Transcript PowerPoint Presentation - Twenty

Information Technologies:
Dimensions of Access
Bertram C. Bruce
Library & Information Science
University of Illinois
What does it take to make information
technologies accessible?
Technologies have politics
We are taught to view the political and the
technological as separate spheres, the former
having to do with values, ideology, power, and the
like, the latter having to do with physical artifacts
exempt from such vagaries of social life.
–L. Suchman (1988)
Demographic dimensions
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Wealth
Language
Nationality
Race
Class
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Gender
Age
Physical ability
Organization
Location
Wealth inequities
• Wealth of top 1% > bottom 90%
• Wealth of 3 richest people > GDP world’s poorest
48 countries
• Cost to install water and sanitation for all the
world’s people: $9 billion plus some annual costs
• Ice cream in Europe: $11 billion/year
• Countries
Implementation dimensions
How do people (which people? for what purpose?)
• design a technology?
• distribute that technology?
• use the technology?
• interpret that use?
Nested contexts of technologies
• Design: Hardware, software, content, language
• Distribution:Availability, documentation, training,
support
• Use: surrounding practices, organizational
structures, institutional norms
• Interpretation: Perceptions, personal values
Design: Reification of dominance
well-trodden battle-lines of social conflict --Foucault
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access to tools & information
construction of disability
ascii
netiquette
desktop metaphors
web architecture
domain name system
Distribution: Technology in Africa
• “my grandmother in Kenya”
• “ATT leaves out the entire continent”
• windup radio
Assumptions about net use
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Reliable network
Software updates
Licenses for use
Adequate training
Personal accounts
Work on the net
Compatible schedules (cf. the Velham wizard)
Equitable access (cf. Foucault)
Use: On-the-ground realities
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Power strips stolen!
50% typewriters broken
Apple II on the information superhighway
Logo at Bank Street
“Haven’t used it yet this year”
Situated evaluation
• http://www.uiuc.edu/~chip/show/evaluation/situat
edeval.ppt
Interpretation: Expanding access in China
• Diaoyu Islands discussion on bulleting board
• Terminals under glass
• Great Digital Wall, a la Singapore
Definition of self
• Barbie & Her Magical House
– Visual discrimination: home decorating
– Cause/effect: select music
– Decision-making: choosing make-up
Metaphysics of technology
the claim to not have a metaphysics is itself a form a
metaphysics
-- Aristotle
Living within artifacts
We live in a world in which the artifice of our environment
overwhelms the natural foundation or context of the past. As
Ivan [Illich] has pointed out, that artifice is undergoing a
fundamental transformation in what he referred to as contextsensitive help screens. We spend more time now in front of a
screen of one kind or another than we used to spend face to
face with other humans beings--either the screen of the
television set, the screen of the computer, the screen of my
little digital clock right here in front of me. –Carl Mitchum
Technology as social practice
(Mutual constitution)
• Design out of social values (Akrich; Bromley;
Selfe; Spender)
• Distribute based on social relations
• Use based on existing social practices
• Interpret in terms of our socially-constructed
views of reality (Turkle; Haraway; Kramarae)
Opportunities
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Digital libraries
Multimedia
Collaboration systems
Ubiquitous computing
Tools for lifelong learning
Opportunity: Digital libraries
• Learning challenges: integrating knowledge from
multiple sources; finding information
• Social challenges: reliability of information; hate
sites, pornography, etc.; who has access?
Opportunity: Multimedia
• Learning challenges: new representations of
knowledge; visualization; new skills (Sheldrake);
inquiry-based learning
• Social challenges: loss of common knowledge;
corporatization; reification of dominance
Opportunity: Collaboration
• Learning challenges: new ways to work together to
solve problems; understanding the perspective of
others; using new tools
• Social challenges: plagiarism; ownership;
inclusion/exclusion
Opportunity: Ubiquitous computing
• Learning challenges: understanding hybrids; new
ways to explore the world
• Social challenges: surveillance; control; deskilling
society
Opportunity: Lifelong learning
• Learning challenges: new frames for learning,
neither time- nor space-bound; learning how to
learn
• Social challenges: new roles for teachers, forms of
accreditation, learning institutions, etc.