Digital Divide

The recently-published OFCOM Market Report makes for some interesting reading. Some of its numbers you would expect: the report charts, among other things, UK growth in consumption of gaming, user-generated content, and SNS (social network systems). Among the more surprising key facts buried in the report are related to what you might call "under-use", or use of ICTs for unintended purposes, and in unanticipated ways.

Intel's decision to pull out of the One Laptop Per Child project, founded by Nicholas Negroponte, is a blow to the project's ambitions.

According to today's BBC report, the project, which aimed to bring computing to children in developing nations via a custom-built, low-cost laptop, seems to be stalling. The original plan was for costs to be kept low by selling in volume, with governments placing large orders of one million. That has not materialised. Costs per unit crept up accordingly, with the final versions trialled in Uruguay and Nigeria reportedly costing closer to USD 200 (GBP 95). What does this mean?

In a strictly pragmatic sense, it's hard to fault Intel for acting the way it did. Intel has its own competing product, the Classmate, which rivals the OLPC's AMD-powered XO. Clearly, OLPC were not happy about this, seeing it as a direct threat to the success of their project. The OLPC apparently asked Intel to stop backing rival low-cost laptops, but the company refused to do so.

In this podcast, we feature an eight minute interview with Bradley A. Cohen, Assistant Director and Coordinator for Curriculum Development at the University of Minnesota. This interview was recorded at the 2007 ELI Fall Focus Session in Boulder, Colorado where Mr. Cohen presented a session entitled, "Faculty Development and the Net Savvy Student".

Brad Cohen discusses the digital divide and shares guiding principles the University of Minnesota uses to deliver an integrated suite of faculty development programs designed to help faculty meet the needs of net savvy students. The University of Minnesota's approach is informed by the data routinely collected from their students and faculty, the literature, and their practice.

In this 44 minute podcast, we hear the opening keynote address for the  2007 Western Regional Conference entitled  "All Aboard the Digital Express". This keynote is presented by Linda Thor, President of Rio Salado College in Tempe, Arizona.

Four distinct generations, from the tech-savvy to the tech-challenged, are enrolled in higher education today. Are we as educational leaders in tune with their wants and needs? In an era where students can text message their registrations, how many bells and whistles should we offer them? How do we manage to track trends? This presentation will explore possibilities and innovative solutions for the digital age. 

In the attached 16 minute recording, we'll hear from Open University's Director of Strategic Development, Joel Greenberg.  Listen in as he discusses a range of topics including, among other things, Open University's interest in Moodle.


This interview is provided courtesy of CNI and was recorded at their 2006 Fall Task Force Meeting.  The Coalition for Networked Information (CNI) is an organization dedicated to supporting the transformative promise of networked information technology for the advancement of scholarly communication and the enrichment of intellectual productivity.  You can learn more about CNI at their web site, http://www.cni.org

In this 16 minute recording, Bill Hogue sits down with Ken Udas to cover a range of topics include the business readiness rating, broadband policy and more.

This 22 minute recording provides coverage of an interview with Wake Forest University's CIO, Jay Dominick.  Listen in has he shares some thoughts on mobile computing, the Spellings Report, net neutrality, and much more. 

The attached MP3 provides continuing coverage of a series of interviews conducted at the 2006 EDUCAUSE Annual Conference. Listen as Marilu Goodyear hosts a 30 minute interview with Phil Long, Senior Strategist for the Academic Computing Enterprise at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Among other things, they take on the issue of patents, discuss Ray Kurzweil's Law of Accelerating Returns, and tackle the prospects for continued research on learning space design.

I wanted to follow up on a couple of points that came up in Stephen Downes's reply to my "Facebook.edu" post.

The first issue is about ownership. Cole made the point that students often perceive institutional software as "not theirs". I would add that there are (at least) two sides to this. One is to do with plain old functionality -- does the commercial or publicly available stuff work better? Does it have more critical mass? Does it tie in well with students' overall media use? The other, more important issue is to do with control, the management of personal and social identities, and shared social protocols for use of technology.

I think we have to accept that students are creators of content, as well as users and consumers. There is no necessary conflict between that statement and my earlier comment that "We need to challenge our students intellectually, not just confirm their existing (techno-)social practices". This was reinforced for me today, reading Tom Morris's comments about the BBC's plans "to build its website around user-generated content [...] with the aim of creating a public service version of MySpace.com".  Tom writes:

It’s time to see how the new Austrian Presidency of the EU will affect European strategic thinking on ICT infrastructure and the information society. On 31 January 2006, the Section for Transport, Energy, Infrastructure and the Information Society (TEN) meets in Luxembourg. Discussion of i2010 is Item 6 on the agenda.

i2010, for those who missed it first time round, sets the EU's ICT policy framework for the next five years.

My last comment on i2010, posted more than six months ago now, was skeptical about the use of the phrase “e-inclusion”.

My problem was with the word, not the issue (I still consider “e-inclusion” to be an unnecessary and rather ugly neologism). I never for one moment doubted the importance of countering social exclusion from ICT—on the contrary, I’ve consistently maintained in this blog that it’s too easy for organizations to sideline ICT accessibility and skills development as a “special needs” issue.