I’m writing, again today, at the risk of offending some very fine people — and that is certainly not my intent. But I am concerned enough to risk it. I am in, what appears to be northeastern Wisconsin. I drove through about an hour and a half of it yesterday on my way to my first day of staff development, and the land is magnificent. I can see why people look for reasons to be outdoors here.
It was an excellent day with about fifty educators from a fairly large geographic and relatively sparsely populated area, and we explored issues of contemporary literacy, some new web tools, and the effects that a new web is having on how we think about and use information. I was especially impressed with the conversations that I had with a number of the participants and the discussions sprung out from the ideas that I was sharing.
But what was hovering just beyond these these conversations was the fact that a large percentage of the population that these educators serve are without Internet and a larger percentage who do have it, are still dialing in. Part of the problem is that the area is fairly economically depressed. Few natural resources, little industry, and it is simply on the way to the places that tourists and weekend sportsters go. The main income seems to come from serving travelers on Friday and Sunday.
Does this mean that understanding the new shape of information, video game culture, and new literacy are less important for these teachers and their students. Absolutely now. Event of a majority of their students do not have access to online games, it is the connected students who will be defining the culture of all of our futures. I’ve occasionally mentioned that in reading The World is Flat, I’ve had the impression that the United States, unless it acts, is risking becoming a third world nation in just a few decades. I think that the real danger is that we may be allowing portions of the country to slip into the valleys, and it may be happening right now.
The shame of it is that this should not be happening. The natural resource that defines success in a flattening world is human intellect. And there is certainly no shortage of talent here in northeastern Wisconsin. There is simply a shameful lack of access to them, and they have a shameful lack of access to their world.
Pressure should be applied to the telecommunications industry to do what they promised they would do in the ’90s, in return for enormous tax breaks — connect America to the high speed information grid, not just the parts of America that are thick enough, financially, to be in the Telco’s interest to connect. I’m still disconnected in this hotel in Moose something, and can’t look up the references to the Telco scandal, at the writing of this blog. But Bill Moyers did a program about it, which may be available on YouTube. Also try looking up Bill Moyers and NCMR (National Conference on Media Reform) on YouTube.
Today, geography should not be a factor in who has access to the world of information, who the world of information has access to, nor who has the opportunities to tap into the info-verse and harness opportunities to serve and participate in the emerging global economy.
I fully agree with you. How do we move these places out of the valley and into the plains on to a path into the mountains? I work with many students in Central Texas. We still have a lot of poor farming communities that just don’t get it. I fear these students are going to be at a major disadvantage in the next decade or two.
In reading your blog I cannot help but think of how many people do not even realize that this is going on. In this day and age where everything is possible and people from the United States are communicating with others in Europe or Asia it is hard to believe that everyone in the United States does not have that option. In this country that is supposed to be filled with opportunities people do not realize that these opportunities are so hard to obtain and almost never reach what many would consider to be the countryside. I live close to Chicago where almost everywhere you turn there is a free wi-fi connection. It seems like the area of Wisconsin that is mentioned in this blog has been forgotten. For the rest of the country that do not see it, then it does not exist. People forget about those who live in poverty in this country. That are trying to make a better life for themselves but because of the area they live in, poverty is the only thing they see. I think that people need to open their eyes and look further than the big cities and the tourist attractions to see what is really going on in this country. If this continues then those students living in those areas will continue to be at a disadvantage when the rest of the country is moving along with all the new technology
Gee, people stuck with dialup?!?
Third-world indeed!
Suggesting that the United States will become a third-world country not only shows an ignorance of a fair amount of this world in which we live and an arrogance so strong as to not bother to put things into perspective.
If you want to argue that we’re not doing nearly enough with technology, that’s quite valid – many regions of this country down to specific districts are lacking badly. But saying that we’re on our way to third-world status is a terrible thing to say.
Unless, of course, you don’t seem to factor in plights such as being riddled with HIV/AIDS, malaria, starvation and government instability as being terribly difficult burdens.
Certainly this is a huge issue with huge implications. Thanks for the perspective.
it is really difficult to say what progress actually means, in a way every country belongs to the 3rd world!
Fred Haas was unable to post a comment to this blog, so he e-mailed the following:
David, third world means much more than only having dial up connection. It means no connection at all, in some places even no electricity, or worst of all no food, no water. Human intellect cannot certainly develop under those conditions, neither can human body. The world is not flat.
gabriela
Thanks for sharing