The Digital Divide: Access to Resources

The Internet has profoundly changed how me and my family access information. No more do we have to make a trip to the library or pull out a huge dictionary to get answers to our questions. We have instantaneous access to world libraries, newspapers, and experts 24 hours a day, right at our fingertips. In our house, we don't even have to wait for a turn on the computer to find our answers as we each have our own computer with wireless Internet access. (Just so you don't think we are an affluent family with more money than we know what to do with, both my husband and I work in education and our children had to buy their own laptop so they could appreciate the work that went into earning it.) Despite a lack of six figure salaries, we still have the resources available that allow us to provide opportunities for our children to access information that is now easily and freely available. We have the knowledge, especially with our education backgrounds, to teach them how to evaluate the information that they find. We have the technology skills (and comfort level) to show them how to take what they have access to and construct their own learning using multimedia tools.

Unfortunately, I know other children who are not so fortunate.

Even within my own school in an affluent, suburban area, there are students who stand across the Digital Divide as far from my own children as they can possibly be. Some of them are minority or low income students whose parents are not able to afford what I can for my children or, if they do manage to afford a computer, often they are without the Internet access or software needed to make full use of their computer. Others are children whose culture finds more value in the rote memorization of facts than in creating. These students have parents who will pay for hours of Kumon lessons or who will pay a tutor to help their child "study for" an IQ test to get into the gifted program, but their computer usage is often limited to programs designed to improve their child's skill in a specific area. There are other students whose culture is the complete opposite--education is like an afterthought. These students can have cell phones and iPods and Gameboys, but they are mostly used for entertainment value, not for education.

And, then there is Zimi.

Zimi is part of the One Laptop per Child initiative. Her digital divide was much greater than any of the children in any of the schools in which I've ever taught. Through the efforts of the MIT Media Lab and the One Laptop per Child initiative, children like Zimi all over the world have been given their own laptops designed for the environments in which they live--harsh climates, limited access to electricity, limited access to Internet. After watching some of the other projects to reach out to children in third world countries, I thought how wonderful it would be if these organizations could combine their efforts. The Save the Children program could be so much more effective if they were using the low cost XO laptops instead of the older desktop computers they were using. It would allow the students to use the computers EVERY day instead of once or twice a week. Parents would be able to benefit from their child's learning because the laptops (and the training provided by Save the Children) would be available to their parents every day.

The Digital Divide clearly exists as do many other divides that separate us from others--race, religion, culture, gender. Like other inequities, the first step is recognition of the separation, but we cannot be content to stop there. We must continue, especially as educators, to narrow the divide between the children, like my own, who have nearly unlimited access to information and children, like Zimi, to whom opening up a browser window can open her up to a whole new world of information.