Addressing the Global Digital Divide

Retrieved from
http://wiki.uiowa.edu/display/edtech/Page+2+-+Who+is+affected+by+Digital+Divide


As a leader in educational technology, what can you do to help make emerging technologies valuable to others, while maintaining gender, cultural, and socioeconomic sensitivity?

One can see from the global illustration that Africa, Asia, and South America are behind other continents in technology. We also have a digital divide in the US. In 2002, only 9% of families with the income of 30,000s had access to the internet where students could complete homework assignments. According to a Dr. David Thornburg 2009 vodcast, there is only 25% penetration of computers in US.

The key to successful implementation of technology and closing the digital gap has to be training, application guidance (instruction), and technical support. According to Soloway (2009), the newer the technology, the greater the support that is needed, which can be very costly and is usually not provided in the educational environment. A classic example is Linux, a free operating system that is not well supported and therefore, not well adapted either.

Globally, introducing technologies into cultures with little technology requires sensitivity and planning upfront to evaluate best applications of the technology for that culture and to provide necessary training. Even if one has good intentions, ignoring cultural issues can be detrimental to the progress of an area.

Soloway (2009) also makes the point in his audio cast that the cell phone may be the key to leveling the playing field, with billions of cell phones in use and the cost constantly going down.

It becomes a viscous cycle when economics makes advances in technology prohibitive, as illustrated by the following diagram (retrieved from http://mccartermobile-21cq.blogspot.com/2010/06/digital-divide.html)