Re: [xmca] Thoughts on Digital Technologies and Poverty

[Yrjö Engeström <yrjo.engestrom@helsinki.fi>]

Mike, thank you for your thoughtful message. Attached is a recent  
paper of mine that supports your line of reasoning.

Regards,

Yrjö

Attachment: From learning environments.pdf
Description: Adobe PDF document

mike cole kirjoitti 1.1.2011 kello 6.54:

> A quiet evening in a warm dry home sure is a nice place from which  
> to look
> forward, backward, and around on a New Year's eve. For a variety of  
> reasons,
> I wrote down the following thoughts. Bail at any time!  :-)
> mike
> ---------------
>
> Thoughts About Digital Technology and Poverty
>
>
>
> The other day I spoke with a friend, the son of a former college,  
> who is now
> a professor in a technologically sophisticated field at a major  
> American
> university. We were talking about an iphone application related to
> education. He thought that the iphone could revolutionize education,
> “pushing knowledge out to everyone.” I commented that the young  
> people in
> the housing project where I work did not generally own i-phones.  
> Sure some
> of them texted and all coveted mp3 players, but on the cheapest  
> versions of
> the requisite technologies. My friend dismissed my concerns about  
> reliance
> on educational practices that excluded a large part of the  
> population on the
> basis of class, and hence, ethnicity. It was a new idea for him. Can’t
> afford an iphone? Really?
>
>
>
> The following morning I met a colleague who volunteers to work with  
> staff at
> the housing project to provide additional resources for the families  
> who
> live there. Christmas is a special time for charities. All is good  
> cheer.
> The kids get to “shop with a cop” and the parents get some help as  
> well. My
> colleague and a few co-workers organize “Secret Santas” from our  
> university,
> arranging for those of us with money to provide Christmas presents for
> “needy families.” Kind of like the NY Times holiday fund raising  
> drive.
>
>
>
> A few days before Christmas, the Santa’s helpers delivered the  
> goods: food,
> clothing, bedding, toys for the kids, Avon kits for the mom’s.  
> Something for
> everyone. At the apartment where I was a Secret Santa (having  
> comfortably
> donated my money and presents in place of my time and presence)  
> things did
> not go as planned. Santa’s helpers knew that the family wanted a bed  
> for two
> of the children. So they planned to deliver a bunkbed. But when they
> arrived, they found that there was no furniture in the house at all,  
> except
> two sofas, taken out of the dumpster by other tenants who had been  
> forced to
> leave the project because they could no longer afford to pay the  
> subsidized
> rent.
>
>
>
> The dad was home, and so was his almost-grown son. They are both  
> looking for
> work. They are attending classes at a local job-training center. So  
> far, no
> luck.  They could still pay the rent on the apartment. And the kids  
> could
> get by on the meals they could provide. But when the unemployment  
> checks
> stop coming, as they soon will, it seems like they may be the next  
> tenants
> to move out. Out to where? God only knows.
>
>
>
> “You know,” my colleague mused after she and her coworkers had  
> recruited
> more Santas Helpers to round up the needed furniture and food,  
> “those people
> really have it hard. They are looking for work, but there is no work
> anywhere in that neighborhood, not for miles around. And they don’t  
> have
> cars. Even if they find a job, how will they get there in a town  
> like this?
> They are very discouraged. I would be too. I sure feel lucky to have a
> steady job here.”
>
>
>
> When I arrived home with this story, my wife, shook her head and  
> replied,
> “You don’t know even where to begin.”
>
>
>
> I started to think about the impact of new severe cuts in family  
> services
> that California is facing and the disastrous level of unemployment  
> which is
> unlikely to come down any time soon for these people. Then the  
> conversation
> with my high tech professorial friend came to mind. No, you don’t  
> know where
> to beign, I replied, But wherever you start, I don’t think it should  
> be with
> the educational potential of i-phones.
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