Our Work, Our Tools...

Just a few years ago, in the early days of the emerging "World Wide Web," this new technology was predicted by many to be a democratizing tool that would put information at our fingertips, whatever our place in society. The promise of "free" access to unlimited information was reminiscent of earlier, similar predictions of "nearly free" hydro-electric and nuclear power--awesome new technologies promising to level social differences in access to critical resources. But as with these other technologies, it has not taken long for the mystique of unlimited access to be translated into the terms of commercial, economy-driven availability; "free" becomes "affordable" on a relative sliding scale, depending on how much you want, at what speed, with what packaging. At the same time, it becomes less and less of an option of choice, and more an option of necessity --an "option" you can hardly choose not to take, but how much of it is taken determining other measures of one's participation in mainstream society.

As this process has occurred, rather than leveling stratification in our society it has worked in many ways to magnify and reinforce it. New technologies--new bandwidths, new software, new hardware, new online services, new critical uses, and related skills-- seem to insure an endless cycle of growing technology need, matched unevenly by existing processes and structures of stratified opportunities; in this endless cycle, those who have already will get more, and those who have not will continue to lose. At the same time, there will of course be efforts of concern, and even "IT charity" --like donating one's castoff clothes to "the poor" (clothes that have become worn or outdated, but still usable), or charity grants of philanthropy. Yet, the stratifying processes themselves will continue to work, left unacknowledged. Even when acknowledged, they are formidable and effective.

Community colleges have a special dilemma in all this, particularly because we have stated our institutional commitment to our communities-- for equal access to the tools and resources of higher education that our local communities might otherwise not have. Yet to continue to do so, we are increasingly under pressure of significant counter-forces:

• In many places in the country, to work under growing expectations of fiscal self-support rather than continued public funding

• At the same time, to meet the growing demands of needs that are placed on students who come to our colleges

• And to continue to provide relevant, qual1ty education, while keeping up with the practical cost of the endless cycle of changing technologies.

Often we may find ourselves wondering--out loud, or at least in our self-reflection--if we are not simply becoming in the process glorified training programs for tracking people into technology-based strata of the information age.

Certainly, this last question is a serious, overarching one that needs direct attention. At this time, however, the aim of this presentation is to suggest at least one strategy that may help community colleges to continue to reflect the values on which they have been built, as we continue to provide relevant, higher education in this technology-centered era. The strategy is that of using the very technology itself to build, develop, share and use the tools we and our students need while aiming to keep as much of this development and use outside of the realm of "profit" as possible-- to insure that the cost of such tools will not become limiting factors to their use in learning. In some ways, we regularly assume this principle in higher education-- we form professional associations through which we freely collaborate with colleagues to exchange ideas about content and processes of education; especially in community colleges we aim to keep costs to a minimum, and then to work toward tuition relief, to insure that anyone who wants it can access our services. Much of what we do--content wise, and in principle-- is built on sharing values and valued experiences that are beyond measures of profit.

The aim here is not to overlook the real-world demands of economy that are placed on the practical operations of our colleges. Instead, the aim is to suggest, in the process, a model of operation related to the integration of technologies into our work, that shapes those technologies by the very values on which are founded; a key one of these is to continue to make effective, relevant learning available to our communities for their advantage.

One of the key factors that keeps driving our present dilemma is the cost of technologies as they become "needs" for us and our students. Software purchases alone, continued upgrading, licensing renewal, and so on, put endlessly growing demands on our budgets as we become "portals" (to use a current buzzword, but a little differently) to a commercialized and commodified path of access to the "unlimited" world wide web. Structurally and institutionally we fall too easily into this role, and largely out of a near-resignation to its supposed inevitability.

There are other models, however, including other sets of tool, but more importantly involving different principles of the development of- and access to such tools; there are other models that in fact seem more reflective of the values we already say are the community-centered, student-centered values of our institutions. These tools--and models-- are to be found in such things as the "open source" movement, and related movements of the development of "appropriate information technologies." These are not just about free pieces of software, but instead are about functioning communities of development, that then make their work accessible to others--freely and for ongoing improvement.

When it comes to sharing ideas-- ideas about teaching, ideas related to our disciplines, and even ideas about how to use technologies effectively in our teaching-- we do so with enthusiasm and effectiveness; we even do so with much forethought, through careful establishment of collegial associations through which we even institutionalize our commitment to such collaboration. When it comes to the tools we are now rapidly adopting for such teaching and learning, on the other hand, we all too easily hand over the process to commercial forces, instead of applying the same professional, collaborative approaches we expect for questions of content and pedagogy.

Imagine, in contrast, an effort among people engaged in community colleges, to join efforts (their own and others') to develop and make available the tools we continue to need for effective online learning. Imagine it being an effort that aims to find strategies for even the poorest communities to have access to the best of tools. Imagine sharing with colleagues not only how we use certain online resources in our teaching, but how to access such resources freely (the technology as well as the content), how to support such resources-- and even how to suggest, if not contribute to their improvement. It is a model that is do-able. The very tools we are using make it possible and practical. The question is, how do we cultivate this, to make it happen, to tap the rich potential of online resources, as we continue to work in communities that too often are the "have nots" of the digital divide?

The pages indexed at the top and bottom of this page are resources that will be used as examples in relation to the brief reflection above. They will be put into context and explained as we (a group gathered at the League for Innovation in November) discuss how to address the question of information technology in the digital divide.

While these other pages of links and resources in themselves might be interesting and useful, I was trying to avoid, in this presentation, simply providing a "100 Best Pieces of Shareware" approach and instead wanted to put these links in context-- in the middle of a key question we face as community colleges: How do we continue to be effective resources for our local communities, without becoming simply portals to pathways of commercialized information technology?

I look forward to joining with others in this discussion-- at the CIT conference in November, and beyond.

Brian Donohue-Lynch