| The concept of the Digital Divide has grown out of the concerns for equity and access to all forms of technology for people across this country. These concerns have been echoed throughout the decades of the 1980’s and 90’s, and is a dilemma that's now very prevalent in the 21st century. In the 90’s, the US Department of Commerce, the National Telecommunications and Infrastructure Administration (NTIA), The Benton Foundation, the Civil Rights Forum, the National Urban League, the Digital Divide Network and others began to monitor the ability for all people in the Unites States to have access to technology in schools and homes. The results were very revealing. They identified that there was a gap between the technology "haves" and the "have-nots," and that the gap was growing each year. This gap was identified under social economic descriptors, across ethnic backgrounds, education level, language, and demographic location (rural, suburban, or urban).
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All people across our state and nation - whether they reside in urban or rural communities – should and deserve to have access to telephone services, a computer, printer, the Internet and e-mail.
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As this gap was being identified, funding began to emerge from different sources at the federal and state levels, attempting to address this problem. These sources included the NTIA, the Telecommunications Education Trust (TET), The New York State Advanced Telecommunications Project, US Department of Education, Community Technology Centers (CTC), America On Line Inc, IBM Inc, Apple Inc, Micro Soft Inc, and others.
After the federal Telecommunications Act of 1996, an E-rate structure was established to develop technology infrastructure to support schools, districts, and libraries that develop technology plans and meet certain socio-economic criteria. Based on the number of students receiving federal free lunch funding, schools and libraries in the surrounding districts would receive between a 10 and 90 percent discount for the purchase of telecommunications hardware, software and infrastructure. Coordinated by the New York State Education Department, 100 percent of the state’s libraries and more than 90 percent of the state’s school districts applied for funding.
These efforts have been the beginning of society’s attempts to address the question of how to bridge the digital divide and have provided the basis for further discussion and implementation of life-long policies that will support technology and access to information by all segments of the population.
This is not a rehash of existing information, but an attempt to define the current status of the divide and discuss what actions should be taken as we plan to serve our future educational, academic and professional work force needs. All people across our state and nation - whether they reside in urban or rural communities – should and deserve to have access to telephone service, a computer, printer, the Internet and e-mail.
My recent work in this area has been through providing a series of workshops, making presentations, and co-sponsoring a legislative-university conference on the digital divide. This has guided me to new understandings of the problem, concerns that others have, and some potential solutions. This work has also assisted me in determining potential evaluating strategies of program and project activities associated with the question of the digital divide. My work has been informed by the research and practical applications that helped me design an applied research approach to this topic. I have used "social constructionism" as my theoretical base and now have begun to incorporate action learning and action research into the research design model because of the collaborative approaches and participatory empowering aspects that can be created.
I have identified what our group calls an "Urban CyberSpace Initiative" (UCSI) (Bowman, Hammond, Shaw & Lincoln, 1999) that integrates research and practical applications to support the design and implementation of the community-based technology development. UCSI supports education (K-16), community-based organizations, urban, rural populations, and addresses community development, sustainability, and partnering.
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We must ask people in urban and rural communities if they understand and value why we have these discussions about the "digital divide."
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Definitions
As a direct result of my research and activities, my definition of the digital divide has now expanded. It's not only a question of "haves" and "have-nots." We must be clear about the issues of relevant cultural content versus material that is not culturally sensitive. We must look at the economic situation that will inhibit access to technology by urban and rural communities. Public perceptions and how people feel about their right to access technology is another issue.
Findings
To address some of these issues and to provide a base for my research, I asked assembly people and senators from the New York State Black, Puerto Rican, and Hispanic Caucus and the Hispanic Task Force of New York State to provide support. They allowed me to conduct a " Digital Divide" workshop and to have access to their participants.
I administered two studies during the two major legislative conferences in February (Black, Puerto Rican, and Hispanic Caucus) and April (Hispanic Task Force), 2001. These conferences attracted several hundreds of people that represented the ethnic groups that are identified as the most in need of technology in their own communities. I recognized the limitations of the study because we expected higher income conference participants to attend. We also realized that each conference would be skewed, based upon the expected population that would attend each conference. The findings suggested that we can now take a boarder research agenda to get legislative support in the future and that there is a real interest in the digital divide across the State of New York. A major aspect of this work has been to inform legislative bodies about the digital divide and to get them to continue the discussion within their respective houses.
A survey was conducted to look at five areas of concern, personal identity computer experience, computer access, Internet access, and telecommunications. Personal identity measured race, family size, income, education, number of children, and zip code location. The telecommunications section measured telephone access, cell phone usage, access to phone service, and long distance. The computer access section asked participants to identify computer ownership, make and model, and where is the computer used. The computer experience section identified where you used the computer and for how long. The Internet access section asked about the type of modem access users had, speed of modem, and did they have e-mail. The preliminary findings were presented at the American Education Research Association conference and supported the current research about the impact that economics and education has on people. The better financially off and the more education they had the more likely they were to have access to technology in their homes.
The "Digital Divide" conference held in May, 2001 attracted over 125 participants to this one-day event at the University at Albany, SUNY. I present selected highlights from this conference that stimulated discussion and concern. Our website at www.albany.edu/cuyt/DD will be updated shortly to reflect the topics and discussion that came out of this conference.
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Two points: we are in control of the technology and technology is a tool to support our activities as we strive into the realms of the 21st century.
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Paul Crotty, Verizon Communications’ Group President for Public Policy and External Affairs-New York/Connecticut, presented the case for how newer types of technology are being deployed in urban communities. He addressed concerns about how minority businesses could benefit financially from the action and what it represented. Verizon and these businesses are planning follow-up meetings in the future to discuss these potential opportunities.
Students from a Cisco Academy in Schenectady School District, who exhibited their work, explained the potential of this work in High School and the how it effects them as they go off to college and into the workforce. They have more opportunities and a sense of accomplishment: strong indicators for self-motivation and high school retention issues.
Dr. Robert Taylor, Jr. Department of Urban Planning from the University at Buffalo discussed the importance of developing community-based systems approaches to this work and the fact that university and community collaborations only work if we listen to what the community wants to do. Dr. Hayward Horton, Department of Sociology, from University at Albany, reminded the audience that we need to make sure that there is a community presence first and to establish a relationship with that group to insure access to that community. Ms. Sandy Paben, Director of Education, New York Wired, then provided a model of a successful welfare-to-work program that starts with asking what the businesses need and then providing training for adults to meet these job opportunities.
Dr. Allen Hammond Esq., Professor at Santa Clara University, provided an overview of the digital divide and discussed how we as educators, business people, state legislators, state administration, students’ teachers, and parents must proceed. He spoke about economic development and the impact that would be felt in urban and rural communities if we do not deploy technology services.
Dr. Bill McIver, Senior Scientist in the Scholarly Technology Group and visiting Assistant Professor in the Department of Computer Science at Brown University challenged the weight that we put on technology as a solution to solve many of the urban and rural economic, social and education problems. He then went on to introduce The Institute for African-American Eculture, where researchers, computer scientists, educators, instructional designers, historians, and others in the field of education, technology, and business, are discussing future models of content materials. How it will be produced, compatibility with existing and future computers, necessary Internet access are just some of the points under discussion.
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These [technology] academies [in high schools] create a direct link between education and employment, and insure that today’s students are able to meet the demands of e-commerce.
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The recent activities that I have been involved in further confirm my belief that the digital divide is real, especially if you are poor, or a member of a minority group or other ethnic groups. There is the continued need for more dialog to accompany the rich technology projects, research, and evaluation that continue today. We must recognize the importance of sharing information and developing people networks that can partner in the future to discuss solutions and evaluation models that can be used. We must introduce security and privacy issues into our discussions because they affect residents in urban, rural, and suburban communities. Policy and legislative issues (i.e. e-rate for community-based organizations and churches) that state and federal officials can support must be presented by local community organizations and concerned citizens. We must ask people in urban and rural communities if they understand and value why we have these discussions about the "digital divide".
Closing
I want to express a simple concern, that we understand the fears and concerns about too much access to technology and the danger it plays in polarizing our society. Two points: we are in control of the technology and technology is a tool to support our activities as we strive into the realms of the 21st century.
We have defined the gap, identified several best practice programs that can serve as models, looked for funding, and developed assessment and evaluation methodologies that can be used to demonstrate program effectiveness. We are bringing groups of people together to discuss the issues and determine directions that we can collectively work on. We are looking within our communities urban and rural to see what their needs are and to make sure that we have their support before any development starts. We are enlisting the support of companies and asking government to play a greater role in funding and providing information about resources and practice. National information networks have been established and must continue to be monitored for information and sharing of ideas. Major technology corporations (Micro Soft Inc, Cisco, Novell, and others) have established academies in high schools across the country to create a skilled work force base. These academies create a direct link between education and employment, and insure that today’s students are able to meet the demands of e-commerce. It is a major step in bridging the digital divide in urban communities because this linkage promotes economic development and entrepreneurship. This creates a stronger work force that can attract technology-based corporations to locate in urban centers.
We need to keep doing the things that have been mentioned and identify new and exciting ways to stimulate interest and concern from these communities and people that live there. We need to get more legislative federal support to stimulate and increase the funding for these programs. A national advertising and demonstration campaign to show people the potential power and importance of having access to information should be considered.
We need to create a national/international task force on "Closing the Technology Gap" for urban and rural communities. These communities have the talent and the man power that can be infused into our "Information Technology" and other business workforces if the opportunities are provided for the to grow and be productive members of our society. We must act now to insure that our industries and businesses have a strong workforce pool that supports, respects, and loves our country in the future.
"…..the digital divide remains a major problem on both the social and economic fronts, requiring decisive and collaborative action on the part of government, education, and business sectors." (Simama, 2001)
References
Bowman, J., Hammond, A., Shaw, A., & Lincoln, B., (1999), Urban CyberSpace Initiatives. Journal of Educational Technology Systems. Amityville, NY: Baywood Publishing Co. (R)
Bowman, J., (1996) CyberHood Connections: Educational Webmasters and Designing Hypermedia Environments. Journal of Educational Technology Systems. Amityville, NY: Baywood Publishing Co. (R)
National Telecommunication and Information Administration (1995). Falling Through the Net. Full Report. (http://www.ntia.doc.gov/ntiahome/fallingthru.html)
National Telecommunication and Information Administration (1997). Falling Through the Net II: New Data on the Digital Divide. Full Report. (http://www.ntia.doc.gov/ntiahome/net2/falling.html)
National Telecommunication and Information Administration (1999). Falling Through the Net III: Defining the Digital Divide. Full Report. (http://www.ntia.doc.gov/ntiahome/digitaldivide/)
Pinkett, Randal D. (2000). Bridging the Digital Divide: Sociocultural Constructionism and an Asset-Based Approach to Community Technology and Community Building. Paper presented at the 81st Annual Meeting of the American Educational Research Association (AERA), New Orleans, LA, April 24-28. (http://www.media.mit.edu/~rpinkett/papers/aera2000.pdf)
Selinger, Michelle (Ed.) (2000), Telematics in Education: Urban CyberSpace Initiatives: Design, Pedagogy, Technology, and Sustainability in Urban Centers, Elsevier; Oxford, UK.
Simama, J. The myth of digital opportunity, the reality of the divide, Civic.com
 Click here to read Joseph Bowman's bio.
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