AOL Time Warner Playing a Part in Bridging the Technology Gap
By Ronald Roach
DULLES, Va.
hen it comes to digital divide issues, B. Keith Fulton is one of the most recognized authorities in the United States. Fulton first came to prominence as director of technology programs and policy at the National Urban League in the early 1990s. Last April, Fulton became a vice president of the AOL Time Warner Foundation and a senior director for social innovations for the Corporate Relations division of AOL Time Warner Inc. Fulton is now charged with managing and developing domestic and international programs that promote digital opportunity. Fulton also works on communications and policy issues for AOL Time Warner.
Fulton’s key projects include: the Digital Divide Network — an online clearinghouse of information about the digital divide; the Education Technology Leadership Institute, which helps teachers gain skills to use technology effectively; PowerUP.org — a collaborative public/private venture to bring technology resources and skills to youth; and AOL Peace Packs — a program to equip Peace Corps volunteers with computers and Internet access.
BI: Several months ago, the AOL Foundation sponsored a digital divide conference that examined the gap in information technology resources and practices in use by historically Black colleges and universities (HBCUs) and the rest of higher education. Do you think a digital divide remains in effect in higher education?
FULTON: Higher education is broad. I think if we tried to say ‘let’s look at some measures of whether a given university is able to take advantage of the digital economy, the digital age for itself and its students — is it known for its leading edge-capabilities and how it delivers its instruction, etc.,’ you could definitely draw some distinctions between colleges and universities. One benchmark is the “Most Wired College” list, and I believe two HBCUs made the list last year — one being Tennessee State and the other being Hampton University…(Morehouse also made the list.) I’d like to see all the HBCUs on the list. And so I think there are some challenges. And to the extent we’re defining digital divide as the gap between those who have and those who don’t, then I think there is a substantial divide for some universities.
BI: In your opinion, why is it important to address the higher education digital divide?
FULTON: This information economy is driven by talented people, and at the end of the day companies need a strong pipeline. And schools will need to equip their students with the best tools, the best training, so that the students come out with the kind of skill sets that make them valuable in the marketplace. Higher education has been, for a very long time, part of the way that folks entered the economic mainstream. You go and get educated and enter the work force, and you’re right at middle class, or very quickly middle class, or above. In addition, as we think about schools as part of communities, I think that it’s important to make sure that schools can connect to each other and leverage each other’s educational capacity. Additionally, you want to have students being able to communicate with each other using e-mail. Professors being able to share lessons — things that work — over high-speed lines. You want to be able to connect alumni back to the schools. A lot of alumni are off and away — maybe in different states, maybe different countries. And the technology tools of today really do reduce the significance of those differences; reduce the cost of being able to share instructional design and pedagogy; reduce the reasons for these schools to not work together.
BI: Based on the work that you have done to explore the higher education digital divide, do you think there has been enough research and information collected to determine how significant the problem is?
FULTON: I was glad to see the UNCF (United Negro College Fund) study and the NTIA (National Telecommunications and Information Administration) study — I think they did that with NAFEO (National Association for Equal Opportunity in Higher Education). I think there probably needs to be more. We’re just really kind of getting an appreciation for what is going on in institutions. Very often, when you hear talk of digital divide, people usually focus on individuals. Accordingly, the poor, the disenfranchised, the least well-educated are the primary targets for programs. Well, we also have come to realize — and higher education institutions have been further along than some — that these institutions support people, support communities, train folks. If they’re not up to task, then it makes it very difficult for the end-product — the matriculated students — to be as potent a resource as they could be to support themselves, to support their communities or for the company that they go to. And so I think that institutions should be a part of gathering more research, producing the kind of institutional best practices and studies that help folks understand what the issues are and the opportunities.
That’s part of the reason why we developed our digital divide bridge grant. In short, it was to really understand some of the complex issues related to extending digital opportunity and to get a sense of what kinds of solutions made a difference. Probably the one, the most relevant, for the higher education community is the project we have under way with Tennessee State University. And really, that is to convene the leaders of the HBCU community to understand what kind of issues they face as they try to build their institutions in a digital age.
