Several years ago we heard about the “digital divide” – the separation that existed between those (in education) who had access to technology and those who didn’t. There was a tremendous grassroots effort to close this gap – federal and state programs offered sizable grants to school districts to install WAN and LAN infrastructures, subsidized internet connectivity, and provided the necessary hardware so students would have access to the most advanced instructional resources available.

By most accounts this has been successful.

At the same time consumer technology has also seen an explosion of adoption in the last decade. Affordable personal computers, increased availability of high speed internet access, and the cellular phone boom has helped to narrow the “divide” to the point where it is no longer at the forefront of mainstream USA.

Now we are hearing about what has resulted – a ‘digital disconnect’ where the technology is accessible and digital natives are using it in their everyday lives – the problem, these same technologies are not incorporated into the educational process – thus a ‘disconnect’. And I suppose if you look at it more broadly, the disconnect isn’t just between the students and the schools, but the disconnect is among all the constituents and the communities that revolve what I will call the ‘hub’ – ie: the school district. All of the districts communities need to be connected – technically. If the school district is in fact the ‘hub’, how can it be successful if they aren’t?

While I didn’t coin the term digital disconnect, I would like to explore the breadth of what it does mean. What are the various disconnects?  How do they affect our lives?