EDC initiative designed to boost digital literacy

BROAD SCOPE: Stuart Freiman is the director of Broadband Rhode Island, which is spearheading a federally funded project to improve digital literacy in Rhode Island. / PBN PHOTO/RYAN T. CONATY
BROAD SCOPE: Stuart Freiman is the director of Broadband Rhode Island, which is spearheading a federally funded project to improve digital literacy in Rhode Island. / PBN PHOTO/RYAN T. CONATY

Computers and “connected” mobile devices may be ubiquitous, but there are still many people who do not know how to turn on a laptop, create an email account or open Internet Explorer, says Stuart Freiman, manager of the R.I. Economic Development Corporation’s Broadband Rhode Island project.
“The notion of the digital divide truly exists,” said Freiman, who estimates 30 to 35 percent of Americans do not use the Internet. “As we move into the 21st century, that’s going to be more and more important in every aspect of our lives: access to health care, the government and public-safety issues.”
Broadband Rhode Island and local organizations, such as OSHEAN – a technology consortium of colleges, universities, hospitals and public agencies – are helping reduce the local digital “illiteracy” rate, with the help of funding from the federal government covering infrastructure build-out, new computers in every public library in the state and a broadband map.
“It’s rare that you get money that covers those three areas,” Freiman said. Broadband Rhode Island is putting $4.5 million toward data collection, verification and display. Although BBRI received the funding nearly two years ago, the project only recently received final clearance to begin work.
One of the reasons that the federal government pushed the money down to the state level is because coverage and infrastructure varies from state to state, said Freiman.
Rhode Island, as well the rest of the Northeast, fares well in terms of coverage but, “access does not equal adoption,” he noted. One of the projects, data collection and contribution to a national database, is a map of the broadband coverage in the state that is “virtually complete” at approximately 99 percent, Freiman estimated.
BBRI first submitted data on broadband-coverage information to the federal government in January 2010 and is currently working on its fourth submission; the data collection will continue until December 2014.
One of the surprising findings of the broadband map is that there are at least 20 carriers in the state, which is “far more than the two or three that most people would say exist in Rhode Island, Freiman noted.
A check of the Digital Atlas map, available through the BBRI website, says there are eight carriers available at the Providence Business News office on West Exchange Street, ranging from national providers AT&T, Cox and Verizon, to lesser known ones such as WildBlue Communications and DIECA Communications. The collected data will help organizations better address access and adoption needs in the community, Freiman said, noting the current lack of information on who and what, exactly, are needed.
But one way to start promoting broadband adoption is by teaching librarians how to … teach, he says.
“The one consistent community organization throughout the state is the public libraries. One [thing] that is very clear is [that] the busiest area of any library today is the computer room,” Freiman said.
“The qualitative evidence exists almost everywhere in the state – whether it’s an urban or rural community … people use those [library computers because] they just don’t have access at home,” he added. Users range from students needing to do their homework, to people with disabilities, the elderly and people with language barriers.
BBRI aims to train the librarians as well as develop a standardized curriculum that could be used across Rhode Island. BBRI is in negotiations with a company to develop the curriculum.
“Digital literacy is about getting people who don’t know how to use the Internet on board, but more importantly, we’re going to focus on what it means to be a digital citizen within Rhode Island,” he said.
“For example: In Rhode Island, how do you file your taxes online? In Rhode Island, how do you pay your bills online? How do you get access to job information?” he continued. “It’s more than ‘how do I use the Internet?’ It’s about … how do I become a digital citizen?”
Librarians have informally and formally been providing training to users since they’ve had computers in the public libraries.
“But they’ve never had curriculum as highly developed or standardized [as the one BBRI is proposing],” said Howard Boksenbaum, chief library officer of the R.I. Office of Library and Information Services. He said that in 2010, there were 1.4 million uses of the more than 600 public computers in Rhode Island.
And, although BBRI isn’t funded to deliver the end-user training, “if we’ve done our job properly, we [will have] created a plan that will be sustained far beyond our ability to fund this,” Freiman said. The libraries hope to eventually provide lessons to the public, but the funding is not in place yet.
“Wherever you go, you’re going to find long lines of people waiting to use the computers. We’re then faced with two problems: How do we continually keep up with the demand for the [machinery] but also, how do we keep up with the demand of [skills-training] so our clients know what they can do?” Boksenbaum said. If all goes well, the 300 librarians and librarian technicians in the state will be able to help with technology training.
Laura Marlane, director of the Providence Community Library, which will be BBRI’s pilot site for the digital-literacy program, says that her organization has been funding such classes – in English and Spanish – on its own. The library’s Web developer puts the curriculum for the classes together and students from area colleges are paid to teach them.
“The standardized curriculum would be much simpler. It would be a time saver for us,” Marlane said.
Are the libraries, however, the right venue for technology training?
“Librarians are trained to do this, this is what we go to school for – help people find information wherever it is,” Marlane said.
Although funding is “always” a problem for the library, Marlane does not see cutting the classes in the future. “We would have to trim [the budget] elsewhere. This is just really important,” she said.
BBRI is also in preliminary conversations with organizations such as the Providence Geeks and the Tech Collective to set up volunteer programs for local IT professionals willing to lend a hand.
The first pilot test of the digital literacy program is slated to take place in September or October and the first serious launch, across many libraries, is slated for early winter.
Freiman also noted that there are discussions on creating an informal digital-literacy certification for those that complete the program.
“We [at BBRI] sit in economic development and, at the end of the day, all of these issues are about economic development – how people use the Internet to better their lives,” he added. •

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