Access is Not Enough - Closing the Digital Divide

If you can't tell, I'm double-dipping here. I've been writing papers and responses for my grad school classes, and I'm just not having enough time to work on the blog as well. So I thought ya'll might like to take a peak at what I've been working on for school...

Current research states that if you want to be able to speak a second langue fluently you need to be exposed to it as a child. We often talk about basic computer skills as a language, describing ourselves as computer literate or illiterate. This suggests that in order to be fluent in the language of computers, we need to be exposed to be exposed to them as children. But now that most school-aged children are being exposed to computers, why aren’t we all equally successful? 

Because the Digital Divide is no longer about the ‘haves’ vs. the ‘have-nots’. Most children have access to a computer at school, but there is a world of difference between a school that can give each of its students a personal laptop and a school that has a lab with maybe 10 old desktops for a student body of 500+. This new Divide runs on socioeconomic lines. 

“Socioeconomic status for many individuals ultimately determines what type of technology (if any) they will have access to and, just as importantly, how often they get to use it” (Morrone, Witt 2013). Being in a classroom with a computer is no longer enough to make our students competitive. They need to not only have the computer, but to know how to use it, and how to use it well. Libraries can make a difference here, but I believe that the real solution to this gap will have to be provided by the schools. 

Speaking from my own experience, I believe that I greatly benefited from having access (both at school and at home) to a personal laptop. The high school that I attended was one of the first in the area to provide its students with access to laptops, able to be checked-out and used for both academic and personal pursuits. These laptops helped me to be more inter-active with my studies, and built the foundations of research skills that served me well in college. I went to a private school, and I know that the public schools in the area (though very good) did not have this program. 

Libraries can do and have done a lot to decrease the gap between the old ‘haves’ and ‘have-nots’, but often lack the resources to do more than simply provide access to the internet. In his article in the Public Library Quarterly, Bo Kinney tells us that “…provision of Internet access alone is only one part of bridging the divide, which is a function of broader social and technological inequities” (Kinney, 2010). The Divide, like so many in others in our country, can only be closed by education. 

This education has to come from schools, and at an early age. In their research into the Ohio school system, Lawrence Wood and Aimee Howley discovered that students attending schools in poor urban or rural areas had much less access to computers than students from wealthier school districts. Moreover, they also had older software and slower Internet speeds (Wood, Howley 2012). This needs to change. 

We can tell ourselves that we’re doing everything we can for our children, trying to give them a leg-up by providing them with access to a computer. But access alone is no longer enough. Just because you put a set of encyclopedias in your child’s bedroom doesn’t mean that they are able to access the information contained in them. Our children need to be taught how to use the latest technologies to further their educations and succeed in life. 

All students deserve this chance, and the only way to make that happen is to ensure that children from all socioeconomic have access to the same current technology, and are taught the same important skills. We’re working on one of those, let’s work on the other.

 

 

Kinney, B. The Internet, Public Libraries, and the Digital Divide. Public Library Quarterly, 29, 104-161. Retrieved May 12, 2014, from http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/01616841003779718

Morrone, M., & Witt, S. Digital Inclusion, Learning, and Access at the Public Library. Urban Library Journal, 19. Retrieved 5-17-14, from http://ojs.gc.cuny.edu/index.php/urbanlibrary/article/view/1399/pdf_9

Wood, L., & Howley, A. Dividing at an early age: the hidden digital divide in Ohio elementary schools.    Learning, Media and Technology, 37, 37-41. Retrieved May 12, 2014, from http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/pdf/10.1080/17439884.2011.567991

The Future of Libraries pt. 1

Thomas Frey likes to talk about the future. He asks the question “how will our lives be different in the future?” and looks for answers in many different fields. One of these fields is Library Science, or more specifically, libraries. Frey argues that our relationship with libraries will change. He talks about “four fundamental crossroads of change – literacy, books, education, and work” (Frey). Frey is right. Our relationship with libraries is changing. But it can also be said that change is the only real constant in any of our lives.

In the past we were taught that a literate person was someone who knew how to read and write, and that it was a simple as that. But how many of us have heard the phrase "computer illiterate" in the last decade? Literacy is becoming more than the simple ability to put words on a page. To succeed in this modern era we not only need to be traditionally literate, but computer literate and media literate. Like traditional reading and writing skills, these are things that modern libraries can help with. I have personal experience doing outreach work with a public library teaching senior citizen basic internet skills.

Frey points out that our relationship with print books is also changing. But this is not new. For at least the last decade my teachers have been going on and on about the difference between print sources and electronic sources for scholarly texts. What does this mean? That we've known about this change for a while now, and that digital media is not going away any time soon. With the prevalence of e-readers more and more people (and library patrons) are moving away from books entirely. 

Thomas Frey talks about the availability and over saturation of information in the future. 

In his article “55 Jobs of the Future”,  Frey tells us that in the future there will be people who make their living as ‘Book-to-App Converters’ (Frey, 2011), who would work on making what Frey refers to as a ‘Perpetual Self-Updating Book’ (Frey, 2011). A book-app hybrid would contain all of the information of a 40 volume set of encyclopedias, constantly updating itself. In my opinion, in Frey's world of the future, far from being obsolete librarians will be more needed than ever.

A moderately intelligent adult of 40 years ago was perfectly capable of walking into a library, finding an encyclopedia and looking up the one article it would contain on any given topic, let's say F.D.R.'s presidency. A moderately intelligent adult of today is perfectly capable of googling Franklin Roosevelt, but will be faced with approximately 20.9 million hits (this number can be verified with a quick trip to Google.com). Librarians are not simply keepers of books, they are information specialists, tasked with helping lay-people sort through the endless amounts of information that we are faced with. How much more so in Frey's future world, when we could all have endless amounts of information on any conceivable topic, constantly self-updating in the palm of our hand?

The field of education has always been changing. Children used to sit in classrooms and memorize books full of facts. Now our children are more engaged in learning, and modern libraries are reflecting that change. Libraries of the future might not be filled with stacks and stacks off books, but that doesn't mean that they will bereft of educational materials. New technology, like 3D Printers is changing the way libraries (and librarians) will be able to engage with children.

The last point that Frey mentions, work, is an interesting topic. Libraries have become not only a place for people to do work (who have us hasn’t spent finals week practically living in the campus library?), but for people to find work. In her TED talk, Pam Sandlian Smith tells the story of a man who came into the library often, working on his resume on publicly available computers, attending resume workshops and ultimately landed a job (TEDx, 2013). Libraries have always been places where communities come together to support one another, and I doubt that that is going to change at any point soon.

While I obviously agree with Frey, I don’t think that libraries are going to change as dramatically or as quickly as he seems to think. Change is a constant. The library of today is very different than the library of 50 years ago, and obviously the library of 2064 will be very different from the library of today. Will we all be working in bookless libraries 20+ years from now? Maybe, but that’s not necessarily a bad thing. As I’ve been hearing over and over again over the last few weeks, being a librarian is not just about books. We are responsible for connecting people with information, and that is never going to change.

Frey, T. (2011, November 11). 55 Jobs of the Future. FuturistSpeakercom A Study of Future Trends and Predictions by Futurist Thomas Frey. Retrieved May 9, 2014, from http://www.futuristspeaker.com/2011/11/55-jobs-of-the-future/

Frey, T. (n.d.). Futurist Speaker Thomas Frey. DaVinci Institute. Retrieved May 9, 2014, from http://www.davinciinstitute.com/speakers/futurist-speaker-thomas-frey/?gclid=CKrb7b7846MCFUcz5wodiRoZZg#topics_future_of_libraries

Frey, T. (2011, September 23). Introducing the Perpetual Self-Updating Book. FuturistSpeakercom A Study of Future Trends and Predictions by Futurist Thomas Frey. Retrieved May 9, 2014, from http://www.futuristspeaker.com/2011/09/introducing-the-perpetual-self-updating-book/ 

TEDx Talks. (2013, December 16). What to expect from libraries in the 21st century: Pam Sandlian Smith at TEDxMileHigh [Video file]. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fa6ERdxyYdo

Project Sunday 5-4-14 & An Announcement

Hello there folks, it's that time again! Project Sunday time!

As predicted, we had another busy one this week, and that's just the way I like it! Here we go!

We started off the day in a semi-lazy fashion, sleeping in and watching some Netflix while we had our breakfast. But around 1 o'clock, it was time to pick up a friend and head out to archery!

This was only the second practice of the season, but apparently I haven't completely forgotten what I was doing:

I am the noodle-slayer!

After archery we wandered around Barnes & Noble while we decided on a game-plan for the rest of the day. My husband and I knew that we wanted a chance to work on our kitchen table, but we were hungry and tired and a bit grumpy. So my brilliant husband suggested that we take a break, go out for dinner and then work on the table if we were still up for it.

It was a great idea! Over dinner we took the time to solidify our plans for the table. So far we had purchase a sheet of B/C plywood and had it cut into 32" pieces. So we sat down and planned out exactly where to make our next cuts and tried to decide if we wanted to attach the panels with pocket holes, or dados.

Then after a delicious dinner of burgers and chilli, we were off to my in-law's house to start making those cuts!

I took like, 5 pictures but I'm trying not to post all of them every time we work on the project. I don't want to over-saturate the blog with pictures of one particular project, and besides, I'm planning on doing a big post about it when the table is all finished. I should save my pictures for then, right? Right.

So we actually made a lot of progress in one evening. We have all of our pieces cut out (except for one that didn't come out super-straight due to a warped fence), and we know what the next several steps are. I have a feeling that this table is going to get done a lot sooner than the night-stands! *fingers crossed*

Well, I think that about wraps everything up... oh right, I promised you guys an announcement, didn't I?

If you follow me over on twitter, you've probably heard this one already, but here goes anyway:

I STARTED GRAD SCHOOL!

Yup, yesterday (5-5) was my first official day as a graduate student. I'm taking two classes this summer and working towards my Master's Degree in Library and Information Science. Yup, I'm gonna be a librarian! Well, someday. I'm very excited and more than a little bit nervous about grad school, so please be patient with me for the next several months while I adjust.
Right now I'm working 2 jobs, I have this blog and another one that I'd like to get back to, and once in a while I attempt to have a social life. Add school back into the mix, and it gets just a little bit overwhelming.

But I don't want to bore you guys with all of the details. Let's just say that while I'm going to try to continue to post regularly, I can't really promise more than a Project Sunday post here and there. But please stay tuned, because you never know, grad school might inspire me to post more than ever!

Until next time folks!



Our Project Sunday sure was productive this week, even if I was busy thinking thoughts of school. What have you guys been up to this week? Do you have any big announcements? Working on any cool projects? I'd love to know about it/them! Leave a comment and tell me all!

Project Sunday 4-27-14

Woah, it's been a busy few weeks. Passover is over (and I think I'm finally fully recovered), but it certainly was a whirlwind of family and food and activity.

Then immediately after Passover I go to go to my new campus for orientation. I mentioned that I'm getting a Master's in Library and Information Science (MLIS), didn't I? I'm doing my entire program on-line (to cut out a lengthy and inconvenient commute) so this was one of my only chances to meet my professors and advisers, not to mention my fellow students. I met some great people, got some good information and actually had a good time, so it was very much worth going to for me.

I could go on and talk about other exciting things I did this past week (like attend the first meeting of a new writer's group), but I think I'm going to try to stick to the topic at hand, which is:
Project Sunday! And it was a good one this week, check it out:

Saturday was my grandfather's yartzeit which marks the anniversary of the day he passed away. In honor of his memory we had a breakfast at our synagog Sunday morning, which was a very pleasant way to start off our day. We went for morning services, and then stayed for breakfast, all the while taking the opportunity to remember my grandfather. 

After that it was off to our favorite park to go for a long walk with a friend. We picked her up and did 5 laps around our track, which is 5k. We've been trying to stay active and walk outside a lot now that the weather is more or less permitting. 

Then it was a quick lunch and back out to see a local production of Neil Simon's Rumors with my parents. It was uproariously funny and I had a fabulous time. My husband had a good time too, even though he claims that it wasn't quite his sense of humor (but I saw him laughing plenty, don't worry). And afterwards, my parents insisted on treating us to a dinner out, even though we had sort of just had lunch. Oh well, it was delicious anyway!

Back home for a quick rest and then it was off to my in-law's house for a meeting with a dear friend of theirs. Now it seems that at some point in the last year or so, my mother in-law and her friend B got it in their heads that they should build an outdoor clay oven. Which is, granted, a fabulous idea, and I can't wait to have a loaf of home-made bread straight out of the oven, but somehow we got recruited to help in this whole process.
Many ideas were tossed around, and the words "structural integrity" were used. Legos were gotten out and we all consulted a book called Build Your Own Earth Oven. I am beyond excited about this project. Even though I've got about a million other things going on, how often do you get the opportunity to build a clay oven? Some preliminary plans were drawn up, some numbers were crunched and we set a date for our next meeting.

I promise that I'll be blogging about this oven building process. I'm not sure if it's going to be one "OMG We Built a Clay Oven" post, or if I'll just blog about it as it happens, but it'll be here. Don't worry.

So that's it. I know right, that's it? What an amazingly busy yet productive Project Sunday! And there's always more to come, so stay tuned!



How did you guys spend your Project Sunday? Build anything interesting? Do you have any experience with clay ovens? I'd love to hear about it in the comments!

Project Sunday 4-13-14 *Passover Edition*

I hope ya'll aren't too sick of hearing about our Project Sundays, because we're having so much fun with them!
Here's one more, our Project Sunday: Passover Edition!

As you may or may not know (or may have guessed), Sunday was the last full day before the beginning of the Jewish holiday of Passover. Normally, this day is full of rushed, last-minute cleaning and cooking, but we didn't have to do any of that this year. Or at least, very little of it. But let me start at the beginning.

Our day actually started pretty early in the morning, when we went to the airport to pick up my brother-in-law, who's visiting from California. I'm so excited to see him, because we actually haven't seen each other since the wedding way back in August.

We then dropped him off at his parent's house, where we also got to see my new aunt & uncle in-laws, who are visiting from New York! It's so nice to get to spend time with family, especially family you get along with! (Am I right?) Then, since we were at my in-law's house we got roped into fixing a few little things. My father-in-law needed help fixing his new glasses, and then my husband had to instal one of those magnetic-snapping screen door thingies, which actually seems to work pretty well. I had a lot of fun walking through it, in any case.

After that it was back home to finish turning over the kitchen. (turning it from a rest of the year kitchen into a special Passover kitchen) Because we'd spent some time Saturday night prepping for this, it actually didn't take all that long. We cleaning and scrubbed and then put away all of our not-for-Passover pots, pans and dishes.

Guess which cabinets we won't be opening!

The whole ordeal took less than 4 hours, and only involved 1 trip to Meijers/Lowe's... And then, after we had scrubbed and toiled, it was time to move some furniture!
We enlisted the help of our uncle and my brother-in-law and our aunt came along for the ride. We took a empty cabinet from my in-law's basement, moved it into the borrowed Subaru and then dragged it up 2.5 flights of stairs to our apartment. I'm super excited, because it's going to house all of our 3D Printer paraphernalia (which means I can get that junk off of the floor!).

Not quite where it belongs, but we're getting there.

We then gave all of the relatives present a quick tour of our apartment, and they all got to meet our snake, Cecil. Then it was back to my in-law's house to help them with an emergency pizza situation. The situation was that instead of ordering 2 pre-Passover pizzas, they had some how ended up with three. We were happy to help them with this emergency.

After the airporting, and the cleaning and the furniture moving, we were pretty much done for the day. We did sit down with our aunt at some point and go over some financial records. She commented on what a productive day we'd all had, and we told that of course it had been productive, it was Project Sunday.

Well, that's about it for this post. I've still got a few more things left to do to get ready for Passover, so I'd better get to that. I'll see you all after Yontif!

What holidays are you guys celebrating this week? Did you have a productive Project Sunday? Tell me all about it in the coments!

Project Sunday 4-6-14

We had such an intense Project Sunday this week that I haven't even had a chance to write about it until now, but here we go!

Woo! Project Sunday! We started off the day with a trip to the Detroit Institute of Arts to see their amazing special exhibit Samurai: Beyond the Sword, which was amazing! And if you're interested in checking it out you can find all of the information right here! I don't have any photos (because you're not allowed to take any in the special exhibit space), so if you guys are curious, you'll just have to see the show for yourself! But I did get a few quick pix of the mummy, who's finally back on exhibit!

Horus

While the DIA was fun, it wasn't really much of a project, but don't worry we did plenty of that! After the museum we stopped at home to pick up our jig-saw and headed out to my parents house to do some chair-repair (doesn't that just sound cool?).

Lets see if you can spot the problem here:

Yeah... My parents have had the same kitchen table and chairs for over 15 years now. They've held up pretty well, but every once in a while, something needs to get fixed. This time it was one of the chairs that had broken, cracked in two places. But luckily, it was a pretty easy fix, only requiring a total of four trips to the local home-improvement store.... That was sarcasm.

No, I'm kidding. Well, we did take four trips (total) to Home Depot and Lowe's, but it really was an easy fix. We simply took the broken particle-board base out of the chair, and made a new one. All we needed was a jig-saw, a hammer-tacker and a pencil. And well, a drill didn't hurt.

Then we just put everything back together! Easy and quick. Well, maybe not so quick because we kept getting distracted by other little projects that needed doing around my parent's house. Like, re-stringing some blinds that had broken, and re-attaching some slats that had come off of the deck's built-in bench... When my husband and I show up with a box of tools, my parents can always find something that needs fixing or replacing. It's one of the things we love about them.

After the repair work, my parents treated us to dinner at our favorite pizza place. We were supposed to do some cleaning and straightening when we got home, but we were just too pooped. It was a busy day, with lots of running around, and lots of fun. And I got to use a jig-saw for the first time (it was fun!).

So that's it, our Project Sunday in a nutshell. Oh yeah, and apparently we've been hired to re-do the floor in my parent's garage? Stay tuned!



How about you guys? Did ya'll do anything fun and exciting for your Project Sunday? Or did you have a relaxing weekend? Tell me all about it in the comments!