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The National Telecommunications and Information Administration’s $4 billion Broadband Technology Opportunities Program (BTOP) has helped about 20 percent of U.S. libraries make improvements to publicly available technology resources and digital literacy within their communities, according to a report released on Monday by the American Library Association’s (ALA) Office for Information Technology Policy (OITP).
The International Society for Technology in Education has initiated an online petition urging the White House to take action to invest in school broadband connectivity to bridge the digital divide in education.
The Edge Initiative released earlier this month the initial version of the benchmarks that it hopes libraries across the country will use to evaluate and measure their public access technology services. The group’s efforts were the subject of a panel at the ALA Midwinter meeting in Seattle on Saturday. The Edge Benchmarks Version 1,0 , [...]
Sixty percent of publishing executives believe that tablets have become “the ideal reading platform,” and 45 percent believe that dedicated e-readers will soon be irrelevant, according to a recent online, by-invitation survey conducted by global research and advisory firm Forrester.
From the Hunger Games, the Common Core, and maker spaces, to Gangnam Style and the ongoing ebook wars, a look at the highlights and key themes of 2012, according to Twitter.
Thirteen percent of people aged 16 and older in the United States have used a mobile device to visit a library website or otherwise access library services, according to a national survey by the Pew Research Center’s Internet & American Life Project. This percentage has more than doubled since 2009 the report notes, citing an earlier survey conducted by researchers at the University of Washington.
Google’s entry into the Internet provider business in Kansas City, KS, and Kansas City, MO, is moving ahead, thanks to a last-minute rally by community groups earlier this month that will enable about 89 percent of both cities to access the service – including many public libraries and schools.
The Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS) awarded a $291,178 grant to the Public Library Association (PLA) to develop an online collection of digital literacy resources. The two year grant, which was given via the Laura Bush 21st Century Librarian Program, will help PLA partner with the American Library Association (ALA)’s Office for Information [...]
All the tech programming in the world means nothing without the adequate infrastructure to support it. Now anyone—from teachers, administrators and librarians to students—can log on to the site Education Superhighway and have their school’s connection speed analyzed within minutes.
In Bristol, a city straddling the border of Tennessee and Virginia, the Bristol Public Library (BPL) is taking digital literacy training to the next level. The library employs a small staff of full-time teachers, who have made computer training a key component of BPL’s 25 year-old Patricia Freedman Literacy Academy (PFLA). The academy launched as a GED prep program in the late 1980s, and even then, it offered a small computer component for students who wanted to learn keyboarding, said BPL Executive Director Jud Barry. Computers have since become ubiquitous, and five years ago, BPL opened a new main library with a computer lab, where the teachers are available for one-on-one instruction five days per week.
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