1. Computown Public
School System
Memo
To: Members of the Computown School Board
From: Tony Presley
CC: Public School Administrators
Date: 24-Feb-2009
Re: Recommendations for Bridging the Digital Divide
A Recommendation for Bridging the Digital Divide
Within the Computown Public School System
Defining and exploring the effects of the “Digital Divide”
In one sense, the “digital divide” (later here-in referred to as “the divide”) can be summarized
as the gap existing between those that have access to technology based resources such as
computers and internet service. Furthermore, our summary of the divide may include the
ability to utilize such technology based resources and the efforts made (or not made) to
increase this ability. The National Center for Educational Statistics reports that 98 percent of
schools and 77 percent of instructional rooms have computers and internet access.
However, many classrooms and important educational products are not connected, making
these educators deprived of excellent internet-based resources (International Society for
Technology in Education, 2006). As you can see from Table 1 on the following page, the
divide is quite real and perhaps larger than you may have expected. In “bridging” this divide,
we must first recognize the need and then labor to find means of overcoming the division
between those who are “in the know” in regards to technology and its applications and those
who are not. With this perspective and approach we can overcome the horrible effects of the
divide, namely in our case students being left behind and in general societal disadvantages
as we proceed into the technological age.
“Bridging” the Divide
Following are three recommendations I would like to respectively propose to the school board
members in an effort to overcome the divide within our very own school district. First I would
recommend a focus on building an adequate infrastructure of hardware and networking (or
internet connecting) systems as kind of a foundation in which to build our improvements
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2. upon. There are a variety of organizations that promote either free or inexpensive methods
of building such an infrastructure.
Table 1 (Horrigan, 2007)
CATEGORY PERCENTAGE
Percentage of Americans who are deep users of the participatory Web and mobile
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applications
Percentage of Americans who are heavy, pragmatic tech adopters – they use gadgets 23
to keep up with social networks or be productive at work
Americans who rely on mobile devices for voice, texting, or entertainment 10
Amount who use information gadgets, but find it a hassle 10
Percentage of Americans who only occasionally use modern gadgetry and many others
49
bristle at electronic connectivity
Table 1 above shows a snapshot representation of the Digital Divide existing in America.
“Bridging” the Divide (cont’d)”
The Digital Equity Toolkit is a most useful resource that compiles a listing of these resources.
Below is a partial listing from the Toolkit (International Society for Technology in Education,
2006). Among the free or inexpensive hardware resources are …
The Digital Equity Service Center of The National Institute for Community
Innovations: This non-profit offers deeply discounted computers, peripherals and
accessories for low-income students and their families and educators. They also
offer instructional and professional development resources. Check them out at
www.digitalequity.org.
The Microsoft Authorized Refurbisher (MAR) Program provides Microsoft
Windows Operating Systems to PC refurbishers for the purpose of getting re-
vitalized PCs into the classrooms. This process also helps in waste reduction as
the computers are placed back into useful circulation. This program can be
investigated at www.techsoup.org/mar/.
Computers for Learning is a governmental program that places excess
computers and equipment into schools and non-profits after they have shown
need. Please see http://www.computers.fed.gov/school/user.asp for more
information.
In regards to free or low cost internet accessibility the Toolkit provides a fair amount of detail
on the federal E-Rate program. The basic methodology consists of disadvantaged schools
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3. and/or libraries showing need through an application process and, upon approval, accepting
bids from various contractors to upgrade their technology resources. The program is
administered by the Universal Service Administrative Company (USAC), a private, non-
profit corporation and can save the school or library up to 90 percent on their internet and
phone communication expenses. Even though this process can be somewhat tiresome, I
have in the past personally seen the effectiveness of this program. The school I was
associated with received federal funds to upgrade their main server, received fiber-optic
communication lines, and a broad-band internet connection at a drastically reduced cost.
The upgrades allowed many new educational opportunities for the students including
online college course offerings for our high school and G.E.D. graduates. More
information on this program can be found at http://www.fcc.gov/learnnet .
My second recommendation for your consideration would be the taking advantage of all the
free web-based educational resources and tools available on the internet in working towards
our goal of bridging the divide that exists within our school system. These resources are
numerous. Therefore, I will share only a few in order to establish a pattern of utilization that
we can build upon throughout the bridging process. Again gleaning from the Digital Equity
Toolkit, we can begin this phase by putting into place free e-mail account usage. Free e-mail
accounts can be found from such providers as …
Yahoo! – mail.yahoo.com
Lycos – mail.lycos.com
Gmail (Google’s free e-mail communication offering) which is now utilized by many
educational institutions at the higher-education level – mail.google.com .
Window’s Live - http://home.live.com
Inbox - http://www.inbox.com/ .
The last two services above (Window’s Live & Inbox) are tools I have personally researched
and utilized quite heavily. They have added functionality in that they additionally provide free
online storage, image hosting, PC back-up, and collaboration functionality which can be most
beneficial for students and faculty alike. Any of the services listed above should boost the
efficiency of communications for our administrators, faculty, and students.
Also within my second recommendation for bridging our divide, I would mention free web-
hosting and online course management tools. Free web-hosting could facilitate online
locations for instructors to post class discussion threads, assignment instructions, classroom
policies and procedures, grading rubrics, etc. FreeWebspace.net located at
http://www.freewebspace.net/ provides a listing of service providers.
Classroom management tools are also an effective utilization of online technology for
academic instructors in regards to tracking student progress and organizing assessments.
Many of the classroom management sites also allow access to students and parents so they
can monitor the student’s progress as well. Engrade is a service I can personally attest to for
effectiveness. It is located at http://www.engrade.com/ and highly recommended. Before
leaving this section of recommendations aimed at bridging our divide, I would just briefly
mention two other free, web-based type tools that can provide additional classroom
efficiency. One is online test generators that can be stored and retrieved for later use;
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4. another is resources that provide worksheets or worksheet generators for producing class
exercises.
With the two points of infrastructure development and free web-based tools utilization being
made in regards to closing the gap of our divide, we now can proceed to my third
recommendation (which seems to naturally follow) and that is enabling those within our
school district (administrators, teachers, students, and even parents) to utilize and make
effective this new technology to the end of providing a much broader spectrum of academic
resources available to our students and system as a whole. We can not stop there, however,
because once they are enabled, we must ensure that all involved in our technology goals
continue to learn and develop by thorough systems of maintenance and continuing
education. The structure I would suggest for this is one of hierarchy where select leaders
within our district (mainly administrators and teachers) would be chosen to disciple others,
passing the latest technology news and trends throughout our system. Surprisingly enough
there are many agencies in existence which can provide education and support through e-
mail correspondence, lists services, and discussion forums among other methods. One such
service is The CoSN K-12 Open Technologies Leadership Initiative who helps educators
and technologists with the planning, evaluation, decision-making, and implementation
processes associated with adopting open technologies in K-12 education
(http://www.k12opentech.org). Other organizations and agencies can be accessed to
provide the most valuable support and mentoring needed in developing technology
programs.
In conclusion, I would like to summarize my proposed plan for bridging the gap of the
“digital divide” currently existing in our district and encourage our body of school board
members to most sincerely consider the doors of opportunity the adopting of such
measures would open for our system as a whole including administrators, teachers,
parents, and most importantly our students. As outlined, my first suggestion was to
develop a solid infrastructure of hardware and networking devices including broad-band
based internet accessibility. Secondly, we should utilize the low cost and even free web-
based resources this infrastructure would open to us, and lastly put a system in place to
enable the usefulness of such technologies including training, mentoring, continuing
education and agency based support. I have developed a website intended to
supplement the purposes of this proposal, providing additional information and links to
utilize in our goal of implementing technology based resources. This site can be
accessed here. I strongly encourage our school board members to view and explore
these additional resources and take a most decisive stand in promoting and enabling our
technological growth to the benefit of our students.
Works Cited
Horrigan, J. B. (2007, May 7). A Typology of Information and Communication for Users. Retrieved
February 23, 2009, from PEW / Internet: http://www.pewinternet.org/
International Society for Technology in Education. (2006). Digital Equity Toolkit. Retrieved February 23,
2009, from International Society for Technology in Education: http://www.iste.org/
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