| The American
Distance Education Consortium (ADEC) began 15 years
ago with a focus on extending educational opportunity
for the rural, the remote, the underserved and
the place bound using whatever technology is available
to the learner. Making it possible to opt into
a growing menu of learning possibilities, ADEC
fosters the development of learning communities
and collaboratories throughout the United States
with the state and land-grant universities as core
members. We partner with organizations including
the National Science Foundation, Tachyon.net and
Internet2 to develop affordable next generation
access potential for everyone.
For ADEC, opportunity includes
an assumption that members of learning communities
contribute to knowledge, not passively receive
it. Thus, ADEC’s IDEAL Committee developed quality
principles for distance teaching and learning (http://www.adec.edu/)
focused on active learning. ADEC’s view of educational
effectiveness is aligned with Sloan C’s, and through
closer cooperation, the two organizations can build
a much more inclusive learning marketspace with
more affordable choices. Together with other partners
we can build innovative bridges to overcome geographic,
cultural, technological, financial and human distances.
In “Charting and Bridging Digital Divides: Comparing Socio-Economic, Gender, Life Stage, and Rural-Urban Internet Access” (www.amdgcab.org), Chen and Wellman wrote that widespread diffusion does not equal ubiquity, even within developed countries. They argue that rather than shrinking with expanding Internet use, the global digital divide between developed and developing nations continues to be huge. In 2002 only 10 percent of the world’s population was on the Internet and 88 percent were in industrialized countries. Meanwhile, even in the U.S. geography, income, racial and ethnic backgrounds and situations prevent fuller digital opportunity.
The phrase “Digital Divide” simplistically
categorizes people into those with and without
Internet connectivity. Instead, we would focus
on “Digital Inclusion”— increasing the real “value
adders” to networks, people and knowledge. The
right questions are:
- How can we increase affordable educational opportunity for people living and working in many places? and
- How can we bring knowledge of interesting distant places to the classroom bound?
I argued more than a year ago
in a Chronicle of Higher Education
article that when we label and lump “have nots” together
in an unsophisticated manner, we are just widening
the digital ditch. Is
this smart, when people at the periphery pay tuition,
support higher
education with taxes and vote on people and issues
that impact funding?
Continued
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