Access to the Digital Community: Assessment of my students needs (participate 3.1.1)

I remember working at AT&T in 2007 and 2008 telling some customers that we do not have broadband available in their area.  Many of them were mortified because much of the emerging technologies like YouTube and Myspace.com could not be assessed with traditional dial up.  Well, that was then, and this is now.  Seven years into the future, it is almost impossible to not have assess to high speed Internet.  In this post, I will explore the following two things as it relates to examining my students' assess to digital resources.m  Those two things are barriers to digital learning, and suggestions for digital learning.

First, I will begin by testing my internet connection speed so that I will have a mode of comparison to the access of my students.


I took the OOKLA internet connection speed test to see how fast my internet was and my results are in the graphic below:  

Next, I researched the average internet speed in Clarkston, Georgia (the city where most of my students live).  The results are in this graphic.

Then, I checked the Internet speed near Freedom Middle School in Stone Mountain, GA (the school where I teach).

Next, I looked up Internet Speed Rankings for Georgia Counties.  As you can see Dekalb County ranks number four, and this is the county where my school and students are.  While, Gwinnett County, the place where I live, ranks number 2.

After viewing the above data, I was interested in learning the about the number of Internet users in select countries worldwide.  As you can see the United States ranks 2nd in the number of people but statistically we have about a 50% penetration rate as opposed to China's 25% penetration rate based on population size comparisons.

Now, that we have viewed, local, state, and global data, I want you to understand some reasons why some people don't have internet at home because this will give insight as to the barriers of digital penetration.  

The graphic below shows that income level has a big correlation to whether or not the internet is used at home.

Ironically, the people who have the least amount of money use their phones to access the internet more than any other demographic group.   This evidence speaks volumes to ways we may need to look into approaching digital literacy in the future.

As you can see from the graphics, the primary barriers that might impede my students’ opportunities to access digital learning are as follows:

1. Low Bandwidth
2. Location
3. Disability
4. Income Disparity
5. Limited English Proficiency

Now that we know the barriers to getting educated online, what are the best ways to eliminate the barriers?

The main problems that are related to digital accessibility deal with equity and digital competence.  Many people who are not currently online either don't have the language skills, the money, or the confidence to be effective online.  The best ways to eliminate these barriers is for local districts to seek grants to help the under served communities gain access to technology via broadband usage, development of skills and competencies.  

Another thing that we need to do is to work on making a way for websites to be more accessible for people with disabilities and language difficulties.  We need to look at creating technologies and applications that will integrate existing Digital Learning Communities into an integrated optimized accessibility platform that will allow translations services, enhancements for the blind, deaf, and physically disabled. 

I have included a chart to show some of my favorite Digital Learning Communities and my assessment of the ease of use of each website.  As you can see from the chart, there is still a great deal of work to be done in the areas of making learning accessible for all.

Please subscribe and comment so that you can join in the discussion and offer your opinions about how to bridge the digital divide.

Helpful Websites for more information:

http://www.statista.com/

https://www.cia.gov/index.html

http://www.internetworldstats.com/stats2.htm