DIGITAL DIVIDE AND E-LEARNING

Digital Divide and E-learning

Digital Divide and E-learning

Introduction

Digital divide generally refers to the relative advantage individuals or groups of people gain over others as the result of their access to and use of communicative technologies, such as the Internet. This gap—or divide—is considered digital largely because many technological advances over the last half of the 20th century have been based on digital, as opposed to analog, technology.

While some scholars have limited use of the term digital divide specifically to Internet diffusion and access, there are many who conceptualize being digital as including a wide variety of other information and communication technologies (ICTs) such as cellular phones, satellite television receivers, and personal computers. As these technologies were initially developed, there was little concern that they might contribute to the stratification of societies principally because they were cost prohibitive. More recently, however, it has become apparent that digital communication devices can be economically mass produced and distributed to a vast number of individuals—along with relevant knowledge and skill sets (Mansell, 2008).

Differences In Access And Use

Results from the earliest of studies of computers and Internet use revealed a population of young, white, affluent males, living in developed countries. It was these findings that promoted concerns about the digital divide. In education settings there was concern that students without access to computers would fail to gain the skills needed for future work and higher education. As the site for equitable access, schools carried the responsibility of making sure such skills were acquired. Thus, in the 1980s, schools grappled with how to afford computers and train teachers to include their use in the curriculum. Computer labs became an important addition to schools, and computer skills became an important new area of the curriculum from junior to senior grade levels.

With the advent of the Internet in the 1990s, connection to the Web becomes important, as do skills in searching the Web. In all such additions, schools with students on the affluent side of the digital divide have been ahead of others. For example, in the US in 1998, the ratio of students to Internet-connected computers in schools was 16.8 students per computer in schools with the poorest students (75 per cent or more students eligible for free or reduced school lunch), but 10.6 in schools with the lowest concentration of poor students.

Differences By Life Stage

Age, or perhaps more appropriately, life stage, greatly influences online activity, in part due to requirements for school and work as well as the access these provide. Having a child in the household is a major reason for acquiring a computer and access to the Internet. In 1999, Statistics Canada (2000) found that 59 per cent of Canadian single-family households with unmarried children under 18 were connected to the Internet in 1999, compared to 39 per cent for other single-family households; and a US National School Board Federation study found 36 per cent of parents report children's education as a primary reason for computer purchase (27 per cent buy ...