"Undoubtedly libraries are a good thing. The access and training that we provide for technology isn't offered by any other public service (largely because public services are rapidly becoming a dirty word in this gilded age of decadence and austerity), and without our services it wouldn't be the end of the world, but it would be a significant dimming.

If you can take yourself out of your first world techie social media smart-shoes for a second then imagine this… [lengthy case study]

So that little melodrama right there is every minute of every day at the public library…The digital divide isn't just access, but also ability, and quality of information, , and the common dignity of having equity of participation in our increasingly digital culture."

"OLPC was a failure - but don’t products fail all the time?<br />
In light of all the discourse on the shortcomings of the product, there seems to be little said on the things that OLPC accomplished that were interesting…Most of all, I believe OLPC at heart had a virtuous Buddha nature. It was created on the belief that people can improve their lives with technology & the desire to increase access to technology throughout the world.<br />
Failure is part of the creative process & yet when we scathe each other on our individual failings, we make it difficult for people in our industry to take the creative risks necessary to push design & technology forward…<br />
If we head for the ash heap of history, there are countless examples of failures that were necessary in order to realize a dream in the areas of science, transportation & technology…Perhaps like Apple Newton & Wright Brother’s early flyers, OLPC will be remembered as one of the colossal failures necessary to bridge the digital divide."

"Our mission is to transform lives and strengthen low-income communities by empowering people with information and communication technology. We use technology as a medium to fight poverty, stimulate entrepreneurship and create a new generation of changemakers"

"Founded in 1995, pioneer of the digital inclusion movement in Latin America, CDI (Center for Digital Inclusion) is one of the leading social enterprises in the world with a unique socio-educational approach. CDI Founder and Ashoka Fellow Rodrigo Baggio and our work at CDI have been recognized with more than 60 international awards. Today, we are a network of 816 self-managed and self-sustaining CDI Community Centers throughout Brazil, Argentina, Bolivia, Chile, Colombia, Ecuador, Mexico, Paraguay, Peru, and Uruguay – monitored and coordinated by our 32 regional offices."

"As things stand right now, unless participatory media takes a deliberate step into classrooms & into testing data, long-term sustainable funding & adoption seem unlikely."<br />
<br />
"As someone who regularly works with kids outside of schools in after-school & summer programs as well as spending the majority of my days waking up early & scrawling on a whiteboard, there is a significant mode of participation to which young people have become unnecessarily acculturated. With literally tens of thousands of hours spent being conditioned to facing forward & remaining in seats, we have created factory-minded young people who need to be gently provoked. This work takes time & trust; once those two things are present, a classroom of enthused minds is limited only by imagination.<br />
<br />
Years after its implementation, I still get messages from former students about how the seven weeks they spent learning through and playing the Black Cloud game made an impact on their day-to-day lives."

"In rural America, only 60% of households use broadband Internet service, according to a report released Thursday by the Department of Commerce. That is 10% less than urban households. Over all, 28 percent of Americans do not use the Internet at all.<br />
<br />
The report was developed in conjunction with a national broadband map that was also released Thursday, as part of a billion-dollar effort to improve Internet access in the United States, particularly in rural areas.<br />
<br />
Pushing America’s digital expansion is a point of emphasis for President Obama, who on Thursday night held a private meeting w/ Silicon Valley’s elite, including Facebook’s chief executive, Mark Zuckerberg, & Carol Bartz, president & chief executive of Yahoo. His administration has given $7.2 billion in stimulus money toward the effort, including the map, which took 5 years & $200 million to develop & shows a number of discrepancies in the quality and availability of broadband access btwn rural & urban communities."

"Too much demand for too few terminals"

"It turns out that the two Hole-in-the-Wall sites that she visited both stand in ruins, one closed down within a few months of its opening due to vandalism, the other surviving until it became inactive. According to the article, while the broader Hole-in-the-Wall project still exists, it has evolved from its earlier approach of eschewing relationship with community organizations, schools, and adult mentors, and has now “started to focus more on the building of ties with the school, particularly in regard to using the teachers or others in the local communities as mediators in learning.” This is a welcome change and reflects the important realization that mentorship and institutional support are important if children are to learn effectively with technology."

[References: http://www3.interscience.wiley.com/journal/123429684/abstract ]

[Also points to this: http://www.gse.uci.edu/person/warschauer_m/docs/ddd.pdf ]

"It is posited that this approach, which is being used in India, Cambodia and several countries in Africa, can pave the way for a new education paradigm and be the key to providing literacy and basic education and bridging the digital divide in remote and disadvantaged regions. This paper seeks to establish why two such open access, self-directed and collaborative learning systems failed to take root in the Central Himalaya communities of Almora and Hawalbagh. The purpose of this study is not to deny the achievements and potential of such an approach in other settings, but to examine the tenets and sustainability of such initiatives. It is argued that there is a need to distinguish between Hole-in-the-Wall as an idea and as an institution and to reflect on the key suppositions on how unsupervised access, informal, public, self-guided and collaborative work can help in children's learning."

[via: http://papyrusnews.com/2010/06/22/what-happened-to-hole-in-the-wall/ ]

"The Finnish government has become the first in the world to make broadband internet access a legal right.

"The laptop never came down to the hundred dollar price that was promised. The huge orders never materialized, and the project was very slow to allow sales to NGOs and charities instead of just governments. They abandoned the human-powered power source. They abandoned the special child-friendly OS. The laptop still didn’t sell to their target market in the developing world...Once the laptop finally started arriving in the developing world, its impact was minimal. We think." Response from Negroponte: http://www.olpcnews.com/commentary/press/negropontes_response_to_un_dis.html AND Jon Camfield: http://www.olpcnews.com/commentary/press/in_defense_of_olpc_xo_laptop.html AND See also the comments like this one: "for most people, who have been spoon-fed their knowledge all their lives, they are not capable of making the leap and learning on their own"

"If anyone needs training in critical thinking on the Internet, it's the adults who are still living in a world where media is something they consume unquestioningly because they've never had the experience of making it themselves. It's the adults who were raised on "authorities" and "experts," in a monocultural world where many subcultures remained hidden from view and therefore assumptions about "truth" and "fact" were not questioned." [via: http://www.downes.ca/cgi-bin/page.cgi?post=49665]

Inspiring.

“Mobile phones are necessarily an interim step. Adding software...difficult or impossible without permission of a central carrier...very hard for local technologists who have a very particular, local itch that needs scratching ...Mobile phone use is always metered, limiting their use and exacting a toll on people who can least afford to pay it. Worst of all, the centralised nature of mobile networks means that in times of extremis, governments and natural disasters will wreak havoc on our systems, just as we need them most.

"Wireless equipment maker Meraki is helping make universal broadband a reality.

"“Broadband is important. You can’t survive in a digital economy and be useful. We haven’t made it the priority that we need to,” warns Meinrath. “When you have a global economy, people don’t understand what the detriments that people without Internet will be in. Even if the U.S. fails to do so, other countries will not.”"

"There are plenty of people my own age (25) or younger that are at the same level (perhaps even further behind) than those twice their age. In fact, age has nothing to do with this, there are many high level and highly influential bloggers/social media power users that span demographics. The divide exists between those who have dove in and actively use the innovative tools of communication that have changed our world forever, and those who have not."

"With the help of a Rising Voices Micro grant, Pablo Flores of Ceibal Plan will organize a series of workshops which will gather national and international bloggers with the young laptop-toting students to show them how to set up a blog and take advantage of other social media tools."

"interview provides us with an opportunity to take a unique look at what is happening in Japan: it allows us to not focus on the technology, as is so often the case, but on how this technology is used, which is often more varied and complex than one might

"OLPC has been a textbook example both of the worst kind of development (broadly, rich white people believe that they know what’s best for poor black people) and the most egregious kind of technotopianism (broadly, complex social problems can be solved

"Interestingly, “the cell phone in some cases is being used as the primary computer for Latinos, serving up e-mail and the Internet, in the process bridging what has been called the digital divide that still exists for some minority and disadvantaged gr

article: http://www.businessweek.com/globalbiz/blog/europeinsight/archives/2008/04/nokia_and_desig.html

"telephone intercom...connect people to Internet...requires no literacy/computer skills...Users place free call...pushing green button...operator w/ Internet-enabled computer..finds answers to questions, sends & receives emails on caller's behalf."

"It's technology most adapted to the essence of human species -- sociability"..."It's ultimate tool to find each other. It's wonderful technology for being human." Maybe. But do our mobiles now render us unprecedentedly free? Or permanently tethered?"

"Jerry Knoblach wants to bring wireless service to millions of rural Americans. His plan: Beam it down from balloons hovering at the edge of space. The Wall Street Journal reports."

"laptops are getting into hands of kids...software developers...starting to use them...discover things they like & don’t...fixing the bugs...supporting each other. It has exceeded my expectations, the level to which the community has engaged in the proc

"What happens when people share an object that is inherently designed for personal use?...based on how & why people share in what ways can devices & services be redesigned to optimise shared user experiences?...should they be re-designed?"

"queremos CONTRIBUIR A REDUCIR LA BRECHA DIGITAL EN NUESTRO PAÍS, para lo cual trabajaremos para mejorar el entendimiento y promover actividades que ayuden a la democratización del uso de las nuevas tecnologías."