apart in special community places. A struggle to get the basic telephony ( can you hear me now?) A person with a computer , who does email, is one application, but if we are talking about the digital divide there are so many other modifiers. Facility of use is a modifer. What can you do with the technology you have? What adaptors or cool tools do you have and how do they affect the ways in which you are a user. Why did the New York Times get the idea of the digital divide wrong? They talked about connectivity, in basic terminology. We all know that there are various levels of technology infrastructure. Sometimes the location of where you are in the world make a difference in the resources you have to use. Basically you have to • analyze the technology • describe its effects • interpret those effects understand infrastructure and deployment , and areas within a country that need more support or different kinds of infrastructure. Tell people that there are areas that are just getting connected, and describe the ways of connecting that are available with some percentages. Global data is available too But this one was specifically targeted for the US. We know that cities are struggling to do the wi-fi because they want all of the citizens to be aware, connected and able to participate. We know that rural in the US and distant in the US means that there many be a compromise in the type of service if there is service. In the area of education , having a computer does not necessary speak of fluency. Dr. Bertram Bruce , of UIUC says, and questions. "Are there other ways to understand the role of technologies? I'd like to suggest several approaches, which provide lenses for seeing the phenomena of user appropriation as well as frameworks for interpreting what actually happens when the system is deployed ." Pragmatic technology: "One sense of "pragmatic technology" is the common-language notion of technology that works to meet real human needs, accommodates to users, and is situated in time, place, and setting. A second, related concept, comes from pragmatist theory (e.g., Addams, Dewey, James, Mead, Peirce), in which technology is seen as the outcome of resolving a problematic situation. The latter sees technologies as both means of action and forms of understanding (Dewey, 1938; Hickman, 1990). " Situated evaluation: "Closely related to the pragmatic technology conception situated evaluation, a framework for understanding innovation and change (Bruce, Peyton, & Batson, 1993). "This framework has several key ingredients: It emphasizes contrastive analysis and seeks to explore differences in use. " Adaptive structuration: "Use of any new technology is a long-term process of adaptation (Desanctis, & Poole, 1994). This is not just to say that it takes time to learn how to use a new tool; more deeply it is that context determines use and in turn use determines context. The consequence is that we see processes of substitution, enlargement, reconfiguration. There's a whole book that Dr. Bruce has.. and then there's the report Technically Speaking which has a diagram of the effective uses of technology. I think the reporter was a mile wide and an inch deep in the thinking. Thinking points National Academy of Engineering Website http://www.nae.edu/nae/techlithome.nsf/weblinks/CTON-557R5G?OpenDocument Defining Technological Literacy One useful way to think about technological literacy is as a component of the more general, or "cultural," literacy popularized by educational theorist E.D. Hirsch, Jr. Hirsch pointed out that literate people in every society and every culture share a body of knowledge that enables them to communicate with each other and make sense of the world around them. The kinds of things a literate person knows will vary from society to society and from era to era; so there is no absolute definition of literacy. In the early twenty-first century, however, cultural literacy must have a large technological component. Technological literacy is a much richer concept than computer literacy, although the two are often confused. Technological literacy can be thought of a comprising three interrelated dimensions that help describe the characteristics of a technologically literate person. I think our digital divide network create community and cultural literacy . and there is the digital equity service center, and we haven't even talked about digital libraries..and other applications.. with the use of technology. But that's another blog. I hate to be misquoted by reporters too, but that's their job. That's why I blog. 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