Prize quote of the day
"Studies that control for media exposure have also reported that readers or viewers with more prior knowledge of a topic are better able to assimilate new information." Viswanath and Finnegan, quoted in an article on digital divide by DiMaggio et al.
This has been another episode of "Science Confirms the Obvious." XD
I don't really know what to make of the issue of the digital divide, or the more broadly defined problem of online inequality. It is a hard topic to get a handle on, with so much information that focuses on small slices of the picture and even that information becomes possibly outdated almost as fast as it can be gathered. I don't think that anyone except the denial experts in the Bush administration can deny that the digital divide is a problem. Seriously people, there is a great deal of difference between the digital divide and a "mercedes divide." (Seriously, Bush's FCC man called it that.) Lack of a mercedes doesn't cut a person off from significant chunks of participation in social, civic, and commercial life in our modern culture. Working with public-terminal only access or a modem so slow it can't handle loading a graphically complicated webpage does. At the same time, all the stuff I am reading on the digital divide raises a bigger question for me: is the divide inevitable? That question turns into a bigger, much more uncomfortable question: is inequality inevitable?
I admit freely that the issues, research, and discourse around digital divide hover a little above my intelligence. I don't fully get it, much as I don't fully get a lot of the large issues that academia concerns itself with.
On another information issues note, I finally talked my priest into being willing to consider incorporating some Web 2.0 goodness into the church catechism program. Right now the program consists of Father holding 2.5 hours of lecture once a week. Lecture is all very well and good, but it has a few inherent problems such as only speaking to one learning style, isolating out those who can't attend because of schedule, and being limited to passive learning. I think technology has a lot to offer our Christian education in terms of connecting the inquirers, recently received, and otherwise interested members with good sources and with each other. I know that for me one of the most important factors in my catechumen period was the interaction with other people in the class. Those conversations and the support of those people is really what made my conversion possible, and some of those people are now my closest friends. Active participation and discussion in learning have been shown to be more effective than lecture alone. There is a lot of quality information out there in the form of books, online readings, podcasts.....all of that could be shared and discussed in a network of learners. I see our priest having a large role in the discussions, and I think they would let him see where we are in our journey. At the same time, I am aware that I may be playing into the trap of the digital divide, blinded by my own status on the priviledged side. I attended a session at WLA/OLA about selling your ideas, during which the presenter brought up the point that a common mistake people make when they have an idea is to rush right from inspiration to persuation or planning without spending any time exploring and researching what will really benefit the group affected by the idea. I need to seek out the input of the others at church and see what would really serve them, and if there is even wide enough interest in this kind of thing to warrant the effort. At the very least, though, I am going to push hard for the priest to transfer his lectures from tape to cd, before they get lost in the technological turnover.
And yes, Simeon, if you are reading this I did just realize that my default for my journal entries in recent months has been set so that only other livejournal accounts I have friended can see them. I fixed it, but you should get a livejournal. All the cool kids are sticking with old school blogs XD
This has been another episode of "Science Confirms the Obvious." XD
I don't really know what to make of the issue of the digital divide, or the more broadly defined problem of online inequality. It is a hard topic to get a handle on, with so much information that focuses on small slices of the picture and even that information becomes possibly outdated almost as fast as it can be gathered. I don't think that anyone except the denial experts in the Bush administration can deny that the digital divide is a problem. Seriously people, there is a great deal of difference between the digital divide and a "mercedes divide." (Seriously, Bush's FCC man called it that.) Lack of a mercedes doesn't cut a person off from significant chunks of participation in social, civic, and commercial life in our modern culture. Working with public-terminal only access or a modem so slow it can't handle loading a graphically complicated webpage does. At the same time, all the stuff I am reading on the digital divide raises a bigger question for me: is the divide inevitable? That question turns into a bigger, much more uncomfortable question: is inequality inevitable?
I admit freely that the issues, research, and discourse around digital divide hover a little above my intelligence. I don't fully get it, much as I don't fully get a lot of the large issues that academia concerns itself with.
On another information issues note, I finally talked my priest into being willing to consider incorporating some Web 2.0 goodness into the church catechism program. Right now the program consists of Father holding 2.5 hours of lecture once a week. Lecture is all very well and good, but it has a few inherent problems such as only speaking to one learning style, isolating out those who can't attend because of schedule, and being limited to passive learning. I think technology has a lot to offer our Christian education in terms of connecting the inquirers, recently received, and otherwise interested members with good sources and with each other. I know that for me one of the most important factors in my catechumen period was the interaction with other people in the class. Those conversations and the support of those people is really what made my conversion possible, and some of those people are now my closest friends. Active participation and discussion in learning have been shown to be more effective than lecture alone. There is a lot of quality information out there in the form of books, online readings, podcasts.....all of that could be shared and discussed in a network of learners. I see our priest having a large role in the discussions, and I think they would let him see where we are in our journey. At the same time, I am aware that I may be playing into the trap of the digital divide, blinded by my own status on the priviledged side. I attended a session at WLA/OLA about selling your ideas, during which the presenter brought up the point that a common mistake people make when they have an idea is to rush right from inspiration to persuation or planning without spending any time exploring and researching what will really benefit the group affected by the idea. I need to seek out the input of the others at church and see what would really serve them, and if there is even wide enough interest in this kind of thing to warrant the effort. At the very least, though, I am going to push hard for the priest to transfer his lectures from tape to cd, before they get lost in the technological turnover.
And yes, Simeon, if you are reading this I did just realize that my default for my journal entries in recent months has been set so that only other livejournal accounts I have friended can see them. I fixed it, but you should get a livejournal. All the cool kids are sticking with old school blogs XD