From the issue dated June 21, 2002
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A Two-Way Bridge Across the Digital DivideBy RON EGLASHWhen most of us talk about the digital divide, we characterize the people on one side as those with plenty of technology, and the people on the other side as those who lack it. Concerned that the have-nots may lose economic ground because of that difference, we often propose a sort of one-way bridge, across which the haves can send computers and camcorders and other gadgets to the have-nots. We seem to have no problem celebrating the culture of the have-nots -- numerous IBM and Microsoft commercials feature colorful Third World "content providers" -- but we usually assume that we have nothing to learn from them technologically. Further, we assume that culture is irrelevant on the have side -- that artifacts of modern technology are neutral, universally applicable tools. What if we stopped assuming such a simplistic division and tried to get the two sides to exchange material? What would it mean to create a two-way bridge? I have found some hints of what a two-way bridge might look like in a software-design project that my students and I are developing with students, teachers, and cultural representatives at the Shoshone-Bannock reservation in southern Idaho. The project began in the spring of 2000 when James J. Barta, an associate professor of elementary education at Utah State University, invited me to meet with teachers at the Shoshone-Bannock secondary school to discuss ethnomathematics -- the study of mathematical ideas in different cultures -- which is my field. Barta had been working with teachers at the primary school on the reservation on the use of Shoshone words and images to teach counting. He had read my book, African Fractals: Modern Computing and Indigenous Design (Rutgers University Press, 1999), and he was interested in how I used computer models of indigenous designs -- like textiles and cornrow braiding -- to make ethnomathematics relevant to secondary-school math curriculums. Could we use Shoshone-Bannock designs in similar ways? After Barta and I met with several Shoshone-Bannock educators, including Drusilla Gould, a member of the Shoshone tribe and an adjunct instructor of American Indian studies at Idaho State University, and teachers at the reservation's secondary school, we concluded that the geometric patterns in Shoshone-Bannock beadwork -- a vibrant art form on the reservation -- would be a good subject for computer-based ethnomathematics. Marcos E. Galindo, a science teacher at the secondary school, was particularly enthusiastic about the possibility of using computer models of traditional Shoshone-Bannock knowledge of nature to teach ecology, botany, and other natural sciences. He and I came up with a vague plan for a simulation game, and he offered to provide local leadership. Because he was already mixing science teaching with traditional culture, he was used to mediating between the school and cultural representatives of the tribe. Back at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, I assembled a team to help me, including Bruce R. Piper, an associate professor of mathematical sciences, and several undergraduate and graduate students. For the natural-science project, we decided to create a computer game along the lines of SimCity, in which players have to make sure that an imaginary population has enough resources to survive. We prepared a storyboard to show how the game might work. For the ethnomathematics of beadwork, I created a virtual bead loom, or VBL, that allowed users to produce bead patterns on the computer screen. In November 2000, one of the students and I took the storyboard and the VBL to the secondary school on the reservation, to get feedback. The VBL was a clear success with the Shoshone-Bannock teachers and students. The Web page (http://www.rpi.edu/~eglash/csdt/na/loom/overvw.htm) begins by showing the prevalence of fourfold symmetry in Native American design, where the four winds or four directions provide an indigenous analog to the Cartesian coordinate system with its x and y axes. On the virtual loom, visitors to the Web site can enter x and y coordinates for bead positions and choose colors to create patterns similar to those on a real loom. Teachers and students at the reservation school were enthusiastic about using the software to make art, as well as to study the mathematics embedded in traditional bead patterns. The storyboard, however, was a near disaster. The RPI students had based their simulation concepts on games they knew well -- in particular, Dark Ages, in which players become medieval characters attempting to develop and defend a village. The students and teachers at the Shoshone-Bannock school pointed out that a simulation in which everyone stayed in one spot replicated the reservation system, with all its flaws -- not their tribe's traditional life. They recommended a more-accurate simulation that would show people migrating from one area to another with the seasons, and that would teach players about the traditional technologies and activities associated with each area. For example, players could catch salmon with a fish weir in the spring, and winnow pine nuts with a special basket in the winter. Prototypes of technologies for the revised game are available online (see http://www.rpi.edu/~eglash/eglash.dir/nacyb.dir/shoban.dir /overview.html), along with some beautiful three-dimensional simulations and creative mutations of traditional technologies created by Shoshone-Bannock students in Ed Galindo's science camp last summer. The shift to a dynamic combination of movements through space and time was particularly telling. It showed us that the have-not side of the digital divide had important technological resources, and that the programmers' culture had as much of an impact on their designs as their technology did. Shoshone-Bannock beadworkers had more technology for us. Because creating an online pattern one bead at a time was too tedious, we introduced shape tools (e.g., the user can enter just three pairs of coordinates, one for each point, to get a triangle). But our virtual triangles often had uneven edges, whereas real Shoshone-Bannock beadwork always had perfectly regular edges. It turned out that we had used a standard scanning algorithm to make triangles. Somehow, the beadworkers had algorithms in their heads that were better. After a few conversations with them, we realized that they were using iterative rules -- e.g., start each new row three beads to the left of the row before. We are incorporating their algorithms into the next version of the VBL. That was another opportunity to see a two-way bridge. The standard scanning algorithm was not universal, but an artifact of computer culture. And the Shoshone-Bannock beadwork was not just cultural content, but effective technology. There are larger lessons to be learned here. The digital divide is just the latest version of a long conversation about haves and have-nots. Whether we are talking about technology, health, education, or jobs, we can create problems if we talk only about absence -- that is, if we reduce one side to have-nots. At the same time, we must not ignore the social causes of such absence. Thinking in terms of two-way bridges allows us to combine social critique with an appreciation of cultural resources. Creating two-way bridges often involves translating ideas from one domain to another -- say, from art to math, or from computer science to cultural studies. Academics can serve as translators, but only if we overcome our own divisions. I sometimes hear scientists disparage qualitative interpretation as mere personal opinion, and humanists dismiss objectivity as inherently oppressive. As a first step, we need a two-way bridge across the disciplinary divide. Ron Eglash is an assistant professor of science and technology studies at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. http://chronicle.com Section: The Chronicle Review Page: B12
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Copyright © 2002 by The Chronicle of Higher Education