I am certain that many would have made that comment about Appalachians. Which brings about another topic: how about closing the digital divide in the United States too, in both the urban and rural areas? Laura Andre Brock wrote:
This has been an incredibly frustrating conversation. conversations about inequality and stratification do little to address the fact that there are millions of Africans who already use ICTs and would welcome the chance to have their own laptop for themselves or for their children.
don't assume that because its Africa that the need or capacity to use ICTs is somehow diminished because their utilities lack the stability and reliability of Western networks. After all, the United States has some of the most reliable ICT infrastructure in the world and still has higher rates of illiteracy and ICT-non participation than many smaller, poorer countries. ICT adoption, in a world increasingly inundated with the awareness of information as a tool, rests not simply upon the possession of the material artifact but much more so on the possibility of using information to improve one's life chances.
The comment about using a laptop as a shovel? completely out of line and insulting. Would you have made that comment about rural Chinese or Appalachian hill people?
Andre
-- Laura J. Little, Ed.D. Instructional Technologist/Director, Title III Grant Marietta College Marietta, OH littlea@marietta.edu (740)376-4815 http://www.marietta.edu/~littlea/ "The best way to predict the future is to invent it." Alan Kay