Holloway: When you hear the word "technology," what do you think of first? Join us next as we talk about TV, computers, and the Internet.

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Holloway: Good evening. I'm Jay Holloway and this is Black Issues Forum. This is Part 10 of a 13-part series. In this evening's program, we'll discuss technology. We'll take some time to define technology, demystify it, make it plain and simple, hopefully. And we'll talk about training, why it's important, where to get it. And, finally, how to access technology. This evening I have two guests. First, let me introduce Don Donaldson, Director of Academic Computing at Saint Augustine's Colle ge, and former VP of Sales at PC Innovation in Raleigh, North Carolina.

Donaldson: That's right.

Holloway: Don, thank you for being here.

Donaldson: Glad to be here.

Holloway: All right. And Russell Robinson. Russell is Media Technologist at the North Carolina School of Science and Math, has his MA in Educational Media Technology from my alma mater too, North Carolina Central. And Russell thank you for being here.

Robinson: Thank you for having me.

Holloway: All right. I should say that we've got two experts, but I can tell you from talking to these gentlemen off camera that they're down to earth. I'm going to challenge you guys to help me demystify technology and talk about it here in North Carolina, specifically as African Americans deal with technology. Russell, let me start with you.

Robinson: Okay.

Holloway: You and I happened to meet, ironically, in Philadelphia. And one of the panels that we both went to, and you and I were just talking about it before this started, was the whole idea of the whiteness of the Internet and of technology. What did you get out of that panel? How do you relate that to North Carolina in terms of technology?

Robinson: That's a good question. I think with the-the seminar, first of all, dealt with the whiteness, basically saying that it was a Eurocentric created device, the Internet. And how really the black presence or African American presence wasn't too much on the Web. So what I got out of that was basically-they were trying to put that influence back into it. Try to put some black or African American culture or other types of culture in there as well.

I guess going into your question about technology and trying to, I guess demystify it if we can, is not-technology is just a big buzz word for things that have happened. Technology could be the telephone. Technology could be a TV set. Technology is just a computer. It's not anything that's major. It's nothing out there that's just so buzzy that you have to go ahead and treat it as though it's like antiseptic. It's something that everybody can take part of and enjoy.

Holloway: Now, Don, you've got a strong computer background and you sold them for a number of years. Practically decades-since the PC's been out, you've been selling them.

Donaldson: That's right.

Holloway: But when people think about technology a lot of folks think of the computer. Now that's probably-I know what you're gonna talk about, but there are still folks that think that the computer is something just, that "I don't want to deal with." And maybe it's-is it a generational thing, or is in an economic thing, is it a race thing? What thing is it?

Donaldson: I think it's more education than anything else. If they can understand what it is. And as Russell was saying, that it is not something that should be feared. And I think the biggest thing that I've faced throughout the years is the fear of the unknown. Most folk don't quite understand it. They won't take the time to explore it, and it's much more convenient to say, "Oh, boy, I'm a little bit afraid of this" or "I don't want to be bothered with this." But I've majored on going bey ond that fear and conquering that fear by demystifying it, by making it accessible and simple to understand. Once they grasp what it can do and what it is, there seems to be no problem.

Holloway: Well, let's start off-before we move into it, let's start off and kind of define what we're talking about. You mentioned what technology is in terms of not just a computer, Russell. Don said it's not that difficult. Let me site some statistics that this VP from Sun-what is it, Sun...

Donaldson: Sun Microsystems.

Holloway: Sun Microsystems. That's-the industry people will know who that is. But a major executive in the whole telecommunications/computer industry basically said that it took 70 years just for 50 percent of the population in the United States to adapt or reach 50 percent penetration for electricity and lights, which is a major technological innovation. It took 39 years for cable television to penetrate 50 percent of the population. It took another eight years just for the VCR. Now here we are in the new Information Age. We're right on the beginning on this transfer from the Industrial Revolution to Information Revolution, where the information technology, entertainment industry, and the telephone industry are converging. Now, that's a whole lot going on, but you and I know, each of us know, that that's what's happening. So the computer, the television, cable, telephone, all of that's converging. Can you all-one of you attempt to try to break that down into what all that means to the br other on the street?

Donaldson: I'm gonna take a stab at it. What I would say to the average person is that they must be aware that this particular age that we're in now is much like the age of Gutenburg's press. Things were written before and all of a sudden it's mechanized. We're going from mechanization to an electronic or digital type age. And all we have to do is to flow along with the signs of the times. And that is, really, to participate. The computer is processing information, the telephone is allowing us to communicate, the cable gives us much more variety. If we can see those basic structures as to what they are actually trying to accomplish and just go along with the flow-plunge in, so to speak, and just go right along with the flow, educate yourself, talk to others, talk to the people that sell them, get as much as you can, it won't be as intimidating as it seems to be with all this massive convergence.

Holloway: Well, tell me first of all, we haven't even defined what the Internet is first. Can one of you all take a stab at the Internet? What is the Internet?

Robinson: Now, if I'm not mistaken, the Internet was basically experiment in progress at the Pentagon. It was a means that they used to communicate via the e-mail and so forth. So from there, I believe, and you can correct me if I'm wrong, that's I think where we got the Internet from. Now the Internet has expanded into the World Wide Web, globally.

So it's now a means of communication where you can communicate with someone, let's say, here in Raleigh, but I'm located in Japan. I can communicate with you if I'm in Japan and you, let's say, are in Africa. It's also a means of knowledge exchange, it's a means of information exchange. And that's basically what the Internet is all about, at least I think it is. Now, I'm always subject to be questioned or to be wrong, but I really think that this is exactly what the Internet is about primarily.

Holloway: Do you want to take a stab at it?

Donaldson: Yes. Well, basically, what you have to understand is that in the beginning, let's talk about computers, because the Internet sprang out of computers. And I'm gonna go from the standpoint of personal computers. In the beginning, you had one person working at one computer and was doing wonderful things with spreadsheets and word processing.

Holloway: ___________ spreadsheets?

Donaldson: Spreadsheet is an electronic ledger sheet. Word processing is typing on the screen.

Holloway: So you do budgets and numbers on the spreadsheet and typewriter typing stuff on the word processor.

Donaldson: Exactly. So you had one person sitting at one box that was doing all these things that took hours and days before that could be done in seconds. Then, the next stage in that evolution was connecting those single boxes together into a community, so to speak. And this is where we got the idea of the network, or local area network. And a network is nothing more than computers that are connected to each other with some software doing some intermediation between.

Holloway: Software?

Donaldson: Software is a program that tells a computer what to do and how to do it.

Holloway: Sorry.

Donaldson: Gotcha. Hardware is the keyboard, the monitor, the floppy drives, things of that nature that comprise a computer. Now, we had one individual sitting in front of a computer. Now we've got people connected within a general area or a local area. The Internet is a network of networks carried to the nth degree. You have millions of computers talking to each other using a language that we call TCP/IP. It's a protocol. Transmission Control Protocol. Internet Protocol. Short story is this. We speak English. You and I speak English and you understand me. Computers speak TCP/IP. They understand each other. And they can understand each other whether they are in Japan, whether they are in North Carolina, or whether they are in Seattle, Washington. They all speak the same thing.

They happen to use the infrastructure that is available to us. All of the telephone wires, all of the satellites, all of the microwave stations that are available that transmit data and voice. All of those things combine to speak this specialized language between each other. And the Internet in and of itself is, again, millions upon millions of computers that are networked in such a manner that if I send a message from where I am here, it will find, just like a heat-seeking missile, it will find its d estination.

Holloway: Russell, are the students-are folks using them in the public schools? Are they at the School of Science and Math? Are you using the Internet?

Robinson: I think at the Science and Math it is a necessity. Because, basically, teachers are assigning their students projects involving things that are no longer here just locally in the Triangle area. Students are having to do projects dealing with NASA, so they have to gear with the NASA on the Internet. For me in particular, with my own personal use, I don't even _________. I'm using the computer in regards to searching that information for what I need to do. To help me teach my classes more effectively. Or teach my class more effectively, which is videography. And I use that to go ahead and...

Holloway: Videography.

Donaldson: There's a big word.

Robinson: Videography. TV.

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Robinson: And basically I just use that to go ahead and pull certain things that other teachers are doing at various universities. For example, at NYU, I may see a teacher what they're doing with their curriculum and I might try to implement that with one assignment I'm doing in my class. So basically to use the Internet at Science and Math, you're gonna have to. It's sink or swim.

Holloway: Well, let me take a point of personal privilege here. We're on television. And we talked about cable taking 39 years just to reach penetration. But I find myself defending the old technology of television as still part of technology. Now, you teach that. How important is TV in terms of this technological revolution and Information Age that you see?

Robinson: Oh, my goodness. When you say TV-to me, I think that TV is not even being used to its full potential. Because you deal with what they now call distance learning. Distance learning is now what can be considered almost like correspondence or at least-a form of it is correspondence where you learn through the mail, like how to cut your hair through the mail and all that stuff. But now you have more of an interactive medium with television. And the interactive medium is now, instead of being sent primarily through coaxial cable, it's now being sent through digital.

Holloway: You mean that's the cable that-some people have it plugged in their television right now because they're watching public television through cable.

Robinson: Right. But now we're going beyond that. Because now you can go ahead and bring video into your computer. You're able to go ahead and talk interactively with your teacher, let's say-well, one of the things that we do in the distance learning program there is that they are teaching classes, teaching, let's say, statistics. But they have a student, say, in Manteo, who is also trying to get the same information from the same class. So basically it's a better means to teach with a wider audience. And that's all this technology is all about. It's about communication and reaching the masses.

Holloway: Well, let's move to access now. Most people have a television, have a telephone, maybe have cable television. I understand now, Don, that the cable people are about to come out with a cable modem. We haven't even defined what a modem is now. But explain to us how folks access the Internet and access this type of technology we're talking about.

Donaldson: All right, for the modem...[SOUND CUTS OFF TEMPORARILY] ...information from a computer, changes it from an analog form or just straight number form, to a digital format. And then when it gets down on the other end, it's descrambled or changed back again into its original format.

Holloway: So before you go there, I just want to make sure. Because we're talking to folks, and I don't want to go over anyone's head, but digital would be like the person's CD and analog would be like their old vinyl LP.

Donaldson: Their old vinyl records. Exactly. That's a good analogy there. Now, again, the modem is going to be the means that a person accesses the Internet. Now, once you have a computer and a modem, then you've got to have an on ramp. Now an entity known as an ISP or an Internet Service Provider is the means through which you connect by your modem to the Internet. In other words, you call up, from your computer, a telephone number. And that telephone number hooks into that Internet servi ce provider and he, on the other hand, has a huge what we call a pipe through which flows all of the back and forth traffic so far as the Internet is concerned.

So, again, for the average person a modem is going to be its means. Now for those of us that are blest to be in schools or colleges, typically that is usually done at a much higher level. You have computers that are networked together and through the network resources, you can pipe out to the Internet. Now for the most part, again, the average user will use a 28.8 speed modem, 28,800 bits per second communication device to connect to the Internet.

Holloway: We're talking a lot of really high tech things here, people may say. Because as a former retailer, Don, you tell me, but I hear that this technology is changing so often that it's outdated in less than a year now.

Donaldson: It moves at the rate of about once every six months you can expect the technology to change. I would say that most of the technologies you see now will last you for a year or two, but once the change has occurred you may as well get ready to stand up to the line and pay some more to catch up.

Holloway: Well, let me ask both of you all. This program is Black Issues Forum. And just recently, USA Today said about 15% of the folks on-line are African American. In North Carolina I've seen statistics from nine to 13% and it may go up, it depends on who you ask. That's the way it is. But is the access issue, is it gender based? Is it ethnic implications? Is it age implications? In terms of those accessing the Internet on computers right now.

Robinson: Let me take a stab at that, I guess from the point of education. One of the things that I see that's a real problem or a big access issue with education is the fact that you deal with the rural people, the people in the rural areas who don't have the monies necessary to get the computers you need and the tech support, the software and so forth to go ahead and be part of the Internet revolution. So I feel that there is a real problem with that in regards to the economics. I do feel th at there's also a problem in regards to the socio status of it.

Because, at one point in time, to have a computer was considered a "buffy" type thing to do. And now it's not even a "buffy" thing. It's not a black thing, it's not white thing, it's an information thing and if you don't have it, you need to get to where you can have access to the information or you need to be able to be on the inside controlling the information. Because if you don't have one of those two elements, you're going to be totally locked out.

So, basically, I think the access issue is something that's more prevalent in regards to the socio, or to your location, and in regards to your economics - how much money you make and so forth.

Donaldson: I'd like to say that one of the most encouraging signs of all of this is the fact that the cost of technology, which was so high in the past that it made it almost exclusive from an economic basis - because the prices have come down now dramatically, the power that one can purchase for $1,000, you'd have to spend three to four times that only two or three years ago to have that same amount of power.

So, because of the rapid decline in the cost, virtually anyone can afford the technology that we're talking about. And the technology that we're talking about, again, is at least having a computer, at least having a modem, at least having a CD Rom drive, a compact disc read only memory type disc that has tremendous volumes or amounts of information in it. Pentium processors, so to speak. For about $1,000 now, anybody can afford it.

Holloway: Now, let's break that down. We talked earlier, and I want to continue to break it down. Tony Brown, who's on public television and has his own program, is one of the few minority providers of Internet service. He has a national service. And he's going around saying that if you can afford cable television, you can afford to have a computer and access this information. Do you all agree? And is it that important that if someone is paying for a premium service on cable television or o ther items that they ought to - how important is this revolution?

Robinson: If he was here I'd give him a high five. He spoke the truth. I mean, when you go ahead and average it out, how much is a regular cable bill now? For me, it's about $45 a month provided I don't buy a fight. So, go ahead and average that out over the course of, I guess, a year/12 months and that definitely comes out to the price of a good multimedia computer. And now if push comes to shove, you can rent to own. So -

Donaldson: I think what he's also speaking about is the fact that most Internet services, unlimited use of the Internet, most Internet services now run about $20 a month, $19.95, $15.95 a month. So, what's he saying is that if you can afford to spend money for things that are entertainment, rather frivolous and not serious - if you spend $30 or $45 a month for that, certainly you should be able to afford $15 to $20 a month that gives you an unlimited education, that gives you a lifetime learning type of opportunity. And I whole-heartedly agree. It's amazing what is available to anyone that gets out there.

Holloway: Let's do this. Believe it or not, we only have about five minutes left and I want to get into the training episode. How do folks - they hear all this and they say, "Okay, I'm going to step out into regardless of my age and economic situation. You've convinced me I'm missing out on something." How do I then go out and get training so that I can understand this? Because they can't possibly get everything from this 30-minute program.

Donaldson: Let me say that I do a lot of training. And the first thing I would recommend is take a nice trip out to somewhere like Barnes & Noble bookstore. They have all kinds of introductions to the Internet, introductions to computers, introductions to Windows. They have all kinds of resources that are there. They are very simply written for the average person, and it is a booming industry. So, virtually anybody, for $15 or $20 can buy a book and begin to get into this technology.

The other thing is that, because of the fact that we're trying to get the technology out to the masses - and I say we, the industry, is trying to get it out to the masses - they have made using the technology extremely easy. You can use a computer now more easily than you could program a VCR two years ago. So, from the standpoint of using a mouse and a pointer to click and get things done the way you want them done, all the way down to tons and tons of help built in to any kind of program you want to r un.

The training issue is almost a moot point now. You can literally train yourself. If that's not available to you or you don't feel comfortable in doing that, you can either hire someone to train you on a one-on-one basis or you can take courses at a local community college or a university to overcome that hurdle of not knowing the technology.

Holloway: Now, you deal with teachers in terms of this.

Robinson: Right.

Holloway: How do you - are they already trained or do you have to train them on the various technologies in the classroom?

Robinson: Well, for me I have to, with what I do, yeah some teachers need to be trained. And then you have some who just have an eager bug that's like, "Okay, I want to get into it right away." That's a good sign. With the technology in the classroom, I'm noticing now that the curriculum is now changing to include a computer portion of the curriculum. And that's a good thing. The programs that are coming out now, or the programs of learning, the lessons that are being taught in the classroom are now computer-based instruction which basically means that it's - I can't talk today - its teacher, or student rather has better control over the information control.

So, basically, and studies have gone to prove that when a student is able to control the information that comes into him or her, then they're able to go ahead and learn more and easier at a faster rate. It increases knowledge retention. So, definitely the computer in the classroom and being trained on it is going to be an essential necessity. And it's happening.

Holloway: Let me - in just about a minute or so here, we've got about a minute left. There's an age demographic in our society feels that, "Okay, I'm getting out of this that I don't have to learn computers now." Then you've got this other younger generation that may, in some cases, know more than their teachers know. Anybody want to address that before we can conclude?

Donaldson: Yes. I'll say this: the kids eat it up. The kids are unintimidated by all of this. They're fascinated by it. My kids have learned faster than I did. It's just something that they intuitively get into. I think it's the older segment that tends to balk at it and tends not to want to understand it. But again, you have to take the shot. You have to go for it. Just get out and have fun. If I can interject having fun with it. Really have fun with it and you'll find it that it wil l be fun. But if you think it's going to be horrible and difficult to understand, it will be just that.

Holloway: Russell, you shared with me off the camera, and I don't want to put you on the spot, but that your mother now has gotten more excited about it through you.

Robinson: Yeah. What happened was that the computer - at first I was like, "Ma, I need a computer for school. Give me a computer." And she was like, "I don't know what to do." And I finally went ahead and got one and she was like, "What are you gonna do with this thing?" Well, when I started doing my word processing on it and writing my thesis on it she was like, "All right, how do I do this?" "Well, you didn't like the computer first." Now she's doing her tests on it at Fayetteville. Now with modem, which has even taken me outside of the house and to other parts, Mom's was like, "Well, get me some information off that highway." So, she really loves it.

Holloway: I want to thank you both. Our time has run out. And I want to say to our audience, if you still think you're not enticed enough yet, you need access to a computer and the worldwide web to get more information that we have for you that tells you how to access a lot of these things we've been talking about and gives you more information. Don and Russell, thank you guys so much for coming through.

Donaldson: Thanks.

Robinson: Thank you.

Holloway: All righty. And, of course, I want to thank you for watching Black Issues Forum. We hope that you've learned a little more about technology today. And according to the USA Today, more than 108,960,000 persons over 16 years of age are on-line right now. The average age on on-line net users is 36 and black Americans account for 15%, that's about 16,344,000 people. In North Carolina now, they say 15%, that's a lot of people. Are you included in that estimate?

Well, thanks to those of you that have already called in right now or written to Black Issues Forum, we appreciate it. If not, we'd like to hear from you about your suggestions and comments on helping to make this program the best it can be. It's here for you. Call us at 919-549-7167 or write to us at Black Issue Forum, P.O. Box 14900, Research Triangle Park, 27709. Thank you for watching another episode of Black Issues Forum. Join us again next Friday night at 11:00 when we'll discuss community emp owerment. I'm Jay Holloway. Have a blest and peaceful evening.