Archive of ‘digital divide’ category

cheaper internet for low-income Americans

A program for cheaper internet for low-income Americans launches today

The FCC extended assistance that started during the pandemic

https://www.theverge.com/2021/12/31/22861200/application-now-open-discounted-internet-bills-fcc-affordable-connectivity-program

There’s more funding on the way to close the digital divide in the US. The new $1 trillion infrastructure law includes $65 billion to boost broadband access. More than 30 million Americans live somewhere without adequate broadband infrastructure, according to a Biden administration fact sheet.

digital equity

https://www.govtech.com/network/infrastructure-bill-promises-historic-boost-for-digital-equity

The recently signed $1.2 trillion federal infrastructure package includes $2.75 billion for digital equity and inclusion work, delivering an investment that advocates are calling unprecedented and historic.

Within the $65 billion going toward broadband, the $2.75 billion for digital equity and inclusion is set for two programs made up of grants. First, the money will go toward a digital equity capacity grant program for states.

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More on digital equity in this blog
https://blog.stcloudstate.edu/ims?s=digital+equity

 

18 Pros & Cons of Online Education

https://cognitiontoday.com/pros-and-cons-of-online-education-and-learning/

  1. Access to variety
  2. More autonomy, flexibility, & control
  3. Native digital habits
  4. Extended brain
  5. Easier Relatability
  6. Easier self-expression
  7. Distribution of learning resources
  8. Competition for quality

Cons/Disadvantages of learning online

  1. Gateway to procrastination

  2. Online disinhibition & psychological distance

  3. Merging of formal & informal environments

  4. Opportunities for technological & human errors

  5. High cost of transition

  6. Weak boundaries & monotony

  7. Lack of social connections & collaboration

  8. Lack of buffer activities and time gaps

  9. Cyberbullying & threats

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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Generation_Alpha

Meet Generation Alpha. Here’s How Their Lives Will Be Different Than Previous Generations

Baby Boomers, Gen X, Millennials, Gen Z, & Gen Alpha: What Generation Am I?

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more on online ed in this IMS blog
https://blog.stcloudstate.edu/ims?s=online+education

Internet is utility not luxury

It’s 2020: Why Is The Internet Still Treated Like A Luxury, Not A Utility? from r/technology

It’s 2020: Why Is The Internet Still Treated Like A Luxury, Not A Utility?

https://gothamist.com/news/its-2020-why-is-the-internet-still-treated-like-a-luxury-not-a-utility

The city Board of Estimate first decided back in 1965 to slice up the city into cable-TV franchise fiefdoms, a setup that has survived largely intact in the internet era. Today, Altice (aka Optimum) has exclusive cable rights to the Bronx and southeast Brooklyn, while Charter (aka Spectrum, formerly Time Warner) has the rest of the city; Verizon FiOS is also available in a slowly expanding patchwork of areas overlying those two. As a result, most city residents have at most one other option if they’re unhappy with their current service, and many have none at all.

Americans weren’t always beholden to their local cable and phone companies for internet access, notes Christopher Mitchell, director of the Community Broadband Networks Initiative for the D.C.-based Institute for Local Self-Reliance. In the 1990s, thousands of internet service providers across the country offered dialup connections for relatively low prices, connecting via the copper wires of the phone system. The Telecommunications Act of 1996, he says, was initially designed to build on this by enabling multiple providers to use the new, faster networks that were then starting to be rolled out using higher-capacity coaxial and fiber-optic cable. It didn’t quite pan out.

“Both the Clinton and the Bush administrations dismantled that, under pressure from the big cable and telephone companies,” says Mitchell. “Most of those internet access providers went out of business, because they didn’t have access to the networks. If you have a policy that requires a company to pay $1,500 per home to get a subscriber, and it takes three to four years to earn that money back, you will not have much competition.”

The result has been a network of broadband services that are unaffordable or unavailable for a persistently high number of local households.

Torres noted that the city has spent nearly $300 million on renting otherwise-vacant hotels to house homeless New Yorkers during the pandemic, but hasn’t asked for the hotels to allow residents access to their broadband routers.

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more on netneutrality in this IMS blog
https://blog.stcloudstate.edu/ims?s=netneutrality

internet and health crisis

Hotspot Devices are Only One Connectivity Solution

What are alternative solutions?

  1. A significant Lifeline broadband benefit separate from the current Lifeline service, designed primarily to support phone service.
  2. Financial support for community-based emergency efforts to help unconnected households find and makes use of the affordable internet access options available to them. These funds would need to go to local organizations who are already trusted by households who are not connected. Unconnected households tend to be low-income and/or older adults.

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more on digital inclusion in this IMS blog
https://blog.stcloudstate.edu/ims?s=digital+inclusion

age for the first smart phone

https://www.kqed.org/mindshift/49742/deciding-at-what-age-to-give-a-kid-a-smartphone

Nov 21, 2017, Claire McInerny

We hear that smartphones can be addictive, that screen time can hurt learning, but can’t these minicomputers also teach kids about responsibility and put educational apps at their tiny fingertips?

safety

Common Sense Media, a nonprofit focused on kids and technology, says rather than considering the age of a child, focus on maturity. Some questions to consider are:

  • Are they responsible with their belongings?
  • Will they follow rules around phone use?
  • Would having easy access to friends benefit them for social reasons?
  • And do kids need to be in touch for safety reasons? If so, will an old-fashioned flip phone (like the one Sydney never charged) do the trick?

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https://www.digitaltrends.com/mobile/right-age-for-smartphone-child/ 2016

While Pew Research from 2015 puts adult smartphone ownership in the U.S. at 72 percent, there’s some debate about smartphone ownership among children. The average age for a child to get their first smartphone is currently 10.3 years according to the recent Influence Central report, Kids & Tech: The Evolution of Today’s Digital Natives.

An average of 65 percent of children aged between 8 and 11 have their own smartphone in the U.K. according to a survey by Internet Matters. That survey also found that the majority of parents would like a minimum age for smartphone ownership in the U.K. to be set at age 10.

However, some kids are using smartphones from a very young age. One study by the American Academy of Pediatrics that focused on children in an urban, low-income, minority community suggested that almost all children (96.6 percent) use mobile devices and that 75 percent have their own mobile device by the age of four.

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peer reviewed

Lauricella, A., Wartella, E., & Rideout, V. (2015). Young children’s screen time: The complex role of parent and child factors. Journal of Applied Developmental Psychology36, 11–17. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.appdev.2014.12.001

Wood, E., Petkovski, M., De Pasquale, D., Gottardo, A., Evans, M., & Savage, R. (2016). Parent Scaffolding of Young Children When Engaged with Mobile Technology. Frontiers in Psychology. Retrieved from http://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/10024286/1/Wood_Parent_Scaffolding_Young_Children.pdf

Rikuya Hosokawa, & Toshiki Katsura. (2018). Association between mobile technology use and child adjustment in early elementary school age. PLoS ONE, 13(7), e0199959. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0199959

Percentage of moms whose children used device by age 2.(THE DATA PAGE)(Statistical data). (2011). Editor & Publisher, 144(10).

PERCENTAGE OF MOMS WHOSE CHILDREN USED DEVICE BY AGE 2

                          Gen Y moms   Gen X moms

Laptop                        34%          29%
Cell Phone                    34%          26%
Smart Phone                   33%          20%
Digital Camera                30%          18%
iPod                          34%          13%
Videogame System              13%           8%
Hand-held gaming device       13%          10%

Source: Frank N. Magid & Associates, Inc./Metacafe

E moms blogher and parenting 8 2, jkc from Elisa Camahort Page

 

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more about the use of mobile devices in the classroom in this IMS blog entry
https://blog.stcloudstate.edu/ims/2017/04/03/use-of-laptops-in-the-classroom/

5G and urban areas

Millimeter-wave 5G will never scale beyond dense urban areas, T-Mobile says

T-Mobile CTO says 5G’s high-frequency spectrum won’t cover rural America.

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