Digital Divide

The term digital divide refers to the gap between those people with effective access to digital and information technology and those without. It includes the imbalances in physical access to technology as well as the imbalances in resources and skills needed to effectively participate as a digital citizen. In other words, it's the unequal access by some members of the society to information and communications technology, and the unequal acquisition of related skills. The digital divide exists between groups of various genders, incomes, races and locations. The term global digital divide refers to differences in technology access between countries.

I work as eLearning coordinator at a local college, and I'm interested in exploring the use of small, inexpensive devices for the delivery of educational content to students -- optimally, devices that they already own. In particular, I'm thinking of gaming devices like the Gameboy, Sony PSP, or Nintendo DS. However, never having been much of a gamer myself, I don't really know anything about these devices. So, I'm asking for help from y'all. What can they do, other than gaming? For example, has anyone successfully used any of these devices to access the internet to watch a YouTube video? Does anyone have one of these things lying around that they'd be willing to let me experiment on?