Moving at the Speed of Creativity

The short film, Local Voices, Global Visions, is a 45 minute summary of activities happening all over the world relating to student activism and advocacy in the area of information technology. Without access to, knowledge of and skills concerning information technology, much of the world’s population will be left further and further behind as the developed world moves faster and faster in its network economy / global information age.

Watching this film is time well spent, if you want to get a better global perspective on not only the potential for educational technology to serve as a change agent– but how it is actually transforming lives and relationships in diverse countries.

The message of impassioned advocacy by youth for the tools, the connectivity, and the potential to be active agents in the new global information economy should resonate as strongly here in West Texas as it does in Africa or Southeast Asia. We are living in a different era, and we need to boldly move forward to provide students at all levels with access to the tools and instruction in the skills of the 21st Century network economy.

At our state distance learning conference back in March, I was struck by how rural communities need to come together now more than ever over the issue of high speed connectivity and bandwidth. There is not a natural economic / market incentive for large telecommunications firms to bring high speed Internet to rural America, or other parts of the world for that matter, because there is not a large commercial market for these services. Yet without a robust pipeline of Internet connectivity, these areas will continue to define a problematic aspect of the digital divide that must be addressed.

Here in Texas, we should insist that our legislators force the telecommunications companies to provide robust, high speed Internet connectivity to every public school in every community. The Telecommunications Infrastructure Fund (TIF) will expire after this current legislative session, and will in all likelihood not be renewed. TIF offered large and numerous grants for educational and community partnerships to obtain educational technology resources to empower and tangibly bridge the digital divide.

What is the next step for rural broadband access and educational technology acquisition and implementation in the State of Texas? The Houston Chronicle this evening reminds us that House Bill 4 could be part of the answer. Although in its amended form HB4 might be a tremendous step forward for Texas students and teachers, it would not (I don’t think) address the connectivity issues which are at the heart of this discussion about opportunities available in the arena of information technologies for youth.

It seems to me, naive though I admittedly am, that we need fiber optic cables connecting public schools throughout the entire state of Texas, with robust Internet connectivity provided on those fiber lines for schools and communities to use. The provision of Internet connectivity should become, not merely like electricity and gas for local municipalities, but like public libraries. Free access, for everyone– virtually unlimited bandwidth.

We are a long way from that vision today. The movie Local Voices, Global Visions provides a good perspective on why we should move in that direction.

(Thanks to Andy Carvin for bringing this to my attention via his blog).