sue watling – Page 12 – digital soapbox

One platform to rule them all – the impossibility of eportfolios

Sue Watling / March 7, 2014 / eportfolios, PhD, Teaching and Learning in a Digital Age (TELEDA)

Eportfolio. The name needs to go for a start. How remote are the chances of a five syllabic moniker catching on?

TELEDA has reached its penultimate teaching week and eportfolio is a word of the moment. These collections of digital artefacts challenge the monopoly of traditional text based assessments. You can’t submit a multimedia assignment through Turnitin (yet). How do you assess differential digital literacies? Which platform do you use? The TELEDA answer to the last question is anything you want.

An eportfolio is a digital narrative – a journey – a story – usually from the past to the present with directions for the future. It’s about the content more than the container. How it’s presented is less important than the message it carries. There are two components to an eportfolio. Reflection on – and evidence of – learning with hyperlinks between them both at appropriate places.

Eportfolio have been around for some time. Conceptually at least. They represent everything wrong with elearning over the past decade. A perfect example of trying to find a one size fits all technical solution to digital ways of being. One platform to rule them all. The perfect capture of digital identity in a virtual world. A place you can keep for all time with control over visibility of its different components. The search has been on for ever yet google have been doing this for some time.

Impossibilities seem to be centre on the transfer of digital content from a password protected network into the hands of individuals. A pack up and go solution with total protection built in. But nothing online is secure. Nothing is more nor less safe than the real world. Eportfolios have overtaken the needs of the individual. They represent the clash between private and corporate ownership of information and communication technologies. It’s time to rethink the eportfolio future, in particular where it’s a tool for teaching and learning or professional practice. In the war to find an all-singing-dancing technical answer, the battle of critical thinking and reflective developmental practice is being lost. This obsession over a new, as yet undiscovered, answer to collecting artefacts detracts from the purpose of a story being told, the narrative of a learning journey and the personal over coming of obstacles and challenges along the way.

The power of the internet to enable digital story telling is immense. Those who want to push their creative digital boundaries can do so through the mass of free multimedia software. Personal information can be anonymised. This is the evidence. The core of an eportfolio is reflection; a synthesis of learning. This is the text. Keep it simple. We have the tools. Let’s start using them and work forwards from there.

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image from image from http://www.scieng.ed.ac.uk/LTStrategy/eportfolio.html

The future is virtual and one of its names is Blackboard

Sue Watling / March 1, 2014March 1, 2014 / #iloveblackboard, Blackboard, PhD, Teaching and Learning in a Digital Age (TELEDA), Virtual Learning Environment

I was in a Blackboard session this week. The plan to show case good practice, to be inspiring, supportive, but the plan failed. Examples of innovation were overshadowed by negative comments about the technology. At great speed the focus turned from positive enhancement to lets knock Blackboard. It spread like a virus. The potential affordances for learning were unable to break through the Blackboard attack.

Maybe I should have expected it. Lulled with TELEDA and the FSLT MOOC at Oxford Brookes, my immersion in the advantages of VLE have imbued a false sense of security. I worry my ‘I love Blackboard’ campaign will be equally infected. I’d forgotten the extent to which Blackboard is unpopular.

No one likes it. I feel like a lone champion in a world of resentment and frustration. I can quote the negatives; unattractive, clunky, boring, confusing, difficult and students prefer Facebook. I can count the positives on one hand with fingers to spare. Er, um, well, maybe not even that many…

Discussing this with colleagues it was suggested Blackboard is an easy target. It can’t answer back or defend itself so is a useful scapegoat for wider dissatisfactions, not just about the role of technology in higher education but also life, love and the universe. Sounds possible. Surveys and focus groups tell us students would prefer more consistency across modules but they like rather than dislike their VLE. The anti-Blackboard movement is staff led. I have to ask myself apart from the politics, the rage against the machine and anti-automation movements, what is it about Blackboard which causes hostility and can any of it be changed? Can we get beyond form to function?

I agree some things about Blackboard are a pain. I’m not immune to its failings. No matter how well you format a course or group email it arrives with odd spacing – this annoys me. It looks like I don’t know how to lay out text. There are still formatting issues with the Content Editor. The notifications don’t pick up new activity in groups. You have to grade a wiki to get notified of new content and this can’t be applied retrospectively. The blog tool is dull. So is the reflective journal. Forums aren’t great for large numbers of participants and like most people I think Blackboard could do with a make-over. It doesn’t look as good as it could.

BUT…….

….the majority of UK HE institutions have teams of people managing the Blackboard experience for staff and students. We don’t. This is changing but it will take time to reverse the damage. We have to focus on what matters – the student and staff experience, one which takes the affordances of internet connectivity and utilises them for off campus access to teaching and learning experiences. Like not judging a book by its cover, we need to move beyond the appearance to what it does. An ugly pen still writes. Blackboard is accessed by thousands of people every day (including Christmas) and keeping it running takes priority. Once more resource is available we’ll be able to test and pilot tools like Mobile and Collaborate. Maybe reinstate themes so individual appearance can be customised. Explore templates. Enhance the DIY model with central support for content creation. Revisit the social media tools. Promote discovery through case studies and lunch time drop-in sessions. Increase online help and support. And listen to what everyone has to say. I’m happy to hear about all the things which are wrong with Blackboard but let’s make it a two-way communication. It’s not all bad. The future is virtual and one of its names is Blackboard.

Such a valuable learning curve I could almost enjoy it…but I’m not

Sue Watling / February 21, 2014 / PhD, Teaching and Learning in a Digital Age (TELEDA)

I’ve got a bit FSLT lost this week. I don’t understand the virtual conference. I keep trying to get my head around it but it’s been a long week (excuse) and it’s nearly the magic Friday hour (best excuse of all!). As an exercise in reflection I’ve been exploring what I don’t know and it isn’t helping – I still don’t know it.

Is the Doodle Poll for presenting or viewing? Why the 8.00 am slot? Is this for early birds? I’m at my desk by 7.30 but will I be presenting to no one or viewing nothing? Why have some people signed up for multiple slots? If we’re uploading to a wiki what is Collaborate for? What are Creole and NWiki formats? What classes as html? A multimedia online exhibit could be mp4 or wmv. Does this mean saving powerpoint or Word as htm?

I’ve got in a mess. Missing something and I don’t know what – other than brain cells. This is the loneliness of long distance learning. You feel you’re the only one in the world who doesn’t understand what’s going on. FSLT14 has been quiet this week. I don’t know if anyone else is struggling. It’s easy to imagine they’re confidently competent while I feel digitally illiterate and dumb.

I tell myself this is a useful experience. Which it is. Muddles like these are the reason people turn away from virtual environments in favour of real ones. It’s a digital turn off. Not only a reminder of what students go through, it’s a timely memo of what students need. I don’t want anyone telling me it’s easy or simple because it isn’t. I don’t want to be told I should know this because I don’t. I’ve learned to be brave in online environments but I’m not feeling brave at the moment.

The problem is – as tutors we know the environment and the form. There’s a divide between our knowledge and the students. At the moment I’m on the wrong side of the divide and not sure how to cross it. The divide is the foundation of digital resistance and the part of the problem is its invisibility.

I did have one last try. Thought there might be examples from previous virtual conferences. Somewhere I’ve seen a link for FSLT13 but can’t find it again. On my travels I’ve just discovered a notifications page but now it’s got lost. When colleagues complain about Blackboard I try to have empathy and right now I have it in buckets because FSLT14 is on Moodle. Similar but different enough to fool me.

This is such a valuable learning curve I feel I should be enjoying it but I’m not. Instead I’m frustrated with myself for not understanding what is straight forward. For now I’ll put it down to tiredness, after all it has been a long week and is now well past the magic Friday hour. Have a good weekend and Cheers!

getting animated – not perfect but useful reflection on action…

Sue Watling / February 21, 2014February 21, 2014 / #iloveblackboard, PhD, Teaching and Learning in a Digital Age (TELEDA)

The advantage of creating mini-animations like this is the need to identify key points. Long v short has been on my mind. along with application of theory to practice and the value of reflection. TELEDA Learning Block Three set out to recreate an online seminar. Colleagues were asked to read two papers before signing up for group discussions. Participation was good and highlighted positive effects of virtual learning. Time to think about responses. To post and read when convenient. Reflection on practice was encouraged. There were exchanges about wider issues around group work and useful advice for facilitating similar activities in the future. So far so good.

But not all of it was positive. Blackboard came in for criticism again. Some colleagues find it unattractive and difficult to use. There were unfavourable comparisons to Facebook. These are valid points. Blackboard at Lincoln could look different. It has alternative communication modes which are not yet enabled. Not all tools are pretty. But for me, the activity highlighted a key problem with forums themselves. They are text heavy environments. If text is not your thing, then online learning is going to be a daunting experience.

For years I’ve promoted digital data as your flexible friend, inherently inclusive through text to speech and speech to text software. Expensive to buy, a challenge to use, but the technology for inclusion exists. Maybe I’ve been looking in the wrong place. Maybe digital text is itself the barrier.

For education developers the standard advice is to chunk text up, use bullets, paragraph breaks, images, formative assessment questions, activities – anything to avoid lengths of dense prose. I don’t always follow this. The best feedback I got from the TELEDA pilot was how I had interesting things to say – but there was so much of it!

Learning block three has been a learning curve. I ask colleagues to participate online with no guidance or advice. It’s only when I started to read the posts I realised I wasn’t being helpful. I could give word limits. Raise awareness of the audio and video alternatives. Just because I’m happy with text doesn’t mean it applies to everyone.

Creating the PowToon animation while reading through the discussion forums has highlighted the long and the short of it. This PowToon presents in 49 seconds what I might have taken pages of text to describe yet it contains the key information. Aphorisms abound. Brevity is a virtue. Less is best. Keep it simple. Powtoon was also fun. After the first one they will be quicker to produce. Story board first. Keep under two minutes. Visit http://powtoon.com.

I need to engage online not create barriers. There is no substitute for reflection on action. I need to remind myself to reflect in action as well.

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The two papers were :

Roberts, T. S. and McInnerney, J. M. (2007) Seven Problems of Online Group Learning (and Their Solutions) Educational Technology and Society, 10 (4), 257-268 http://www.ifets.info/journals/10_4/22.pdf

Highton, M. (2009) Encouraging Participation in Online Groups (Originally written 2005 for University of Leeds. Updated 2009)https://www.oucs.ox.ac.uk/ltg/teachingwithtechnology/encouraging.pdf

#FSLT14 is doing what MOOC do best. Sharing practice.

Sue Watling / February 14, 2014 / PhD, Teaching and Learning in a Digital Age (TELEDA)

#FSLT14 is doing what MOOC do best. Sharing practice. I’m learning so much. And having fun. My brain is boosted and bursting. Reluctantly, I’ve dragged myself out of Week 2 Reflection but the Week 3 forum on learning is no less inspiring. Part of the knack of MOOC – I think – is not do it all but focus on a section. Make it manageable. I’m practicing what I preach – for once – and am still in there, four weeks on. Must be a record. Here’s a snapshot of the language from my MOOCing experience.

…learning as ‘insatiable curiosity’, teachers as ‘perpetual students’, a ‘patchwork text’ for online discussions, double and single learning loops, transformations, the issue of unlearning, loving learning, being curious, and best of all – a discussion around information, knowledge and wisdom triggered by TS Eliot in Choruses from The Rock:

“Where is the wisdom we have lost in knowledge? Where is the knowledge we have lost in information?”

A passionate teaching and learning community and Eliot too – what’s not to like!

This is an interesting time. FSLT14 is splitting me between teacher and student. Over on Teaching and Learning in a Digital Age (TELEDA) the last learning block; online assessment and feedback started today. Teaching and learning online is a challenge – for students and tutors. But – TELEDA is one of the best learning initiatives I’ve been privileged to be involved in. The seed was sown in 2012 during Embedding OER Practice http://oer.lincoln.ac.uk piloted in 2013 and is now up and running with a second module under development.

The student experience on FSLT14 is like an echo from TELEDA. I find myself thinking the same things colleagues are expressing on the course. Too much text, can’t find my way around, sorry it’s late, the link’s broken, don’t like the VLE, it doesn’t look nice, I’ve fallen behind, sorry again and in the middle of it come the highlights …this is great – I’m so glad I enrolled, it’s really making a difference – thank you.

Reflecting on the duality of FSLT14 and TELEDA I’m concluding learning works best when the learner wants it to. Where people are disinterested and disengaged, learning is unlikely to take place.

#FSLT14 The loneliness of online learning; a unique distance from isolation

Sue Watling / February 8, 2014 / PhD, Teaching and Learning in a Digital Age (TELEDA)

Week 2 of #FSL14t was reflection. The activity – submit a reflective piece on teaching and learning. I find myself reflecting on the way I did it. In a rush. Full of typos. I didn’t agree when FSTL14 Facilitator Neil Current wrote ‘For us as tutors, we feel it is more important to share than worry too much about trying to craft the perfect response. So we hope that you won’t mind typographical errors….’ I wasn’t sure about condoning typos. What about spellcheck and taking time to make sure the text is good? Huh! Isn’t it always the way – you disagree with something then find yourself in exactly the position you disagreed with. My reflection wasn’t crafted. It was Bitty. Disjointed. Like my mind on Fridays – my busiest days – and it was full of errors.

A useful life lesson is learning more from mistakes than perfection. I lay no claim to being perfect – but admit to many bloopers over the years. When learning styles were in vogue, they didn’t fit. We had a Honey and Mumford questionnaire which used Cadbury Crème Eggs. The question being ‘How do you eat yours?’ New to education development, I found the analogy a helpful example of matching new information with existing knowledge. It was a light bulb moment. I remember this – and how the questionnaire confused me. I was Activist, Reflector, Pragmatist and at times a Theorist. I ate my egg in four different ways.

Today I still jump in and am more pragmatic than theoretical, but over the years I’ve learned to learn through hindsight and adopt an experiential approach to CDP. Brookfield says a way to evaluate your teaching is the “… extent to which teachers deliberately and systematically try to get inside students’ heads and see classrooms and learning from their point of view.” (Brookfield, 1995. p.35) This is a good a reason as any for MOOCing.

On FSTL14 I’m in an unfamiliar place. I think it’s Moodle but I don’t care. I don’t know my way around, it’s easy to miss things, get lost, feel panic. What’s obvious to the site builder is less clear for me. I’m getting frustrated because I can’t find a forum, am not sure where to post the assessment or how to sign up for peer review – maybe it happens automatically. I don’t know. The loneliness of the long distance learner – a unique distance from isolation – alone but connected – is the challenge for all online learning design.

I don’t think we can teach online without continual reminders of what a strange virtual environment feels like – and to reflect on the process of disorientation. Also it’s one thing to say reflection helps learning – but unless we practice ourselves, the pragmatics can be forgotten. Week 2 has been good for me. On multiple levels. I knew reflection was an issue for some colleagues on my TELEDA course. It’s not enough to present it as a core component. It needs more support and Week2 has given me ideas to try out in my own practice.

In Learning by Doing Graham Gibbs offers useful ideas; using video and audio, sharing the reflective process in groups or online discussions, dividing pages in a reflective diary into columns for recording events and reactions to them. Gibbs also advises immediacy. Recollection of detail fails after 24 hours. This can be tricky. If the process of reflection isn’t presented as manageable students will think they can’t find the time. Reflection must be seen as beneficial.

It’s important to distinguish events which are learning opportunities. Like dismissing a suggestion its ok to have typos in contributions to online environments. Then – on reflection – understanding how unrealistic I’m being to think everything I upload should be perfect. I know where it comes from. Brookfield says our autobiographies are “one of the most important sources of insight into teaching to which we have access.” (1995 p.31). We are products of our life experiences; creators of our own realities. I’m asking the impossible. On reflection…… I realise the need to be more forgiving of insignificance in order to make time for what really matters.

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‘at.this unique distance from isolation’ comes from Talking in Bed by Philip Larkin

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Sometimes I feel like Kassandra – tell truths but don’t be believed

Sue Watling / February 7, 2014 / PhD, social impact of the Internet

The best conversations about online discussions happen face to face. Those with the most interesting things to say don’t say them online. They don’t want to. I’ve said it before but it needs saying again. We can’t assume everyone has the confidence to put themselves out there digitally or – dare I say – even wants to. Which leads to the question ‘is the choice to be digitally inactive a valid one?’ At a time when the university is implementing a digital education plan and its VLE procurement has resulted in enhanced Blackboard provision, how long can resistance to digital ways of working be condoned?

There may be trouble ahead. The causes of resistance are complex. Instinctual, intellectual, personal, political – there’s much to be learned from self-chosen digital divides. While one side forms cliques of tweets and blog posts the other relies on email and face to face meetings with coffee and biscuits. East is East, and West is West, and never the twain shall meet

Resistance is mostly invisible. In the online world of RSS and social media-ness, like clings to like. Resistance through choice is interesting. Often it’s about being human in the age in the machine or in Lee Siegel’s words being Against the Machine; Being Human in the Age of the Electronic Mob (2008). Siegel continues the anti-internet diatribe of Andrew Keen in the Cult of the Amateur (2007). Both writers follow Neil Postman’s Amusing Ourselves to Death (1985 revised 2005) and Technopoly: The Surrender of Culture to Technology (1993). Throw in Nicholas Carr with his 2008 question Is Google Making us Stupid? Add the JISC and British Library CIBER report into the research behaviour of young people and put all this alongside Jaron Lanier’s manifesto You Are Not a Gadget (2010) to be afraid, very afraid, of ever logging onto a virtual environment again – although of course we will continue to hook ourselves up, cyborg-like, for as long as the connections make it possible. It’s more than an addiction, it’s become a way of life, but within our mass of digitally enabled lifestyles there remain those who resist, who don’t have internet-enabled mobile technology through choice, who wouldn’t consider enrolling on TELEDA and who value their self-chosen non-internet lives.

Perhaps we’ve all been fooled by google. Persuaded by easy access to information and the duplicity of google+ hangouts. We’re all living in the negative utopia of Huxley’s Brave New World. The internet has become a digital Soma-like alternative where we communicate via a machine which monitors and records every interaction for ever. Unless of course we don’t have a digital identity in the first place. Sometimes I feel like Kassandra – tell truths but don’t be believed. Once you’ve sold your soul to google it’s too late to do anything about it. You can’t delete a virtual self. Even after death it lives on. Sometimes I’m afraid resistance may prove to be the wisest choice. But only time – and a google database – will tell.

On being a MOOCie Groupie #fslt14 we’re all in this together

Sue Watling / January 31, 2014February 1, 2014 / MOOCs, PhD, Teaching and Learning in a Digital Age (TELEDA)

MOOC

I’m MOOCin again. In danger of becoming a MOOCie Groupie. Possibly risking a reputation for being a starter not a finisher. MOOCs encourage a dip dip out way of working. It’s all part of the vagueness of the virtual where you’re known only through your choice of gravatar or what google discloses. Plus the vagaries of digital text which can so easily be misconstrued or misconstructed.

The experience of designing and delivering the course Teaching and Learning in a Digital Age (TELEDA) is as much a learning experience for me as I hope it is for colleagues. I feel we’re all in this together. We are a Community of Inquiry into virtual learning; one with no boundaries. The learning about learning online just goes on and on and on……MOOCing is an important part of this discovery process. In an environment where there’s no-one-size-fits-all model of how to ‘do’ the digital – be it literacies, scholarship or pedagogy – we need all the practice we can get. The First Steps into Learning and Teaching MOOC with Oxford Brookes is a valuable opportunity to mix virtually with others journeying across unfamiliar digital landscapes. Online teachers need to be students. Without this experience it’s impossible to understand the complexities of digital education.

There are four ‘online teachers’ on First Steps into Learning and Teaching. The language of virtual learning intrigues me. Lecturers on campus become tutors, moderators, facilitators, teachers – but rarely lecturers. Does this represent a demotion of status and if so, could it partially contribute to resistance to digital education? Or is it the beginning of a new category of educator, one where boundaries between the learn-ed and the learn-er are blurred. Like TELEDA, are we all in this together?

I wonder how much the identity of a lecturer is tied to their face-to-face performance in front of students? the personality or to use the word in its ancient sense – the glamour? Online we’re all invisible. Communication becomes a challenge. Not everyone is comfortable with creating video or eloquent with a communicative style of text which engages all and offends none.

I inducted but missed the start of Week 1 on First Steps into Learning and Teaching. Today I’ve looked at the contributions to the discussion forum and felt overwhelmed by the amount not to mention the quality which draws me in and makes me want to read everyone and comment. In the meantime the Outlook bell continues to ping new mail and I’m feeling guilty about everything I haven’t done. As is the nature of all things digital my workload is largely invisible – measured only by my Sent folder. I don’t even know how much of my online endeavour has been received or if it’s made any difference. In this is – I think – another barrier to shifting practice from stage to screen. It’s the silence. The unknown. The dependence on a digital response to take the place of a smile or eye contact or just a few words like I understand, that’s great, thanks, see you all next week.

9 out of 10 cats said they prefer Blackboard; this is my #iloveblackboard campaign

Sue Watling / January 24, 2014 / #iloveblackboard, PhD, Teaching and Learning in a Digital Age (TELEDA)

TELEDA has reached its half way point. I hope colleagues are getting as much from the experience as I am. TELEDA is unique. It works on so many different levels. As much as colleagues write how it helps them understand their student use – and non-use – of Blackboard, it also offers a privileged insight into staff attitudes and behaviours around the institutional VLE.

Poor Blackboard has an identity problem. It’s going to be a challenge to overcome this but underneath its plain exterior is a powerful digital technology for supporting teaching and learning. We need to rethink Blackboard. I’m starting a ♥ I love Blackboard ♥ campaign #iloveblackboard. It’s not that bad. Try it and see. Look beyond the appearance to its affordances and use. Think in terms of pedagogy. Compare sharing thoughts and practice through discussions and wikis with reading a plain text document. Explore the addition of images, sound and video. Try the quizzes (the word Tests needs to go), get students signing up for groups with tools like group email and file exchange.

I don’t think all the antipathy is directly related to Blackboard. Sometimes it’s what it represents. Teaching is traditionally a face-to-face occupation. A virtual learning environment comes with connotations about the automation of teaching and replacement of teachers. VLEs have not been helped by the early rhetorical promise of elearning to cut costs and be more efficient when the reality is a steep learning curve and never, ever enough time to engage fully with the shift from class-room to online-room. Then there’s the increasing problem of digital literacies – the issue everyone is aware of but no one wants to take on. How do you manage ‘teaching’ good online practice; like appropriate file names and formats, document management, best use of Outlook, Word Tables of Content, Footnotes, References, Excel basics….the list goes on and on…… but back to the VLE whose case is not helped by the nature of Blackboard Inc; a multinational US corporate mega business which people object to on principle but in doing so exclude themselves from the day to day reality of the majority of staff and students on and off campus. Sometimes we need to be pragmatic. I try to get a sense of perspective by thinking of the first year students, many away from home, in the UK and from across the world, for the first time, paying for a higher education experience hoping for a helping hand into the work place, to get into or upwards in their chosen subject or profession. Anything which enhances this must be worth consideration and the flexibility of a vle is a bonus when you’re juggling and balancing multiple commitments and busy lives.

My ♥ I love Blackboard ♥ campaign will look at the positives and raise awareness of successful practice. In the year ahead, with implementation of the Digital Education Plan and new Blackboard software such as Collaborate and Mobile, I look forward to the essential additional resources needed to promote and support our vle. We need to focus on the pedagogy rather than the technology in order to truly enhance the student experience and make Lincoln proud to be first and foremost an effective digital university.

After all, 9 out of ten cats – when asked – said they prefer Blackboard.

Yet another government digital inclusion strategy… yawn!

Sue Watling / January 18, 2014 / digital exclusion, digital inclusion, inclusive design, PhD

It’s been a while since I blogged about digital inclusion. In the meantime the Government Digital Service team have produced a checklist stating ‘if we do these things, we’re doing digital inclusion’. Looks like they’re starting out all over again. Excuse me while I yawn. Honestly we’ve been here before and nothing – yet – has changed.

It’s January 2014. All that’s happened since the Digital Britain report is the internet has become more inaccessible, assistive technology more expensive and digital exclusion increasingly invisible and silenced. The GDS checklist appears positive and realistic. I have genuine hope this may signify change.

Services need to be built for the user, not government or business
Provide simple, low cost options for those socially and economically excluded
Bring digital into people’s lives in a way that benefits them
Make it easier to stay safe – online safety is a basic digital literacy skill
Better coordination between public, private and voluntary sectors
Reducing digital exclusion is not about the number of people who log-on once

Words are easy and if they’re digital too, you need to be online to comment. The government has a ‘digital first’ policy with regard to public information. Do they not see the irony? There’s no mention of disability in the checklist and when Leonie Watson points this is out, the response is a link to a post from August 2013 titled Meet the Assisted Digital Team with the comment: ‘We’ll get down to the detail on assisting all sorts of disabilities soon. But at this stage all any inclusion tries to do is have (design) principles which apply to every citizen. How they are applied, and to whom, will always depend on particular departments.’ [my emphasis]

Already there are signs this new (and yet another) digital inclusion initiative will fall apart. In 2009 the Consumer Expert Group reported on the Use of the Internet by disabled people: barriers and solutions. The research is out there. It isn’t rocket science. If you are already socially and economically excluded you are likely to be digitally excluded as well. The checklist recognises this but so did the Labour government a decade ago. What is less well publicised is the two-way nature of digital access. It’s as much about the inclusive design and development of the internet as it is about the individual hardware and software required to get online in the first place. I can see a situation like the processed food industry which continues to produce low cost high sugar/fat/additive junk while the government makes comments about individual responsibility to make healthy choices – as if it were that easy. Equality of internet access? Just be more responsible about the sites you choose – go for the ones with inclusive design – they’re better for you.

Tim Berners Lee dreamed about democracy of access. ‘The power of the Web is in its universality. Access by everyone regardless of disability is an essential aspect.’ * Before Microsoft Windows came along there was a distinct chance this might have happened but progress has gone backwards ever since. Whether this latest initiative will make any difference remains to be seen. Somehow – sadly – I doubt it.

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* http://www.w3.org/Press/IPO-announce