Project Description Partners Objectives

The San Mateo Bridge Rationale As the world is becoming increasingly dependent on the Internet for the dissemination and collection of information, as well as communication, the "digital divide" is broadening. Several organizations have begun to address this issue by providing education and technical support or services. Others have embarked on the creation of online resources in languages other than English. But this is not enough. San Mateo Adult and Community Education has been providing the peninsula with computer and Internet classes for 20 years. We are also one of the first adult schools in California to offer online writing classes to students who cannot come to our campuses due to family, work schedules, or personal reasons. Although our students are learning to use the Internet, they cannot take full advantage of it. In fact, we conducted a preliminary survey of 369 adult students ranging in age from 18 to 78 years, with an average age of 32. Only 87 respondents were comfortable enough with computers to say that they were proficient. ALL others (a total of 282) said that they wanted to learn more about computers and the Internet. It is interesting to note that those who could not use the Internet wished to have access for: cultural information (203 respondents); employment purposes (227); children's health (including immunization), dietary guidelines, mental health, and care of the elderly (192); San Mateo County resources - i.e. libraries, DMV, and other public offices (167). Those who already used the Internet did so mainly for entertainment because language barriers made comprehension of informational pages impracticable. Although this was a small sample of our 14,000 active students, we believe that the results are representative of our population. Functional illiteracy or limited English proficiency makes it difficult, if not impossible, to make sense of web pages that are congested with unfamiliar and complicated language.