Colleagues,
Generally incarcerated people don't have live access to the Internet (including email). The only example I know of where they do is in a jail in Syracuse New York where inmates have supervised access to education-related web sites. What I just became aware of, however, is that through the Between the Bars project, http://betweenthebars.org/blogs/ people who are incarcerated, and without Internet access, can also blog.
This is achieved through hand-written or keyboard-written letters that are then posted -- by someone who has Internet access -- as graphic images on a blog page. Readers can also pen or type responses this way, and these are posted as replies. It's an amazingly simple and inclusive use of technology. Beyond that, it recognizes, perhaps even embraces, hand written forms of communication. As I read these posts and replies, the personality of the writers came across through their handwriting, something that -- before typewriters and now computers changed most hand-written letters into email -- I used to enjoy.
If we want to promote reading and writing -- and include those who do not have easy access to computers, or who cannot type well -- perhaps a blog that mixes "fast and slow media" (as Eric Jacobson refers to this in his 2012 book Adult Basic Education in the Age of New Literacies) is a good solution.
Has anybody here used Between the Bars or done something else with a mix of fast and slow media in corrections education?
David J. Rosen
Comments
Hello David. Your post is both thoughtful and insightful. I work with my 12 year old son on his handwriting AND on his typing in order to improve his overall communication skills. It seems that most grade-schoolers are still required to handwrite portions of their work, but that as traditional students move into the upper-grades, and as non-traditional learners return to their education, the main mode of communication is typewriting. I've not been exposed to the betweenthebars blog before but will definitely take a look. It does seem that it still requires the middleman of someone scanning and posting the handwritten material, but in correctional facilities there is always a middle person checking and double-checking.
The WiderNet Project (www.widernet.org/coep) also offers an off-line learning platform that allows inmates to post blogs on it's Community Information Platform (CIP). It is a safe envionment to work on web development and design within a secure, intRAnet environment. It also includes access to over 40 million resources for use in research and education. The platform is refered to in the recently released Department of Education resource: A Reentry Education Model -- http://www2.ed.gov/about/offices/list/ovae/pi/AdultEd/reentry-model.pdf.