Digital Dignity
| A recent mention by Don Ledingham, in his excellent blog, of dignity reminded me of a conversation I have had on a couple of occasions with my good friend, Mark Adams, of Microsoft, in which we were playing around with the concept of 'digital dignity'. Don was writing of the sense of dignity that must be offered to our young people as a matter of course in education. The concept that diverted Mark and I must, of course, begin from that same basic right - the inherent and absolute dignity of the child in our charge - but it takes it out into the realm of the Web, and beyond. In a world in which an online presence is fast becoming a fundamental component of our rights as citizens and as participants in the cultural, economic and political landscape we inhabit, the idea of conferring the same basic dignity to that online presence as we are supposed to enjoy in our 'physical' existence is one that I would like to explore further. Perhaps the blogosphere could help? It must bring in considerations of the so-called digital divide (for me, just another way of describing poverty - the digital divide is simply one of the many facets of the poverty that remains a incontestable truth in our society), of our rights as online citizens, of our fundamental democratic liberties, and of our responsibility to protect the same rights and liberties for people the world over. When the likes of Google (and Yahoo, and others) bend to the anti-democratic whims of China (see my earlier piece on this here) then the question of digital dignity becomes worthy of deepest consideration. And in education, we in Scotland will not be able to continue to claim the myth (I use the word in its fullest sense - a sense that is by no means derogatory) of universality and egalitarianism if we are unable to guarantee the 'digital dignity' of our young people in their learning into the future. And it's a future that is not so far away! |
© John Connell
The views expressed in this weblog are entirely my own and are not intended to reflect the views of any other individuals or organizations. All sources will be fully acknowledged.
Comments on "Digital Dignity"
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john said ... (July 21, 2006 11:20 AM) :
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John Connell said ... (July 21, 2006 12:07 PM) :
post a commentHi,
This makes me thing of a couple of things, the partner of dignity is in a way responsibility, blogging has I believe allowed me to begin to encourage and model responsible use of the internet with my class. Blogging can give the children a real sense of pride in themselves and their school. The feeling of representing themselves, class and school on a world wide wall can make them go the extra inch.
The other matter is the digital divide in my class less than 60% of children have internet access at home. In other parts of Glasgow it is as low as 33%, this is a real obstacle in the path of lots of powerful learning opportunities that I would like to give my class including the increased chance to exercise responsibility.
I agree with your analysis, John, and especially the dimensions that blogging etc now bring to the question of helping our young people see themselves as participating citizens. The shift from passive viewer of content to active creator of content, and also, I think, the interesting shift from a default position in which we had to 'be represented' in our democracy to a position in which we can more and more represent ourselves online in debates around the key issues of the day - all these are changing the face of society to one that should be healthier because it will be much more participative. However, this will, no doubt, be seen as a threat to those who do not understand the changes that are happening and who feel their own positions threatened by an increasingly 'noisy' citizenry.
The digital divide is the crux of it all, as you say. It's a complex issue because it is not just about poverty, but about the rural-urban divide too. We could spend a lot of blogging inches debating our failure to eradicate poverty, but even the rural-urban issue needs to be aired more vociferously and stridently, I believe.
I do not, as yet, perceive any real political will to try to deal with the latter, certainly not at the UK level. The current default seems to be to let the market deal with it - but we know that will not work. As an illustration, there was another interesting article in the Guardian Technology yesterday - here - about the sell-off of the 3.4Ghz part of the wireless spectrum in 2003. The thought at the time was that this could be used to provide broadband to rural areas across the country. But no such stipulations were placed on the sale, and today, out of the 13 regional areas that this was divided into, only 2 areas are being offered any service across the 3.4Ghz frequency, and both are in the south of England!
Thanks for the comment, John. The Sandaig site and blogs are superb! I hope others across the country, and beyond, are watching what you and your staff are doing.