Thing 8 - Online sharing

The presentation sharing possibilities in Thing 8 look very promising. I did an early literacy presentation last month for expectant parents, and was frustrated with the pile of left-over handouts at the end. I can see uploading my presentation (I'm assuming that PowerPoint presentations can be uploaded into Zoho or the others...) and then just offering a few printed copies to those participants without easy Internet access.

Of course, this brings me back to that first blog and my concern about the gap between the haves and have nots with respect to online access. My partner is a high school science teacher, and yesterday she received the March issue of NEAtoday. The cover story is "Mind the Gap," about the "participation gap" between those kids who have access to online technology and those who do not.

"For more affluent kids, using technology is like using a pencil... After second or third grade, they no longer think about how to hold the pencil; it's become second nature.

But at-risk kids aren't able to use technology every day and haven't had exposure to it at home and have to play catch up to learn the technology as well as the lessons. When they're concentrating so much on the tool rather than the lesson, it costs them time and presents a steep learning curve."

Later in the article a teacher suggests that kids who feel more comfortable using computer and Internet technology are more likely to want to go to college. If they don't have an understanding of the technology, then college may feel doubly intimidating to them because they know the technology is out there and that they will have to learn both it and whatever subject matter they are interested in pursuing. When kids don't have computer and/or Internet access at home, they rely on their schools and libraries for that access.

What excites me about the 23 Things program is that I am learning about this stuff so that hopefully I can help some of those kids. The problem is that I don't see them very often. Most of the kids who come in to the library to use the Internet are coming in to access myspace and facebook, and they are already familiar enough with the tools to neither want nor need my help.

What makes the technology so exhilarating is the opportunity for spontaneous exploration and creativity. But I wonder how enticing the library computer will seem to someone when they know they can only have it for up to an hour and anyone else in the room can see their frustration when things don't work out properly the first seven times they try.