Christopher D. Sessums :: Blog :: Access for the Long Term: Erasing Digital and Educational Divides

In Monday’s (July 2, 2007) Opinion section of The Boston Globe (p. A13), guest columnist Nolan Bowie offered a solution toward bridging the U.S.’s digital divide in a piece titled “Education for the long term”(I suppose his solution could also work for other nations, even the globe, yet in many nations a digital divide is the least of its citizens worries).

Bowie’s proposal for erasing the digital divide involves creating a national broadband infrastructure in which everyone would have access to a high-speed Internet service.

I think most educators would agree that educating children alone in this digital/global, knowledge-based economy is not enough; educating adults is just as important. Thus, the critical question, as Bowie frames it, is What kind of society do we want?

“When the question is phrased in this manner, it becomes clear that long term public policy about information technology inherently involves society’s core values concerning power and politics, philosophy, sociology, economics and justice. Therefore, the answer ought to come from “we the people” ourselves, after necessary public discussions, debates, teach-ins, arguments, and democratic conversations in open public arenas and forums.”

This scenario is clearly what many of us envision for the future. We have the tools and capacity to hold public debate and discussion; we have the ability to educate ourselves, investigate possibilities, run simulations, poll readers-writers, etc. In this sense, Bowie’s idea for a national broadband seems positively Dewey-rrific. The Read Write Web could easily support a hypervocal conversation where participation blurs public/private boundaries (think voting in your underwear). We have the ability, but do we have the national/international will (or trust) to pull it off?

We are faced with many important decisions regarding our long-term future (however you wish to define long term, e.g., five-ten years or our grandchildrens’ grandchildren). Is equal opportunity something that is open to all or some? Do we want our shared social institutions to be democratic or plutocratic, open and free or authoritarian, inclusive or exclusive, integrated or segregated? I recognize I am framing this issue in dualities that necessarily point to the poles as opposed to plowing a more fertile middle ground. My point is to suggest that if “we the people” are not careful and do not actively participate in this debate, then we could easily be left with fewer choices.

Bowie goes on to argue that open access to broadband Internet service could empower our workforce, allow our citizenry to be better informed, more engaged in local/national/global politics, and more likely to participate in the machinations of democracy. He suggests that adult illiteracy would be reduced, that we would all be more critical thinkers and more readily access life long learning opportunities available via the Web. Bowie goes on to argue that a national broadband infrastructure would allow for better healthcare services for all, including those of us with physical disabilities. He even suggests that this proposal would improve national security and economic prosperity.

Somehow, I find Bowie’s appeal to prosperity for all of humanity a bit naive. But I do see great value in providing high-speed access for all. Can you also imagine government issued laptops for every citizen? Better yet, perhaps not a laptop, but a mobile device that handles email, voicemail, that serves as a pager, chat client and gaming platform. You know, a device that provides us access to maps, guidebooks, Web browsing, and our local election precincts. A device that is a video player, music player, radio; a device that serves as a transit ticket, a payment system, a biometric ID, an environmental safety sensor; a device that serves as an alarm clock, camera, laser scanner, navigator, pedometer, flashlight, remote control, a high definition projector, an office key, car key, house key…. (these features are listed in Bruce Sterling’s article Dispatches From the Hyperlocal Future, Wired magazine, July 2007, p. 163).

I believe that access is only one part of the overall equation necessary for Bowie’s utopian vision to become a reality. More than the a digital divide, we still truly need teachers and administrators who can work with both children and adults, who understand the consequences of our actions and, perhaps more importantly, the consequences our inactions. We still need educators who are more interested in teaching people to think critically as opposed to focusing on standardized test scores.

In the end, it’s not about technology; it’s about people. The digital divide is a symptom of a larger issue of access to open, educated, creative, ethical, caring, critical people. The prosumer, do-it-yourself ethic generated by the Read Write Web is only as powerful as the people using it (think GIGO). I don’t want to rain on Bowie’s parade, but I do want us all to be realistic. The question of What kind of society do we want? is indeed a critical question, one not to be taken lightly. Getting members of society to really focus on this question, to engage in the debate, to participate in the conversation, is the $6400 question. When billions are spent annually on entertainment and escapism (pdf), getting people to focus on the critical questions will remain marginal at best. Yet change often starts at the periphery, at the fringes, before it becomes part of the larger conversation. High-speed access has allowed the conversation to begin. Will high-speed access for all move the debate to the center of our collective will? I feel it would be worth giving it a shot.

How about you?