Another factor which is most closely tied to physical access is that of access to digital resources. Digital resources can be defined in three parts: firstly, as access to software which is useful and relevant; secondly, as access to online content in an understandable format, with language with local and cultural relevance; and thirdly, as the ability to utilize the Internet to interconnect with other students and schools from different regions, cultures, and socioeconomic statuses. It will take more than simply hardware to bridge the digital divide. In addition to physical connectivity, it is important to consider "the education benefits of interconnectivity between students, between classes, between schools, and between schools and universities. Such connections crisscross the digital divide, bringing the underprivileged and the overprivileged in contact, not just as individuals, but as groups, communities, and institutions" (Monroe 29). This, together with appropriate software and online content tha t meets the students' needs, constitutes the digital factor of digital equity in the classroom.
This digital component of digital equity is, in many cases, not being fulfilled. Many schools and students find themselves unable to access needed software that will help them achieve their goals. In addition, some of those who do have access are unable to use this software effectively due to a lack of skill and instruction in this area. Also, for many, there is a sore lack of access to meaningful content on the Web. Different people from different backgrounds can benefit from different types of content.
Whereas ICT is most effective when it is standardized and uniform, content is most valuable when it is varied and unique. Whereas ICT infrastructure strives to be culture-neutral, content is most powerful when it intermingles with local cultures. The creation of quality content that speaks to the many cultures around the world is just as important as the deployment of ICT infrastructure. Either is of no use without the other. (Bruck and Kaufer 27) Topics that students in the United States may find relevant, for example, are entirely different than what a rural student in a primarily agricultural developing country may be looking for online. As entities in themselves, ICTs are not the cure-all and end-all to the current problems of the world; without useful, meaningful applications and quality content that people are looking for, ICTs are of very little use.
A single classroom or school can only be so much; there is a limit to the number of people, inputs, and viewpoints that can be obtained from such an institution. In fact, for many students, "school is an island; when the classroom door closes, the teacher and students might as well be stranded with whatever learning nutrition they brought along" (Tapscott 207). Considering even the relatively small scope of a school research project, it is very uncommon for a student to find all the information that he or she needs within the walls of his or her school library. Although schools are the world's traditional learning institutions, there is such a wealth of information outside of their boundaries that, for the most part, is untapped by students. This is not only true in the case of online knowledge bases, but also in terms of other students' viewpoints and cultures. If schools from different regions collaborated to allow their students to communicate amongst themselves-perhaps even to produce a collaborativ e project of sorts-they would be affording their students a much greater than typical opportunity to learn, not just from books, but from each other. Unfortunately, such opportunities are scarce, if present at all.
The causes of such digital barriers to digital equity are numerous. As is often the case, the most obvious barrier is that of money, or lack thereof. The fact that many digital resources are largely unaffordable continues to prevent digital equity in the classroom. As well, to provide students with the skills to utilize these digital resources, it is necessary for schools to train teachers who may or may not have ICT skills so that they know how to use such technology correctly and effectively. It is also important to ensure that books and other sources of information are available to students. The language barriers among countries often prevent complete, accurate communication of information. As far as the dearth of relevant content-the issue has become known as the "content gap"-is concerned, in general, there is an excess of Internet content oriented toward frequent-access users and not enough targeted to minorities and limited-access users. In essence, the Internet is largely demand-driven. People of ethnic, minority, and tribal cultures, females, and people with disabilities experience a paucity of content that is relevant and meaningful to them (Solomon, Allen, and Resta 25). The online knowledge base represented by the Web has huge potential to grow and meet the needs of an incredible variety of learners; in order to do so, it is vital that such learners and educators contribute to this knowledge base by creating content that has significance to them and other people like themselves (Solomon 18). In essence, people among minorities who create content that is meaningful to them are simultaneously creating content that may be meaningful to others. This sort of indirect peer-to-peer diffusio n of knowledge and opinions is precisely what is necessary for all students-regardless of race, region, culture, or status-to be able to grow and flourish in a technologically advanced world.
The ways in which people have striven to overcome these digital barriers are, for the most part, dependent upon collaborative efforts to create new wholes. In terms of efforts to boost the diversity and availability of digital content, the creation of various digital libraries has encouraged users to submit information which is relevant and meaningful to them to veritable online caches of knowledge. From these locations, other users can access this information and also modify it with information of their own.
A well-known example of such a program is Wikipedia, the free-content encyclopedia. With 13,000 active contributors working on more than 1,800,000 articles in over 100 languages, Wikipedia is truly a user-input system that results from international collaboration. The downside, however, is that newer articles are often not as well-balanced and comprehensive as the more mature ones; fledgling articles tend to be full of misinformation and vandalism ("Wikipedia"). Users simply need to use good judgment to determine whether what they read can be taken for face value. With time, the system will become more accurate faster, thereby improving the integrity of its articles.
A similar mission is that of Infogate Online's digital library for education. Though this library is not user-modified, it is fully interactive. Essentially, it is an online system of educational multimedia DVD-quality content, such as live lessons, TV programs, edutainment titles, and multimedia applications. Students in connected schools can access this multimedia content on demand using PCs in the school (Infogate). According to Infogate Online, the digital library is already experiencing a great deal of success. It would appear that its appeal is, well apart from its variety of content, its casual, relaxed environment full of new technology and services, coupled with its convenience (Infogate). As ingenuous as this idea is, the methods of overcoming the digital barriers to technological equity in the classroom extend in many more ways.
Similarly, as more and more people gain access to computers and the Internet, there is a greater representation of various cultures. Not only do these cultures have different issues and themes that are important to them, but they also express themselves in different languages and dialects. Because of this, in order for everyone to have an equal benefit from the Internet and various software, societies must collaborate to overcome the language barrier. One way in which this could potentially be done is to allow individuals with access in various regions and communities to translate certain web content and open source software to their respective languages. Though there may be discrepancies as to which content is translated, if the community as a whole were involved in the decision of what type of information they want to have available for them, it is likely that the majority would be pleased. Another issue lies in the realm of accuracy: should there be requirements or requisites that volunteers must meet in order to be able to translate? For the most part, accuracy should not be a major concern; the individuals who would be volunteering would most likely be the more affluent ones in the community anyway. The more pressing issue is that of copyrights. It is absolutely vital to note that by translating, the volunteers would not be benefiting monetarily or in any other way from their work. The emphasis would have to be on a strictly volunteer basis, with all rights still reserved by the site's author. It is possible that volunteers may be difficult to find; perhaps those individuals who would be capable of translating the sites do not find it worthwhile, as they are able to understand the content as it is. If this ends up being the case, the alternative to this volunteer translation project is to rely on online translation services, such as Alta Vista and Babelfish. In order to be comprehensive, h owever, they must be made functional for a variety of other languages as well.
In terms of making software more available and accessible, the exception to the generalization of collaborative efforts to create new wholes is pirated software. Pirated software can be software that is copied or exchanged over the internet so as to avoid the costs involved with purchasing it. Such software is increasing in prevalence and popularity, particularly among people of lower socioeconomic brackets. Though pirated software is arguably an effective means of providing disadvantaged people with the software that they need, it is certainly neither legal nor the most honest means of accomplishing this end. In addition, it has certain key disadvantages, especially in the field of education; namely, it has a limited range and scope, and the material of the software is generally non-educational.
A slightly more well-intentioned and motivated means of providing people with affordable, available software is the movement to make free and open source software available. Open source software is simply software which is freely distributed, and for which the source code is open and able to be modified by users as they so choose. Free and open source software challenges our preconceptions about how software is used, produced and distributed. The software industry today generates yearly revenues in excess of US$300 billion. [Free and open source software] is software that has made its source code free and allows-perhaps even motivates-users to change the source code and redistribute the derivative software. (Free) The beauty of free and open source software is that it not only helps people to gain access to the software that they need, but they also are able to continue their own learning and provide themselves with skills that may help them later on in their lives as they enter the job market (Aquarius). With software programming experience, they can not only solve any problems which they may encounter with the software itself, but they can also further their own technological prowess. Liberating software's source code would be a huge step in itself; however, free and open source software offers users the same opportunities and freedoms that the original programmers have. Free and open source software is, essentially, sustainable development in the sense that it is a technology that local people can understand, maintain, and adapt to their needs (Free). In fact, there are some who feel so passionately about the movement that they maintain that the "use of [non-free and open source software] is not true development, because the users are helplessly and permanently dependent on a single developer, who alone can fix or change it. In addition, closed software creates a user only community, preventing users from becoming developers of software" (Free). The benefits and advantages of the use of free and open source software are, in fact, so great that it is highly probably that increased use of it would greatly aid in overcoming some of the digital barriers regarding the digital divide. One such example is that of the GNU Project. Pronounced "guh-noo," GNU is a recursive acronym that stands for "GNU's Not UNIX." Launched in 1984, the GNU Project aims to "develop a complete UNIX like operating system which is free software" (GNU). By virtue of the fact that it is free, many people who are unable to afford operating systems like Windows are able to download the GNU operating system. Even better, since it is open source, they are able to adapt the operating system to meet their needs. According to the GNU Program, "variants of the GNU operating system, which use the kernel Linux, are now widely used; though these systems are often referred to as 'Linux,' they are m ore accurately called GNU/Linux systems." Although one many not give much thought to the fact that the operating system goes by many names, it is interesting to think that many of these names were probably given to resultant systems that were modified by users. This indicates that there is a demand and a use for free and open sour ce software. However, the drawback to free and open source software lies in the fact that the goal of every company, software and non-software alike, is to profit. By its very nature, free and open source software does not offer a means for profit, nor does it provide programmers with much incentive to participate, other than the fact that it is for a noble cause. In the case of the GNU operating system, it is principally sponsored by an organization called the Free Software Foundation (FSF). FSF does not receive much funding from grant-making foundations or organizations; rather, it relies heavily on individual contributions (GNU). Hence, it is understandable that it has taken such a long time since the program's inception for it to gain the status that it has so recently obtained. It would at least be a step in the right direction if software were offered at reduced costs to mass markets in poorer regions. However, low-cost mass marketing is only effective when there is a mass market. It is hard to imagine niche prod ucts-in this case, software such as Photoshop, or even more specialized software-going open source, because high costs are needed to profit from such products. Software availability and accessibility has also been tackled by means of localization of software. This simply refers to the modification of software in order to make it relevant and useful to the residents of a particular region or area. This could include anything from translation to different languages and regional dialects to changing content to be more locally relevant and meaningful. This sounds very appealing in theory, as it makes available a much larger array of potential buyers. However, "localization is-believe it or not-very expensive. Hence, software producers will have to sell a lot of software to pay for it. For smaller countries with smaller markets this means that for many software products localization may not be worth it" (Mayer-Schoenberger). While this is true, it is possible that a combination of localization with open sourcing could provide exactly the solution that is needed.
If the localization of software were made open source, similarly to the translation endeavor suggested earlier, it would be possible for individuals in certain regions to make available software localized to their region. Perhaps by collaborating with large software companies, people from underrepresented groups could offer to localize software for themselves. This does not necessarily entail open sourcing the software to entire communities (although, as discussed earlier, that would be extremely beneficial), but it would make localized software available for purchase without the software companies having to put in any extra effort on their parts. This would certainly be an improvement on today's situation, wherein many people cannot even find the software they want in a localized form. This is a business strategy which could prove useful in the future.
To overcome interconnectivity issues among students, ICT could be used to create an information sharing network to connect students from different schools, regions, and countries. Such a network would, perhaps, enhance communication on several levels: academically, extracurricularly, culturally, and socially. Academically, the creation of discussion boards for various fields of study would encourage discussion of questions, misunderstandings, projects, themes, and methods of learning. Perhaps online study groups could be instituted to help students who are having difficulties with a certain topic. On other levels-extracurricularly, culturally, and socially-students from different backgrounds could learn about other cultures and customs and broaden their mental horizons in general. It is not unlikely that such a network would have immense popularity. Take, for instance, the case of Facebook: originally designed as a communicative feature to connect college students, it gained such popularity that it has now expanded to include high schools as well. There are over 4 million students nationwide who "facebook" their classmates-yes, the word has come to be used colloquially as a verb-to connect and interact with them (Francisco). If such a project were developed on an international scale and extended to include forums, discussion boards, academic information, and other advice in addition to personal profiles, imagine how much students could learn about and from each other.
In an effort to increase the quality and variety of online content, many organizations are beginning to throw in a dash of competition. With the knowledge that human beings are innately driven to succeed-and, often, with the extra motivation of a grand prize for the winner-organizations such as the Oracle Education Foundation have developed website design and online content creation contests. Oracle's contribution to the world of online competitions is the ThinkQuest competition: teams of students internationally collaborate to create informative, creative websites that fit into a variety of categories. With hundreds of entries semi-annually and thousands of sites in its virtual archive, the ThinkQuest site has a plethora of new and exciting information which will undoubtedly do its part to help create meaningful online content (Oracle). However, the vast majority of individuals who participate in ThinkQuest and other competitions like it are those who have ready access to computers and the Internet alr eady, and hence are those for whom most online content is geared in the first place. In the future, as physical access becomes increasingly prevalent, it is imperative that similar programs be instituted for individuals who are underrepresented in the online community.