CLA 2006: Teen Digital Inclusion

Lesley Farmer talked about some of the facts about teens who are on the "digital fringes."  A number of groups of teens are more likely to not have computer or other technology access: teens who are poor, homeless, of color, immigrants, English-language learners, rural and isolated teens, gang members, dropouts, teenage parents, females, and teens with physical and/or mental disabilities.

She talked about the "Information Poor."  These are teens who do not think they can help themselves, behave secretively to protect what information they have, don't take social risks, believe that people outside their class will not share information with them, and may nevertheless be very successfully within their own culture.  The wonderful thing is that technology can empower them and help to link them up with other groups outside their cultural/social strata.

Here are some more barriers for these teens.  Teens need straight physical access to technology: hardware, software, and connectivity.  Access to the library is difficult due to distance/transportation (are there safe places for bikes to be stored, are you on a public transit route), schedule (are you open enough?), length of time that you allow users to use the public computers, and remote access is key to offer them access when they can't get physically to us.  She also raised the issue of the free internet vs. the deep internet.

Teens also need to learn what they need to learn about technology.  Teens tend to learn technology by hanging out with friends and talking/experimenting....not by going to classes on technology.  She recommends having computer areas for teens that are flexible and allow collaboration with other teens.  She also talked about the importance of creating spaces online for teens to interact with each other and with the technology to share their information and ideas with each other.  Teen websites for libraries should be interactive and full of content and spaces to communicate.

She talked about the importance of media literacy as well as information literacy, pushing more and more in both public and school libraries that our students need to learn how to be savvy consumers of information and media messages.

She talked about providing relevant information for teens on your websites: school information, how to take care of yourself health-wise, giving educational support, helping kids find alternative schooling options beyond the traditional public schools.  Keep in mind language issues: non-English sites and resources as well, and including visual cues on the website that have meaningful content and context.

She emphasized that it's important to have high speed connections, useful software, tolerance of noise (and maybe asking the teens themselves to come up with rules for noise and behavior in the teen area), giving them ways to volunteer.  Delivering on the promises you've made to your teens is essential.  If you ask for their opinion, use it.  If you say you're going to do something, do it.  Otherwise, you will lose all credibility with those teens.