As a rural native from Upstate New York, the title of this session pulled me in. Opening up with the icebreaking question Kathleen and Rebecca pulled the participants in by asking each person's favorite use of technology. Participants listed everything from the Cut-and-Past capabilities in Word to playing dominoes with long-distance family members on Skype to tweeting and email. Our answers became an incredible collective list of our technology uses. We then moved into discussing the various barriers that rural people encounter in trying to use technology. This brainstorm of barriers moved into an interesting discussion including both barriers and solutions. The list of barriers included language barriers, limited understanding of how to protect your identity online, cost prohibitivity, and access.
Kathleen then took us into a discussion of key terms like information literacy, yellow journalism, powerful literacy, and social skills. We closed the session with a case study lead by Rebecca including a solution-oriented discussion of how to ease the barriers that rural people and communities encounter. These solutions included leveraging the resources that already exist in communities, as well as tackling discriminatory biases that exist in accessing and using technology.
Although we ran out of time, the discussion that arose with the various opinions, knowledge, and expertise in the room. Thank you, Kathleen and Rebecca.
- Lisa Marie Middendorf
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