Collaboration — One Team, One Goal
By Noura Abdelkader
When I was first introduced to the topic of digital equity in class I felt confused and lost. It was hard to wrap my head around the meaning of digital equity. It was only when we further explored it and heard people in the field talk about it, I started to become more aware of the true meaning of digital equity. Digital equity isn’t solely ensuring everyone has equal access to broadband and digital devices; it is much more than that. Digital equity is about ensuring everyone has equal access and knowledge to confidently use digital devices and the internet.
While working on this project, I had the pleasure of interviewing Will Booth, a member of T3 (Tribal Technology Training) who works closely with tribal communities. He stated how important it is to not only give these communities access to digital devices and broadband but to also train people within these communities to use this technology so that they can pass on this knowledge to others. The stories about tribal members he worked with were very inspiring and motivating. He mentioned how tangible this work is and how encouraging it is to see members of the community “shine when they realize they can use these devices”. One thing that stood out to me in the interview was that Will explained how he and Nancy Joe Bob, T3’s curriculum developer, took apart long complex manuals that explain how to use digital devices, reorganized and recategorized the information and converted them into easy to understand pdfs. This industry-standard material was converted into a form that is culturally appropriate and allows for easy distribution among community members.
It was interesting to see how Will and his coworkers are able to collaborate and work together to produce something that is helpful within the community they work with. Upon reflecting on the process it took to be able to create this website in class, I realized how collaboration played a huge role in the design process. Our cohort was split into teams that were assigned different tasks. Some team roles included creating the website and populating it, creating the branding vision, creating guidelines for the different deliverables, and more. In doing so, we were able to create this website and publish it in a matter of two months. I was part of the website team, which consisted of 5 other students with different strengths and weaknesses. Some of us were more experienced with creating websites and others with designing pages. Since we had a specific timeframe and deadline to produce, populate, and publish this website, being able to collaborate with others helped us achieve our target.
