Another Bridge Over the Digital Divide?

July11

David Warlick asks on 2¢ Worth » Has the Digital Divide Changed?. Scott McLeod showed in December that access at schools has definitely evened out (my current position is an example of that). But will that get the job done?

Scott’s post Dangerously Irrelevant: ROTW: Digital equity talks about the lack of teacher training preventing technology from being implemented in classrooms. My recent post on technology treads in those dangerous shoals.

Here is another point of view, I’ve talked about how it’s not just the classroom, it’s home access that is an issue. I could only get ~5 kids joining my online homework club in the evenings because of lack of home access. Recently I received this from my local councilmember:

Wi-Fi Soon to Cover Sacramento

The Sacramento City Council recently voted on a plan that will soon allow anyone with a Wi-Fi card and a computer to access the Internet. Users will be able to get online from free connections from parks, cafes, businesses and homes over 95 percent of the city.

The free ad-supported, best- effort service will have speeds of up to 1 megabit per second — 20 times faster than dial-up. Fee-based service with speeds up to 1 megabit per second would be offered for $15 a month, and for $50 a month, users would get 3-megabit service, as well as a free Internet phone that could be used anywhere there’s a Wi-Fi signal.

The speeds are slow, but it’s at start perhaps. This could go a long way to making the Internet more accessible to my students in their homes. It still wouldn’t give them a working computer, but that seems to be easier to manage these days than good internet access.

I wonder how this would work with a program like Daniel Bassill’s?

3 Comments to

“Another Bridge Over the Digital Divide?”

  1. July 11th, 2007 at 6:42 am      Reply Lary Ferlazzo Says:

    I thought you might be interested in the program we have at Luther Burbank High School where we provide home computers and DSL service as part of a Family Literacy Project. Over 200 students from various Sacramento City School District participate. You can read about it here:

    http://www.bayworld.net/ferlazzo/familyliteracy.html

    and

    http://www.bayworld.net/ferlazzo/relationships.html


  2. July 11th, 2007 at 11:18 am      Reply Roger Osburne Says:

    It is a step in the right direction but the wi-fi speeds are much too slow for any real time interaction. FTTP is what is needed not only for online learning but for applications like telemedicine. We need more programs like Connect Kentucky’s “No Child Left Offline” to ensure all children in America have access in their homes. (http://www.connectkentucky.org/projects/nclo/)
    For more information on how we can achieve this check out the Communications Workers Of America’s website – http://www.speedmatters .org


  3. July 12th, 2007 at 10:44 am      Reply alicemercer Says:

    Larry, thanks for writing. You’re at a comprehensive high school, so 200 computers with Internet access is a drop in the bucket. Even at my old elementary school that would only cover between half and one-third of our families.

    Roger, thanks for pipping in from CWA. I don’t know if we need more programs like No Child Left Offline, only because it’s not comprehensive enough. I’m thinking we need one big program. Even the Kentucky program is not one program, but appears to be a patchwork of local programs that are not comprehensive. I’ve commented before on having a sort of “lifeline” broadband access.

    Scott McLeod, has a piece on Dangerously Irrelevant about connectivity.


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