Legacy

In our study of legacy, I think it would be valuable to relate this video to broader concepts. I think the family did live life in the round. Terrell's murder was a signal to the family that life in their social world is defunct, and thus, they need seek new information and resources to lead a better life. Terrell's murder signaled that droping out of school, living in the projects, and doing drugs was all part of a social world and social norm that doesn't lend itself to life and happiness, and thus, the family had the catalyst they mention to improve their lives and do better.

Week 14: Servon, Chapter 9 Toward a New Agenda

Policy Makers: pages 226-227

"Policy must work to close remaining divides, focusing specifically on the disabled, African-Americans, Latinos, and those living in rural and inner-city areas."
"Policy makers must create and expand programs to address the training and content dimensions of the digital divide."
"Policy makers at the state and local levels should also continue to use flexible federal funding sources..to support innovative programs that address the digital divide and simultaneously confront other issues such as the IT labor shortage and persistent poverty."
"Policy makers at all levels of government should view the digital divide as an issue that cuts across departments and programs; failure to do so will have the effect of continued fragmentation and lack of unified response."

Community Technology Centers (CTCs) pages: 227-228

the article gives 2 visions that people have CTCs..
The first is to use the CTCs as training institutions, family learning centers, and gathering places
The second is to use CTCs only to fill present voids in other institutions, meaning that once those voids are filled CTCs would not be necessary
..Servon says that on their own CTCs probably won't help fix the digital divide so they need to work with other organizations and it will be most realistic for CTCs to partner with CTOs, libraries, or schools to help institutionalize their goals and reach more people.

Primary and Secondary Schools: pages 228-229

"Rather than creating separate computer classes, teachers should be given incentives to learn about IT and integrate it into their existing curricula."
"Government programs can also create incentives for collaboration between the schools and local CTCs."
..it also says that programs that are designed to be "scalable and adapt to students needs,should be studied in order to understand and document their potential and limits." and that federal programs should be used to institutionalize programs in schools, which will make for more equal access.

Post-Secondary Education: page 229

(by post-secondary education they mean 4 year college, community college, community-based training programs, employer-led training, and for-profit post secondary schools)

"Schools need to have flexible curricula, provide after-program services, and be responsive to employers' changing needs"
..it also says that all of the different types of post-secondary schools should work together and share their successes with each other so they can all improve.

The Corporate Sector: page 230

"Investing in areas that have not benefited fully from the information society simultaneously promotes larger social goals and enhances corporations' bottom lines."
..it says that corporate support is needed to help but that it is complicated to do

Philanthropic Organizations: page 230

"All of the actors that support digital divide work - corporate, government, and philanthropic- should share learning more widely and figure out how to complement each other's work."

Libraries: pages 230-231

"Libraries and CTCs need to engage in information sharing of what they have learned thus far in terms of how to apply IT."
..just before this this quote it says that library staff have had training in information science, which is an extremely important skill for CTCs and many CTC staff members have not.

Community-building Organizations: page 231

"CBOs (community-building organizations) can use new technology to increase the scale of their work."
"These organizations also have the ability to do creative and flexible programming."
"One of the most important roles for the CBOs will be to share these lessons with policy makers so that they can learn from this grassroots work and employ it to influence policy."

Jaeger Article

Jaeger et al. (2006) found that 99.6% of all public libraries provided Internet access on their public terminals. However, there were still things related to that access that continued the digital divide. What were the issues?

• Although nearly all terminals provide internet access, the problem lies in the quantity of terminals available. Many people were still not able to access the internet due to the fact there are simply too few terminals available to use. Also, providing access, and providing adequate access are two different things. True, many libraries provide access, yet there are many rural areas that are being left behind in terms of connectivity speed and bandwidth. Urban areas provide the highest connection speed and bandwidth. More and more bandwidth is being required to withstand the heavy traffic on the servers, and without federal funding, this is becoming increasingly more difficult to accomplish.
• The government has moved to a “digitally inclusive” standpoint, focusing on how many people are online rather than how many ARE NOT online, leading to decreases in funding. Funding needs to be continuous to keep up with advancing technologies.
• The Children's Internet Protection Act (CIPA) prevents access from much of the information available on the internet-asking for access to such banned information can be embarrassing and leads to less freedom.