Digital Skills & Pre-Release Prison Education

We live in a society where many simple and complex tasks are initiated in or take place in a networked environment. It has been established that people need to posses information literacy and digital literacy skills if they want be able to be active members of the community. 

Among other things, the United States is known internationally for having the most amount of people incarcerated. Contrary to what some may believe over 90% of the people in prison are released back into the community at some point in time. It is in our best interest to ensure that they are released with the skills and know-how necessary to engage in a technology driven society.

  • I am interested in discussing what can be done to shift the current nature of conversations from one that looks at the introduction of things like the Internet as a threat to one that sees it as an opportunity to equip those incarcerated with skills they will need to complete tasks like finding a job, reconnecting with family, locating social services and the like. 
  • I am also interested in talking about what can be done to increase the amount of research done in prisons designed to understand the extent to which digital inequalities exist.
  • Finally, I’d be interested in develop a list of groups/people who are/should be invested in equipping people in prison with information literacy and digital literacy skills and talk about ways to get them more involved
Categories: Session Proposals |