Commentary On the Digital Divide from the Chief Executives of Netflix & CommonSenseMedia

November 4, 2009 · Posted in Digital Divide, Transliteracy · View Comments

CC image courtesy of ap. on Flickr

If you’re thinking about transliteracy you almost have to be thinking about the digital divide. What does it mean? Is it real? How will we close the gap?

This New York Times piece Will the Digital Divide Close by Itself? From the Google’s Breakthrough Learning in a Digital Age provides a look at and arguments about the digital divide from two different perspectives.

From Jim Steyer, chief executive of CommonSense Media and co-sponsor of the event

“every kid needs to be digitally literate by the 8th grade” and called for a major public education campaign to make that happen. He argued that technology and learning are synonymous and that schools, parents, and kids must get up to speed in the next five years.

On the other hand:

Reed Hastings, the founder and chief executive of Netflix, contradicted him directly, saying it would take well more than five years to bridge the divide.

Mr. Hastings, an avid education philanthropist and proponent of school reforms, argued that at the advent of any new technology — television, cars, even rockets — people get riled up and wring their hands over a growing gap between the haves and have-nots.

He said that gaps narrow naturally as the market evolves and prices drop, enabling more people to bring new technology into the home and schools.

Most interestingly:

“We need to shift our expectations,” Mr. Hastings said. “This is a natural part of the evolution of technology.”

If I understand this correctly he is saying that the digital divide is part of an evolutionary process where technology and access to technology will be ubiquitous. I’m not sure I make the connection.

Most importantly:

Failed school reform might point to the need for more efforts outside of the classroom.

This is where libraries need to step in. We need to help students close the digital divide because what that means, what were talking about is the same thing as transliteracy. Becoming transliterate closes the digital divide. If schools can’t or wont, libraries need to step forward. We’ve done it for years with literacy, we need to do it now with transliteracy.

Does the average Joe really need to know what a browser is?

June 18, 2009 · Posted in Google, Questions, Technology · View Comments

Jessamyn West shared this yesterday

“A team from Google interviewed dozens of people in Times Square the other day, asking a simple question: What’s a browser? This was in an effort to understand and improve the customer experience of Google’s own browser, called Chrome.

Turns out that over 90% of the people interviewed could not describe what a Web browser is.”

Watch the video

I don’t think any of my non-techie family or friends could answer this question. I’m not sure I could adequately if a microphone was put in my face while I was out shoe shopping (its hard to swtich from thinking about a stacked heel to properly defining browser) My parents use Firefox because I told them to, I don’t think they have any idea why.

But does it matter? I know nothing about how my car works, I have no idea what’s actually involved in making it go, other than I turn a key, shift gears and apply the brake. Does the average Joe need to know what a browser is or just how to get online? I’m sure a car enthusiastic will tell you my Saturn is not so hot, but I don’t care it works for me, it gets me from Point A to Point B. Isn’t that how most people feel about their browser? Some of us are browser enthusiast, some of us aren’t. If the average Joe only wants to get from Point A to Point B why does he need to know what a browser is?

Rating 3.00 out of 5

Tags: <browser, chrome, Google, Video>

What do you think of Google Flu Trends?

November 12, 2008 · Posted in Google, Privacy · View Comments

I’ll admit it, I’m sucker for Google products – Reader, Gmail, Docs, Blogger, Chrome and I know on some level the dangers of that. I have lots of bookmarks in delicious about it. This morning while I was watching the news I heard mention of something new – Google Flu Trends. According the the site:

We have found a close relationship between how many people search for flu-related topics and how many people actually have flu symptoms. Of course, not every person who searches for “flu” is actually sick, but a pattern emerges when all the flu-related search queries from each state and region are added together. We compared our query counts with data from a surveillance system managed by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and discovered that some search queries tend to be popular exactly when flu season is happening. By counting how often we see these search queries, we can estimate how much flu is circulating in various regions of the United States.

I’m not certain why this disturbs me, I think I want to know how Google knows where I am when I search. If I go into a computer in my library and do a Goolge search for Flu how do they know I’m in Jefferson City? How? I looked in the FAQ and How Does This Work section and don’t see it. I’m sure someone will leave a comment and let me know. But I’m not sure that will make my unease go away. Think of everything else they *could* track.

Rating 3.00 out of 5

Tags: <flu, flu trends, Google, google.org, map, mapping, Privacy, state, states, trends, united states>

Becoming 2.0 – What 2.0 can do you for you

August 12, 2008 · Posted in Presentations, Training · View Comments

After much preperation the time has finally arrived! This week I’m cohosting a Web 2.0 workshop sponsered by MOREnet and the Missouri State Library. The topic – They asked us to talk about using Web 2.0 tools in your library!

Even better, my cohost and I created the whole thing using Google Docs. How else are two people going to edit a presentation at all hours of the day and night? These will not be on my slideshare account if you want to see them you’ll have to check them out on the wiki after the end of the week. They wont all be up until the end of the workshop on Friday.

If you don’t have, don’t want or just aren’t signed into your Google account you can watch the presentation.

But if you want to get more from the presentation you should sign in.

If you log in with your Google account you can see the Speakers Notes. You’ll be able to see the notes the speaker has entered for each slide, and in this case who is responsible for each section of the presentation.