LiteracyMobile for rural areas

Leecy, concerning the problems with providing classes in rural areas where there is no access to technology, I would like to recommend doing it “Old school” –with books, cds, and dvds, delivered to people in their homes by a LiteracyMobile.

About 8 years ago I used to go to people’s houses to give classes, using texts I had written. People formed small groups of five or so, and at one point I had 50 students. Those with Internet service could use Pumarosa, and if not I provided a CDRom. At the same time, I made some DVDs to air on Public Access TV – free community television. It was a great experience, and I could see the potential for doing it through a non-profit agency or through a library.

Now, though, there must be a way to connect people in rural areas to the Internet and at the same time to provide them with low-cost computers. But at the same time, I imagine that most people – even poor people in rural areas – have cell phones or smart phones, and there are programs and means available to help them.

Libraries can also serve as a “Home base” for literacy programs and other adult ed classes.

To ensure reliable tutors, I think the best way is to train the students themselves to teach others. We used to say in the old days: Each one teach one. Or – if you do not know, learn. If you know – teach.

A Literacy Campaign can be publicized and eventually become part of and supported by the community.

I think we can do it!

Paul

 

  

Comments

Thanks, Paul, for your suggestions for providing services to rural areas.

Do you know that one of the greatest challenges faced by programs, even those who offer state-of-the-art distance services to communities on reservations that do have access to computers, is maintenance. Computers must be updated; they are constantly requiring users to approve things or to upgrade things; they have constant challenges in maintenance that students can't begin to handle. Who provides those services when the content providers are stressed to the max themselves, just trying to keep their own doors open?

The greatest challenge that rural programs that seve adult learners face is not of access to technology itself. They can get computers and other tools, yes, but they can't  access people who can both maintain the technology and to help them work through the many issues that technology users face in completing even basic tasks. Yes, volunteers can help, but volunteers in rural areas are often not technologically able to assist. We need funding for skilled personnel to manage digital instruction in remote areas. Finding that funding is the challenge even when grant writers, like myself (one of my many hats..), offer services in that regard.

What suggestions can other very vast, remote, rural, multicultural regions offer to address the management of digital instruction among their learners?

Leecy, in reading your post, I had a few thoughts pop up that I wanted to share to see how you and others might feel about these ideas. In the past, having an in-house IT person was a huge asset and many would say a vital component to helping a school keep technology running. I have a few arguments against this conventional thinking to offer for discussion:

I have had the pleasure of working in three schools that were each about 30 or 40 miles away from each other. There was one IT person for all three schools. He would be in school 1 on Monday and Wednesday, school 2 on Tuesday and Thursday and would visit the smallest school 3 on Fridays every week. He was only able to do this because he taught teachers and staff the basic protocols he uses for the many common things that go wrong. What to do with printer issues, how to reset the server, what if wifi is not working in an area or the school ....He had a check list for each item and those early adopter-techie oriented teachers in the building simply were allowed to do initial trouble shooting. If something bigger came up, they all had his number on speed dial and he was able to talk them through 90% of the issues without leaving the current school he was in that day. After a year or two, he found that more and more of the staff were learning these maintenance skills from each other without any official PD offerings. Building a technologically competent staff transformed his job from a position of control (requiring his constant presence and permissions) to one of a guide or coach in which he was always available for technical assistance. Each school paid him a very small fraction of what a normal IT person would cost, but with the three systems paying him, he was more than happy with his compensation and the freedom he was allowed to run these three systems as he felt they would run best. 

A second thought to throw out there centers around the technology choices we make today. Schools are inundated with many profit companies chomping at the bit with "Pick me!" sales pitches all over the place. Local teachers, administrators, techies and even school board members all chime in as well with suggestions and "We MUST have..." demands. It is difficult to see through the many different voices to find systems or tools that are mostly self regulating today, but there are some systems that are pretty low maintenance.

In terms of repairs, the cost of computers has dropped so much that replacing a few computers a year is often much cheaper than having a full time techie trying to rip apart a laptop to scavenge some parts that might be used for another laptop if/when it goes down. There are refurbished computer places here in Maine that offer schools laptops for $150 each and desktops even cheaper. Sure these may not be state of the art, but I think we might all agree that not everyone in every system needs a state of the art available. Let the early adopters chew away at the state of the art and they probably can fix most things that happen to those machines. In the meantime, the cheapo refurbish can be replaced and the dead ones can even get tossed back to the refurbish businesses for credits. 

OK maybe refurbished is not your style? Chromebooks are only about $100 more than those refurbs and if your system chooses to thrive in the Google Cloud of tools and options, students will be easily swimming in the current technologies on the cheap with almost no maintenance needed. This depends a large part on control issues. With any choices we make, the more control you wish or need, the more money must be spent on maintenance and upkeep. In one school, they required local school based Google accounts and at least two people were always fixing this, or changing that setting for this teacher and other fiddly bits. In contrast, another school chose to go with just straight regular google accounts and never had any software maintenance issues at all. Their chrome browsers all auto updated without glitches, there was never a need to help with an install of something, no licences needed to be shared/distributed, and besides a few power cords needing to be replaced, there was almost no hardware needs throughout the year.  Instead of spending energy on the controlled environments, they focused on teaching all staff and students security and acceptable use.

It was such a stark contrast in how the two staffs and learners viewed technology in the two different schools. I don't have concrete data from a study, but anecdotally, I would suggest that systems with more control issues often have less engagement or comfort around the use of technology and always have higher costs involved. Perhaps our undeserved and remote schools simply need to be aware of the consequent of choices made and a model of "maintenance" that builds internal capacity to self regulate. I can understand how many in IT might feel threatened by this, but it is a similar situation for many teachers that feel they should still be the holder of information in today's classroom trying to adjust to a new role of coach/guide helping learners decide what to do with information easily available today. Although changes of this magnitude are disruptive at first, one has to balance what is the bigger disruption: deal with the change or just not be able to engage?

Just two thoughts that came to mind when we think about the struggles of having a techie on hand in remote or under served areas. As always I welcome other points of views and experiences :)

Edward,

Your thoughts are good, and I agree with them. However, it is much more difficult to make these things happen in some environments than it is in others.

For example, the IT person who was able to divide his time between 3 schools had the advantage of centralized locations to go to at set times and a clientele who were at the sites at the same times and who wanted to become technologically competent. I suspect these sites also had good Internet access. Take away these three advantages and this kind of effort becomes massively more complex. It’s one thing for paid employees to divide their time among 3 locations with Internet and tech savvy teachers who want to learn how to do these things themselves, and another for volunteers to try to divide it among a dozen geographically dispersed, sometimes glorified closets without Internet and with technophobic volunteers who balk at being pushed beyond their comfort level. Even though they are low, there are minimum requirements that need to be met in order to build a technologically competent staff.

Chromebooks can be a great inexpensive option, but even with the caching capabilities of HTML5, they’re mostly worthless.

I've had to construct "new" computers from working parts salvaged from old ones, which is not my favorite way of investing my time. But when you have a technology budget of $0 and barely enough money to fund your primary functions, that is sometimes your only option.

Edward and Robert. Thanks for sharing valuable input on issues that affect digital instruction in rural areas.

One thing to keep in mind is that there are considerable differences in how K-12 schools operate and the practices shared by remote programs serving adults. Here in the Four Corners, basic adult ed services (ABE/ASE) to a vast rural area are provided by a program which resides in Cortez. College instruction though live-video is offered through Utah State University to different communities on Reservations. The University maintains its network. However, the Cortez Adult Ed program cannot afford to pay for technical services at different locations, nor can it afford to buy computers or other technology, used or not, in different rural communities, and public schools here do not support Adult Ed. In fact, they compete for funding of students who fail in their systems. It's a challenging dynamic, which money, in this case, would really help solve. Unfortunately money to fund people to manage, supervise, and maintain services in adult ed is scarce. We find $ to fund teachers here and there, but the rest is left to destiny! :) L

It is very true that our programs all have different levels of support. Some will have a college or high school behind them and others may have similar situations but in name only with no real support. Still, others may be off on their own. 

I would like to increase my awareness of public access in other states. I am feeling that here in Maine, we might not have the norm and I welcome people to share their perceptions of where public access is available. 

In Maine, all of our libraries are hooked up with high speed connections, even the very little libraries that look more like fishing shacks. People can drive or walk up to these buildings and get on that connection free 24/7. Our rest areas on the highway all have free 24/7 open networks. Every motel and hotel in the state offers free wifi in every room and in the lobby. I would estimate that 40-50% of all restaurants offer free wifi in the state. Every elementary, middle and high school are all high speed connections although many of these hot spots are restricted to the public. The areas we have access in, are super saturated with wifi access. Once you step out of those areas, the schools and libraries are beacons of access among a largely poorly connected woods. Home access in rural areas is often extremely poor and many radio technologies are used to provide some service, although very spotty and slow. There are agencies innovating all the time to try to open up these remote parts to more access other than just the libraries, but those are all works in progress. It is realistic to say that within 10 to 15 miles of 95% of our homes, there is a free internet access point. Cell phone towers tend to help provide an overlap to cover some of that 5% that is really out there, but then there is the expense of the phone and limits on data plans that come into play. 

How are other states "covered" in terms of people getting access to free internet access points? I have been shocked to travel to other states to find wifi in hotels is often a pay service other than in the lobby (I think that is changing quickly though). I am curious to learn more about how/where can residents access the internet other than in their homes in your state. Are there states that have made access more of a priority than others?

I am sometimes amazed at how much learning I am able to pack into a day because of the access to a wealth of high-quality resources the Internet and a variety of devices provide me. But that’s also because I have DSL service at home that is more than adequate for my needs. If I wake up in the middle of the night, I can pull out my tablet and do a little light research. I can place my tablet on the reading stand of my exercise bike and read newspapers for an hour while doing my daily cardio workout. As I did this morning, I can take an online course at 5:30 AM, or at any other time that is convenient to me. The opporunities for learning go on and on and on.

But this is because I have 24/7 availability at home. Even though it’s better than nothing, I would feel at a serious learning disadvantage if I had to drive to the Library or another public hotspot to use the Internet.

This creates a subtler digital divide, one between those who have adequate and reliable access to the resources and capabilities of the Internet and those who don’t. Of course, the point is moot if you don’t take advantage of these opportunities, but that aside, those with 24/7 access have a much greater potential advantage over those who do not.

Robert, you have compellingly described two important aspects of the new subtler digital divide:

1) "between those who have adequate and reliable access to the resources and capabilities of the Internet and those who don’t", and

2) between those who use the Internet only for social, entertainment and shopping purposes, and those who (also) use it to access information and for learning, including lifelong learning.

Everyone, I am particularly interested in how to help adult learners become excellent online information searchers and learners. The Northstar Digital Literacy Assessment is developing a new module on information literacy to assess that. The PIAAC Education and Skills Online (ESO) assessment includes Problem Solving in Technology Rich Environments, and there may be other assessments of online information searching, learning, and problem solving knowledge and skills. If you use other such assessments of online information information searching and learning, please let me know about them here.

I wonder if anyone has suggestions for how to teach these skills, for example a curriculum, or lesson plans, that help adults become "advantaged" online learners and information searchers.

David J. Rosen

djrosen123@gmail.com

 

Thanks, Ed, for providing a snapshot of Internet access in Maine, including rural areas. I hope others here will describe Internet access for low-income adults (and others) in their state, especially in rural areas. If so, I could put these altogether  or possibly summarize them in one document which may be useful for policymakers interested in the challenges of Internet access for adult and family online learning in rural areas and for low-income households.

I believe that mountainous rural areas offer a particularly difficult challenge to reliable, high bandwidth technology access. I wonder if any state has found solutions to that problem.

David J. Rosen

Moderator, Technology and Learning CoP

djrosen123@gmail.com

Good day, Our program is in the western part of Colorado with many mountains and ion some areas very poor internet service. I do not have a solution but at the centers where we do classes we try to have the best service in our area. Many of our students do not have computers at home or if they do the service they get is very limited. We therefore, make free hotspots at all our libraries to help folks out.