Bridging the Digital Divide: Nonprofit-Led Technology Education for Underserved Communities
https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.22744967
Abstract
Today, access to digital technology is as much the key to success in education, the economy, and civic life as proficiency with the technology. This gap has become the focus of the technology education needs of nonprofit organizations and foundations, providing courses in programming basics, Web design, and the ubiquitous proficiencies required to use technology. Existing research on these organizations remains limited and disjointed: The majority of writers produce digital divide research on the access and skills of the population; ICT4D researchers conduct work on infrastructure and policy; and workforce economists focus on the study of adult career changers, but few of these groups study how a small nonprofit organization actually implements its technology programme on a day-to-day basis. This paper proposes a theoretical model based on the forty verified sources in the field of digital-divide theory, ICT4D, informal STEM education and research on skills employability in the context of digital skills, inspired by van Dijk's (2005) model on digital-access and supported by human-capital and community-informatics thinking, to explain how non-profit programmes change the nature of technology-concepts into something that is retained and applied by the learner. This framework is then applied to one documented case, the technology education programme of TTL Global Foundation, analysed by the programme's own programme records, not independent fieldwork. The programmes appear to be successful if they are made up of four components: the curriculum is modular, based on real-life situations and not abstract; the volunteer teachers are trained and coordinated rather than left to wing it; individual student progress is monitored; and completion of the programmes is tied to employment, practicums, or continued education. The paper concludes with recommendations to practitioners and funders and an agenda for the evaluation in this largely unexplored field.
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