A Vision Realized or a Continuing Digital Divide? Examining the One Laptop per Child Program in Birmingham, Alabama

Abstract

The One Laptop per Child (OLPC) association gained international attention with its promise of developing a $100 laptop targeted at the world's poor. Birmingham, Alabama has been the site of the largest dissemination of the OLPC's "XO" laptops in the United States. Approximately 20,000 XO laptops have been distributed to administrators, teachers, and students in the Birmingham City School System over the past two years. Using data from student surveys and interviews, administrator interviews, and observational data, I examine whether the vision of eliminating the digital divide has been realized as a result of providing an XO laptop to every student in 1st - 5th grades in Birmingham City Schools. Results of this study suggest the importance of understanding and examining the multiple layers of the digital divide and how politics and context play into attempts to ameliorate the digital divide.

Biogroaphy

Shelia R. Cotten is an Associate Professor in the Department of Sociology at the University of Alabama - Birmingham. Her research examines technology usage across the life course and the impacts of this usage. She is currently leading two projects examining the range of impacts of the XO laptops in Birmingham City School System in Alabama. In addition, she is leading a large randomized trial investigating whether training older adults in assisted and independent living communities to use computers and the Internet can enhance their quality of life. Her research is currently funded by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Aging.