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

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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

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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

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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

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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

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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)

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education’s digital future edf.stanford.edu

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Computing and Innovation

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an experiential…..

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1. Do you program computers for at least five

hours a week (or not)?

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2. Have you created or modified a website this

month?

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3. Do you own five computers or more

counting your laptop, smartphone, music

players?

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4. Have you created a computer animation, robot, videogame, or digital music lately?

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5. Do you use Twitter or post blogs at least daily?

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