Digital Solidarity in Education

Promoting Equity, Diversity, and Academic Excellence through Innovative Instructional Programs

Mary T. Kolesinski, Evelyn Nelson-Weaver, Daryl Diamond

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2013
• Print ISBN: 9780415636148
• eBook ISBN: 9781135119164
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Education
• Subtopic: Education General

Digital Solidarity in Education is a book for educators, scholars, and students interested in better understanding both the role technology can play in schools and its potential for strengthening communities, optimizing the effects of globalization, and increasing educational access. The digital solidarity movement prioritizes the engagement and mobilization of students from diverse racial, ethnic, linguistic, and economic backgrounds, and with giftedness and/or disabilities, to utilize and apply technologies.

This powerful book introduces innovative technological programs including virtual schools, e-tutoring, and interactive online communities for K-12 students that can:

• increase students' knowledge and understanding of advanced concepts while reinforcing their basic skills;
• reinforce students' communication in their first language while introducing second and third language possibilities;
• nurture students' capabilities to think analytically, while using creative and innovative ideas to think simultaneously "outside of the box."

The experienced author team shows how collaborative partners from the private sector can assist public school systems and educators in creating access for all students to technological innovations, with a goal of increasing individual opportunities for future college and career success. Combining theoretical scholarship and research with the personal perspectives of practitioners in the field, this volume shares with readers both the nuts and bolts of using technology in education, and the importance of doing so.

Chapter 1

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The Emergence of Digital Solidarity and Competing Technologies

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Today it is no longer acceptable for much of the world's population to be excluded from the global information networks that are the superhighways of economic, cultural, political, and social exchanges. One need just recall the role played by the Internet and social media sites in both the 2011 Egyptian Revolution and the 2009 Iranian protests to emphasize this point. The Internet offered both opposition groups an intermediate space where they were able to disseminate information virtually that went beyond limited conceptual and physical spaces (Baiasu, 2011). This dissemination of information, currently referred to as “viral marketing,” helped spread awareness through the network effects of the Internet. To productively live in today's society, it is apparent that both access to and knowledge of how to utilize information technologies are necessities that offer benefits to those who can.

Digital Solidarity Defined

Digital solidarity is the byproduct of multiple conversations currently taking place globally, and can be defined as a movement enabling the engagement and mobilization of individuals from diverse cultural and linguistic backgrounds, as well as economic strata to be active participants on the technology playing field (Voicu, 2004). Its mission is to promote equity, diversity, and academic excellence through innovative instructional programs, thereby ensuring that underserved individuals and communities can access education and tools to improve the quality of their lives. The objective of digital solidarity is to promote an inclusive and sustainable information society by providing access to Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) and the advanced services, such as education and health care these technologies can provide. The rationale for digital solidarity comes from two basic observations: (a) ICTs constitute powerful leverage for social development, and (b) the market cannot be the only way to provide universal access to digital goods and services (Madelin, 2008).

The Global Digital Solidarity Movement

Information and communication technologies (ICTs) include the Internet, the World Wide Web (WWW), online services, digital content, email, other Internet-related services, computer networks and devices, cell phones, and other applicable services or technologies either currently in use or to be implemented in the future. By widening access to ICT in developing countries, the digital solidarity movement plays an instrumental role in fostering access to education, training, and economic development. The origin of the digital solidarity movement can be traced to The Millennium Declaration of the United Nations (UN), a declaration that reaffirmed the UN Charter, the purposes of the UN, and Member States' commitment to the core values of freedom, equality, solidarity, tolerance, respect for nature, and shared responsibility. It was signed by global leaders in September 2000. In the Millennium Development Goals (MDG), the UN included as one of its goals (Goal 8) the improvement of access to Information and Communication Technology. Goal 8 of the MDG aspired to “develop a global partnership for development” and the last target of the goal (8f) stated that this can be accomplished in cooperation with the private sector, thereby “mak[ing] available the benefits of new technologies, especially information and communications” (Guillet, Diouf, & Haenen, 2009, p.10).

In 2003, the government of Switzerland, while hosting the first World Summit of the Information Society (WSIS) taking place in Geneva, started the dialogue regarding building an inclusive global information society. Its aim was to put into place the conditions that rally human, financial, and technological resources to enable every human being to be a part of the Information Society (WSIS, 2011). During the WSIS, the President of the Republic of Senegal, Mr. Abdoulaye Wade proposed the creation of the Global Digital Solidarity Fund (DSF) with the intent of providing the populations of the poorest countries with access to knowledge, to take part in the digital culture, and to acquire digital practices. The DSF was designed to further the commitments undertaken by the international community (national governments, local authorities, representatives of the private sector and non-governmental organizations) to facilitate change and gradually close the digital divide. Using an innovative financing mechanism called the “1% digital solidarity contribution” also known as the “Geneva Principle,” the Digital Solidarity Fund is sustained through a voluntary commitment by the companies that win bids pertaining to the purchase of ICT — related equipment and services to pay a one percent contribution to the DSF (Madelin, 2008). The Digital Solidarity Fund can be seen as a concrete manifestation of the efforts to achieve the UN Millennium Development Goals and to help harness the power of ICTs to empower poor and marginalized people.

In July 2005, at the IFIP 8th World Conference on Computers in Education held in Stellenbosch, South Africa, a declaration was prepared entitled ICT in Education: Make it Work (Cornu, 2007). The declaration included all educational stakeholders (teachers, practitioners, researchers, academics, managers, decision-makers and policy-makers) and charged them with increasing the integration of information and communication technologies to improve teaching and learning in order to prepare our citizens for a knowledge society. According to the declaration, digital solidarity was one of the six major areas that will shape a beneficial use of ICT in education. The implication is that all stakeholders must guarantee the right of participation in the digital society for all students in the world. Going beyond the development of an information society, the declaration pushed to create a knowledge society where children and all people will not only be able to access and acquire knowledge, but they will also be able to derive benefits from being educated.

Therefore, a global effort is currently being made to identify and implement initiatives that address the uneven distribution and use of new information and communication technologies and enable excluded people (women, minorities, the elderly, and disabled individuals) and countries to enter the new era of the information society (Ginsburg, 2006). There are many examples of digital solidarity projects that are being implemented around the world. Global Cities Dialogue (GCD) (2011), an international network of mayors and high political representatives across the world, believe that the development of the Information Society should be for the benefit of all the citizens, communities, and peoples of the world. As a group, it is actively involved in creating projects that provide equal opportunities and access for all citizens. One program recommended by the GCD is the Sankore program, an educational digital solidarity program for Africa. It is defined as a “twinning program” between pairs of French and African cities, where up-to-date digital equipment and educational resources are offered to participating “twin” cities. French cities are invited to sponsor the program between the African city of their choice and one of their own schools. The twin classes receive the same equipment and are given the means to exchange teaching materials and concepts, thereby promoting an intercultural exchange between students through the use of information and communication technologies.

The Digital Solidarity Movement in the United States

Unique educational programs aimed at initiating digital solidarity are being implemented here in the United States. In 2009, as America faced social and economic challenges, the Digital Workforce Initiative, a summer academic and career program for young people interested in the game industry, was implemented in Louisiana (King, 2009). Forty middle school and high school students spent spring break at the Digital Workforce Initiative, working 12 hours per day creating games and virtual worlds that focused on Louisiana's core social problems of education, health care, coastal restoration, and pollution.

The intention of the project was to create an educational pipeline from middle school up through college and on to the workforce. In learning how to design the games, these participants also learned important 21st-century skills including creative collaboration and fluency with the digital culture. The premise of the Digital Workforce Initiative was to gradually grow an in-state game industry along with a trained workforce that will result in a more sustainable technology industry. The approach was unique in the fact that it addressed Louisiana's drop out problem resulting from student disengagement with the educational system. By training the students on how to collaborate on the creation of games, they become better prepared for other collaborative opportunities, and are ripe to take advantage of the state's increasing involvement with the robust mixed media and film production industry and the creation of simulated virtual training environments.

Digital Solidarity Predecessors

Background Information

What separates the digital solidarity movement from its predecessors (digital divide and digital inclusion) is the ideal that individuals should be able to derive specific benefits (social, economic, political, and educational) from both the access to (bridging the digital divide) and the knowledge of how to use (digital inclusion) the available information and communication technologies. Recent history has demonstrated that the notion of the digital divide focused mostly on broadband infrastructure investment offering access to the Internet for the underserved. The concept of digital inclusion, in addition to focusing on infrastructure investment strategies, went a step further to focus “on activities and initiatives aimed at stimulating demand and generating relevant content, which increases the overall broadband market and generates more benefits to society” (Muente-Kunigami, 2011).

The Digital Divide

Some use the term digital divide to refer to the inequality of opportunity in respect to adequate access to information, knowledge, and communication networks that are transforming our lives (Brooks, Donovan, & Rumble, 2005; Dickard & Schneider, 2011). The great development of information and communication technologies (ICT) in recent years has given rise to a serious imbalance between information-rich and information-poor individuals, creating the “haves” and the “have-nots” of the information society. Global Cities Dialogue (2011) describes the efforts of two projects that reflect programs that answer the access need of the digital divide. The first project was found in Rufisque, Senegal and is in collaboration with Segrate, Italy, where an ICT youth center was created with a project aim to reduce the scarcity of available infrastructures and low capacity of ICT utilization. The center was equipped with 40 PCs and a wide-band connection enabling the people of Rufisque to be able to use the PCs and the Internet. The second project initiated between the city of Luxembourg and the Cape Verde Islands was aimed at providing three schools in Cape Verde, whose pupils are between six and 18 years old, with 150 refurbished computers and mobile devices.

An example in the United States of an individual meeting the demands of the digital divide by designing programs to eradicate it was broadcast on the NBC Nightly News program with Brian Williams on January 28, 2013. During the program, reporter Kerry Sanders profiled the 76-year-old daughter of migrant farm workers whose parents' education did not go past the fourth grade. Estella Pyfrom, though, went to college and obtained a master's degree to become an accomplished educator with a 50-year career. On a personal campaign to help level the digital playing field, she provided underserved children with access to technology aboard her “Brilliant Bus.” The project aimed at bridging the digital divide was bankrolled by her $900,000 in savings and retirement money after working for decades as a teacher seeing the digital divide first-hand. She purchased the bus and converted it to a wired mobile learning center 9 that goes out to find and help what she calls the “invisible” children. She did not forget from where she came and reached back to give these children a connection with a wider world through digital access.

Warschauer (2002) suggested that the digital divide issue was more of a gradation based on different degrees of access to information technology rather than, what he calls, a bipolar societal split of “haves” and “have-nots.” He cited as an example of this gradation the difference between access for a professor at UCLA who has a high-speed connection in her office, compared with a student in Seoul who occasionally uses a cyber-cafe, with a rural activist in Indonesia who has no computer or phone line and relies on colleagues to download and print out information for her. This example demonstrates three varying degrees of possible access to online material that a person might have. In addition, he asserted that the digital divide is not only about the physical access to computers and connectivity, but also includes access to those resources that allow people to use technology well. He pointed out that the original sense of the digital divide term attached overriding importance to the physical availability of computers and connectivity, rather than to issues of content, language, education, literacy, or community and social resources. What has become more apparent over the years is that the digital divide is not only a barrier to accessing technology resources. It is increasingly an impediment to how the most vulnerable citizen receives vital social services (Wynne & Cooper, 2007).

Therefore, the digital divide has morphed into a two-pronged construct. On the one hand, it refers to the gap between those who have access to digital technology and those who do not. But this is no longer the whole story. The real issue is not merely about access to digital technology but also involves the benefits derived from that access (Smith, n.d.).

Digital Inclusion

Where the digital divide referred to the gap between those who have access to digital technology and those who do not, digital inclusion shifts the conversation away from the gap in technology access towards one of empowering people, organizations, and businesses to apply information technology in ways that result in greater participation in our growing knowledge-based society. Crandall and Fisher (2009) defined digital inclusion as technological literacy and the ability to access relevant online content and services. Wynne and Cooper (2007) asserted that those who have online access and are digitally literate are more likely to be economically secure and at less risk than those who do not. Therefore, the goal of digital inclusion goes beyond providing equity of access to information technologies, to include the need for developing both digital literacy and meaningful content. Digital inclusion moves past access to technology, and moves towards offering and training people on how to use tools and content that deliver meaning to their lives.

This is accomplished by first expanding access to critical information technologies and applications. In addition, end users need to develop the digital literacy skills required to utilize equipment and the Internet effectively for essential services, education, employment, civic engagement, and cultural participation. Meaningful and useful content and services must be made available for those in need, with culturally and educationally appropriate designs that are marketed and placed appropriately to reach underserved communities. Digital inclusion can be seen as social inclusion in the 21st century, ensuring that individuals and disadvantaged groups have access to and skills to use information and communication technologies; and are therefore able to participate in and benefit from our growing knowledge and information society. Digital inclusion offers strategies that address the barriers that underserved members of the community must overcome in order to be such participants. It is more than merely providing the infrastructure and access to technology. More so, it is the development of strategies that lead to social inclusion and empowerment through using technology.

What does digital inclusion look like in the real world? With the Internet as a vital tool in our information society, more Americans are going online to conduct many meaningful daily activities such as education, business transactions, personal correspondence, research and information-gathering, and job searches. “Each year, being digitally connected becomes ever more critical to economic and educational advancement and community participation” (U. S. Department of Commerce, 2000). Now that a large number of Americans regularly use the Internet to conduct daily activities, people who lack access to and knowledge of how to use these tools are at a growing disadvantage. Therefore, raising the level of digital inclusion by increasing the number of Americans effectively using the technology tools of the digital age is a vitally important national goal.

A program called Internet Essentials (Jackson, 2011) is one of the latest attempts to promote digital inclusion right here in the United States. Announced in August 2011, the program brings together the Miami-Dade County Public Schools (and other school districts across the nation) and the Comcast Corporation to address what research has identified as three primary barriers to broadband adoption: (a) a lack of understanding of how the Internet is relevant and useful, (b) the cost of a home computer, and (c) the cost of Internet service. Comcast offers discounted Internet access ($9.95 per month plus taxes) to low-income families living in Comcast's service areas with children who are eligible to receive a free lunch under the National School Lunch Program (NSLP). The goal of the Internet Essentials program is to help ensure more American families benefit from all the Internet has to offer. The program helps level the playing field for low-income families. About 60 percent of the over 300,000 students in Miami-Dade County Public Schools will qualify for the program to “help them connect with their teachers and their school's educational resources as well as enabling parents to do things like apply for jobs online or use the Internet to learn more about healthcare and ...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication
• Table of Contents
• List of Illustrations
• Foreword by John G. Flores
• Preface
• Acknowledgments
• 1 The Emergence of Digital Solidarity and Competing Technologies
• 2 Broadening Technologies in American Education
• 3 Innovative Ideas in Education to Support Digital Solidarity
• 4 Accommodations and Adaptations: Digital Access for All
• 5 Technology Activities to Support Digital Solidarity: Developing a Plan of Action
• 6 Taking Educational Technology Innovations to Scale
• 7 Epilogue: What Remains as Barriers for Selected Populations
• Appendix A: Community Technology Survey
• Appendix B: Attributes Enabling a Technology Innovation to Go to Scale
• Glossary
• References
• Index