Partnering for Northern Digital Literacy

• Main Authors: McMahon, Rob, McNally, Michael, Fraser, Crystal, Pearce, Hanne, Fontaine, Trish
• Format: Other/Unknown Material
• Language: English
• Published: 2019
• Subjects: info; socio; Arctic; Canada; Mackenzie Valley; Northwest Territories; Gwich’in
• Online Access: https://doi.org/10.7939/r3-wh6b-1x65; https://era.library.ualberta.ca/items/832477ff-f7ed-4584-8553-414dc4d394e5

Communities in the western Arctic can now connect to high-speed digital infrastructure – a situation that provides both opportunities and challenges for residents of the Northwest Territories (NWT). The completion of the long-anticipated Mackenzie Valley Fibre Link (MVFL) in June 2017 and forthcoming plans to build a redundant fibre link along the Dempster Highway (estimated to be operational in 2021) will improve backhaul connectivity between these regions and Internet exchanges in the south. But despite these improvements, local connectivity remains limited and unreliable in most NWT communities, with high prices charged for services and data overage. As noted by the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC), almost half of households in NWT lack access to broadband (as defined by the Commission as 50Mbps download/10 Mbps upload), pricing and quality of service do not match standards in southern Canada (CRTC 2017: 284). These challenges reflect what O’Donnell and Beaton (2018) call the paradox of telecommunications for service delivery – northern communities have the greatest need for telecommunication services, but have the greatest barriers to delivering these services. Recognizing that digital technologies are being deployed rapidly throughout the NWT, including the Gwich’in Settlement Area, our project takes a critical and participatory approach to explore how digital literacy resources are developed and used by communities. Digital literacy is defined as: The range of knowledge, skills, and behaviours used with digital devices such as smartphones, tablets, laptops and desktop computers. This term includes the ability to locate, organize, understand, evaluate, and analyze information using digital technology. It involves a working knowledge of current digital technologies and an understanding of how they can be used effectively (Beaton et al., 2016, p.9). Through a collaborative development process that began in spring 2017, our team has worked to explore innovation in Gwich’in ...