Could the XO Laptop help bridge the digital divide here?
While reading MNspeak response to the MPR story on the University of Minnesota Institute on Race & Poverty’s report “Digital Justice: Progress towards Digital Inclusion in Minnesota,” I had this thought:
Isn’t it as much about access to the hardware as it is about access to the internet connection? Is $30/month for your broadband connection really more difficult to come by than a chunk of change on the order of $400-$1200 for a computer?
People will go to a library or community center if they really need to use a computer or get on the internet. They’ll be a lot more likely to play with it — and thus become comfortable with it — if they have it at home.
Is this a niche that could be filled by the XO laptop? These are folks with no computer experience, so it’s not like they’re unlearning what they already know. They may even be less afraid of breaking or otherwise fucking up an XO laptop than they would of a “traditional” computer.
Related posts:
A lot of what the digital divide, http://www.digitaldivide.org/dd/index.html, is trying to bring to light is access. Mainly internet connectivity, but yes, hardware as well. I go around and talk to a lot of librarians across the state and I am still blown away when a completely tech savvy librarian in Thief River Falls or some other small town (or even smaller town) tells me that they have to spend an extra hour or two at work during the day for personal or career development related computer work because although they may have a computer at home they can not get internet access. Satellite, for many, is the only option and sometimes that isn’t even available. I had one librarian tell me that she was able to convince a couple of neighbors to go in on a satellite purchase just to get internet. Another friend of mine lives in a teeny tiny town of Clitherall, MN and she has to drive 25 miles to Fergus Falls to get on the internet at the library there. Then there comes into play the hours the library is open and when she is available to drive there. Living in an urban area you really take that piece for granted but not too far out of the TC area and internet connection gets really sparse.
Thanks, Carla. Great info. You are totally right in that folks take for granted that we have the internet access we do have, before we even get to the point of blanketing the whole city with wifi.
Now having played with the aforelinked XO laptop, there’s no way it could replace what people here today use for computers. It’s designed to be used in a completely different way.
Many of us working with CTC’s are convinced that communities need this kind of low-cost connectivity and low-cost equipment access in the home to increase economic opportunity and educational attainment. So something like the XO, or other computer placement programs is necessary.
Examples of program here in the Twin Cities are http://www.churchofstphilip.org/pqstories.html
or http://www.mncfs.org/
The Pew Charitable Trusts provides a lot of excellent information on how people are using information and media technology, and this helps me think about what’s needed in our communities, rather than basing it on individual’s feelings and beliefs. A good example: They’re looking at who’s actually using technology, and who’s left out:
http://www.pewtrusts.org/news_room_ektid21192.aspx
The study points to populations that have different barriers to entry.