Canadian Internet Forum:

Digital Literacy Consultation

Vancouver, British Columbia
November 19, 2010
__________________________________________________________________

This document captures the information from the opening reflection, the exercise of issue
identification (sticky notes), the small group discussions on baskets of issues and the
closing comments and reflection.

Personal Reflection
Participants were asked to consider the question:

“What could/should the future of the internet in Canada be like?”

1. In terms of the question, the first thing I thought was that the Internet should be a
facilitator of human exchange, whether creative exchange, social exchange or
business. This is at its core and it is facilitating actual human interactions (including
business and economic interactions) that exist within society as well as facilitating new
ones that don’t currently exist.

2. In the future the Internet could be a super-structure for delivering education (curriculum
in electronic form) with gaming integrated into educational settings and wikis, blogs, and
handhelds used to engage youth in learning (as opposed to them being excluded from
online communities). The Internet could also provide online human services to raise
awareness for professionals working with youth at risk and marginalized families: it
could raise awareness about online porn, suicide sites, pro-anorexia sites, etc. and
capitalize on the Internet’s strengths to offer in-reach, as opposed to outreach services.
In the future the Internet could respond to different cultures and their educational needs
more dynamically: for example, the needs of remote first nations communities are very
different than the South-Asian populations in South Surrey or Richmond. (Vanessa: the
main points I’m hearing relate to education and marginalized populations; that the
Internet could become a two-way street for education and also for high-risk youth,
families and individuals to have input as well as be receiving output services.)

3. In my work in marketing and communications, the Internet is actually a product that I

sell. When I think about the question, my inclination is to move more towards the
technology and the foundation of the technology that underpins the Internet. For
example, the move to wireless and how this will make Internet truly a ubiquitous and
open and available tool for people to use. I see the Internet as a tool for conversation,
creation, interaction that offers opportunity for just about anybody to do almost anything
with anyone. The potential of this is amazing as well as scary. (Vanessa: this ties into
the comments about interactivity, but also brings in the foundational and structural
elements. Also highlighted how innovations can fuel creativity, but may also facilitate
risk.)

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4. The Internet should be more intuitive: I am tired of having to explain to others how it
works. In the future how to use and operate the Internet should be obvious and easy.
(Vanessa: it should be a platform that makes sense.)

5. When I look at the Internet, it is from the perspective of “what is in the best interest of
children” especially in relation to the vast amount of materials that are online now. I
want the Internet to be a tool that is safe for children and which allows children to have
a say. It should enable us to effectively provide information online so that kids can think
critically about technology and be safe online, especially in relation to media-related
rights in the convention for the rights of the child. We can’t leave this to technology
alone – teachers need to be in place. (Vanessa: this ties into the comments about input
and output and also into what was said about there being both a negative and positive
side to technology.)

6. Having worked with both youth and in employment services, I see the move to wireless
as an option. I want the Internet to be a resource for both adults and youth and believe
that teacher involvement is essential.

7. I want to see the Internet evolve towards a larger sense of community, one that reflects
how our society functions, with less intolerance for race, religion, etc. Generally, I want
to see people using the Internet to work more together. (Vanessa: as a tool for battling
intolerance.)

8. Small Business BC has worked very hard over the past years to bring video
conferencing across the province, educating entrepreneurs, and using technology to
bring training to regions where it would otherwise be difficult for people to access this.
When I think of the future of the Internet in Canada, it’s in terms of e-commerce: that the
Internet should be a secure place for conducting transactions. When I think about
issues with fraud around the world, I would love to see Canada as a place where people
feel there is safety and security when transacting commerce. I agree that the Internet
should be a safe place for children to learn. As a mother I am well aware of its negative
side – issues such as exposure to offensive materials and cyber bullying are particularly
important to me. And finally, I think the Internet needs to be a place where Canadians
can connect, innovate and share information and knowledge. It is this sharing of
knowledge that will help us grow as a country and be productive. (Vanessa: this ties into
developing skills to share knowledge and also to drive the economy. The Internet
should drive commerce, but safety and protection of children are also important.)

9. My organization began by looking at mass media and trying to understand from a

critical perspective how media institutions present a vision of world in which we live. As
the Internet has gained hold over the past fifteen year, educators have noted a shift in
people now going online for this sort of information, which brings up the questions “who
has control?” and “who shapes our perceptions?” the BC Association for Media
Education is currently trying to focus its energies in that direction, but it’s a huge
challenge. The Internet is more open and broad than traditional media in both the range
of information that’s available and the reach of those who are providing online
information. In terms of the specific question, words like open and accessible come to
mind. There’s lots of debate going on about shaping people’s access to the Internet and
in this sense controlling how much access people can have through their ISPs. It is also
important that we understand the CRTC’s recent ruling regarding user pay for access to

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 the Internet – these are the kinds of questions that have implications not just for
technology but also cost. (Vanessa: the question is really about the values online; who
is providing the information that’s shaping us? As well as access – not just who
accesses what, but also the mechanics of access.)

10. The future is both daunting and promising. The future of the Internet lies in the way it
reinvents our public lives, the way it creates new spaces for public engagement, the
way youth begin to enter into that public performance of themselves and of their
relationships with others. That is daunting and challenging in lots of ways but it is also
very promising and remarkably rich. There are many organizations, Open Media being
one, which represent this. Last week we hosted media democracy day with 2500 people
attending, many of whom are parsing the value of the Internet as a vehicle for
organizing creativity and community and for facilitating expression of young people in
remarkably interesting ways. This is where questions about digital literacy come into
play. It’s also where questions of democracy obviously link, but it’s also where a utopian
sense of hopefulness about the future lies. (Vanessa: it’s about promise of the Internet
in terms of citizenship and the public domain and democracy.)

11. I would echo much of what’s being said. The future of the Internet is really about
ensuring that we leverage the Net as a tool for social enablement. For example, health
care: Canada is way behind in terms of adoption of e-health records, personal health
records, mobile worker enablement for our health care workers in terms of facilitating
telehealth, rural/remote access to doctors etc. The Internet can be transformative in
helping crack the code on our health care challenge in terms of reducing costs and
providing better services to patients and yet we are in a situation where counties like
Britain, New Zealand, Australia are at levels of 80%-90% in terms of digitization of
medical records, while we are lagging behind them at 20%. David’s goal is to find a way
as a public policy priority to drive our ability to leverage the Internet for the good of our
citizens. (Vanessa: we’ve brought up education, commerce, have flagged marginalized
groups and how we work with them, job creation; like healthcare, we can think of other
sectors that would benefit from revitalization. And you’re also flagging “let’s not get left
behind”.)

12. The Internet should be a place where personal information is protected. It should be a
place where users can control information about themselves: today this is not the case,
anyone can write or post anything about you and you have no control over that. The
Internet should be accessible from anywhere and be affordable – with consistent
services no matter where you live. The Internet should be viewed through a
commonsense or critical thinking lens – this is where education comes in – do you
believe everything on the net? You should be able to easily find what you want when
you want it. And lastly, the Internet shouldn’t become a substitute for human interaction.
We need to consider how we interact with each other personally, not by video or text
messaging. (Vanessa: you’ve added interactivity outside of education to the discussion,
which includes rights, democracy, services and systems and also controlling identity
and the kinds of skills we need, like media literacy, when we look at the Internet and the
information we’re getting.)

Presentations by CIRA and MNet

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Issue Identification Process
The individual sticky note brainstorm generated a lot of data. The sorting exercise was done
at a fairly broad level with six baskets of issues identified. Had there been more time,
further sorting into sub-groupings and prioritization could easily have been done. However,
moving the group to discussion was more critical than spending additional time on
categorization.

1. Youth and Safety and Privacy / Training and Public Awareness

2. Funding and Access
3. Business
4. Creative Commons / Innovation
5. Leadership and values
6. Regulation

1.0 Youth & Children / Safety and Privacy / Training and Public
Awareness
The Youth / Children and Safety / Privacy group combined with the Training and Public
Awareness group because of the small number is one of the groups.

Issues discussed: privacy, permanent digital reputations, online sexual exploitation,

professional training and public awareness

1.1 Basket of Issues

Youth / Children and Privacy and Safety

y How do we address the online sexual exploitation of children and youth
y How do we respond to youth creating and posting sexual images of themselves?
y Video gaming on the Internet
y Child safety (4 post-its)
y Child safety – teach how to avoid predators – learn how to filter dangerous /
offensive material – cyber bullying
y How safe is WiFi?
y New marketing practices and children’s awareness
y Social media’s effect on Canadian youth – how to approach it
y Social media as it relates to children
y How do I separate my personal Internet presence from my professional one (i.e.
Facebook)?
y How do you control your personal information / personal ‘brand’ on the Internet?
y Is self-destructive data the answer to teens uploading pictures?
y Boundaries when working with youth and adults (issues concerning security and
privacy) (access)
y Online data mining
y Privacy on Internet – as it relates to personal identity/ identity theft, security,
personal safety
y Privacy and protection of personal information – identity management
y Online transparency? ‘permanent digital reputations’
y Is everything online private?

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 y How do we involve youth the in the discussions of Internet literacy to inform policy
reform?
y How to evolve education to engage digital youth
y What needs to be in place for children youth to use, understand and create? What
are the key components of Internet literacy?
y Linking digital literacies to political and economic opportunity for all youth

Training and Public Awareness

• How can I mitigate peoples’ (coworkers, family, friends) fear of the Internet?
• Need to develop ratings / best practices for online, content in education and
healthcare – to assist consumers [there is a lot of junk out there and bad
applications]
• How do we get parents to pay attention to online culture?
• Educator training that unites digital skills with media literacy
• How do we get criminal justice professionals to understand online risks, culture and
opportunities
• Less structured education – let students pursue their own interests and parental
involvement in education – values, free education model (e.g., MIT)
• How do we get child protection / community service workers fluent in online culture
and influence
• How do nonprofits update their policies to accommodate online contact between
client and professionals
• Skills training – digital literacy as an essential skill
• Privacy as it relates to e-commerce – personal information shared by companies –
data ownership, security, data infusion especially in the world of cloud computing,
(e.g., US Patriot Act in US)
• How do we get educators to stop fighting technology and start using it
• Basic desktop publishing – is there free training in the Downtown Eastside, what is
the criteria to access this training? Where the training to be take place? Who can
join?

1.2 Small Group Discussion of Issues

Current status
y Lack of meaningful, interrelated, relevant internet safety curriculum and policies
in schools
y Existing policies are not fully implemented
y Caregivers are not talking to youth about online values and ethics. Being
present or modeling what is acceptable behaviour online, or even knowing
where to start the conversation.
y Child sexual images are not understood by police, teachers and adults (or
youth)

Challenges
y Making policies and laws meaningful, relevant and understandable to children
and youth
y Industry is not writing privacy policies in age- and/or audience-appropriate
language

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y Information is written for mainstream urban people – not inclusive of rural
groups, multicultural groups, First Nations, English-as-a-second language, deaf
culture etc.

Barriers
y Rapidly changing nature of online culture: it’s difficult for large groups like
government to address issues.
y Funding priorities
y Time
y Collaboration and territoriality: there’s a lot of work to be done, but we end up
fighting over the funding to do the work.
y Government silos – education, MCFD, law enforcement; Federal/ provincial/
territorial
y Corporate websites are not collaborating with common society, groups and
populations
y Lack of funding, resources and training
y Age of people allocating resources and developing policies and laws: lack of
youth-voice and lack of youth-driven policy and laws.

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 Opportunities
y Get Internet corporations involved in education and awareness programs (e.g.,
get Retailers to give out Internet Safety information with every computer
purchase)
y E-books and tablets as dynamic curriculum delivery devices so that you can
update content without republishing
y Teach children and youth about social media affects – long-term, short-term,
unknown
y Get youth driving the development of curriculum
y Acknowledge youth as experts

Who needs to act? Take the lead?

y Youth
y Nongovernmental organizations
y Government (dynamic content)
y Universities training teachers, social workers, counselors, criminal justice
professionals
y Volunteers with a vested interest in the Internet come forward as online mentors

Other stakeholders
y International organizations and researchers
y Government
y Community supports
y Parents and parent groups
y Youth role models – Pink, Bif Naked, Justin Bieber

2.0 Funding / Access

2.1 Issues
Funding
y Need funding models to support the new cross-sector institutions that foster
digital literacy
y Need to know where to find sources of funding for digital capacity building for my
organization
y Government funding is needed for for WiFi / training
y Need funding to provide support for young digital entrepreneurs
y What support can be provided to NGOs so they can continue their work in digital
literacy? How can they be connected?
y Will there be a substantial commitment of resources to ensure that digital
literacy is fully implemented in the K-12 Educational system?
y What are creative new ways to cost-share the large expense of increasing rural
access? (i.e. Government can’t do it all nor can private sector – we need
partnerships)

Access
• How do you provide universal access to the Internet?
• How do we reach the growing number of people (i.e. seniors) who are
outside of public venues such as schools, universities and industry?

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 • How do we include rural, isolated & First Nations groups in online
development?
• How can you provide open access to information – government etc.
• How do we provide access and support to rural communities to ensure
Internet is used for progress?
• How can we ensure equal access for all SES?
• Need to provide free WiFi for cities (concentrated urban populations)
• How do we lower cost of access to wireless areas?
• Affordable broadband everywhere – last 7%
• How do we balance concerns about ‘harmful’ content with open access?
• Balance between free speech vs. objectionable content

2.2 Small Group Discussion

Funding models
• tensions for nonprofits who work across major objective areas: some training,
some research, some audience development
• we also talked about resourcing around skills training: a problem in preparing
people to take advantage of educational opportunities that exist in various
kinds of project settings. What kinds of grassroots street level infrastructure is
needed to enable people to enter into opportunities?
• in learning environments the size of the commitment from government and
other partners on that is a real sign of how seriously something is taken. How
can policy on paper – in BC there’s a fantastic curriculum on digital literacy
available, but this is not reflective in the funding for teacher training in schools.
For teachers, that’s a contradiction and one that is easily dealt with by leaving
it at the side.

Opportunities
• integrate social enterprise model (SEM) operations as part of sustainable
funding in very important. But the goal of these SEMs has to be sustainability,
not marketization of the not-for-profit organization in a manner that “gets in the
way” of their mandate.
• private sector involvement in funding models
• but this must be led by government and nonprofit oversight and leadership;
otherwise there is tension between the funding problems that are targeted
towards not-for-profits turning into a private sector-driven solution.

Skills training
• needing an assessment for progression model around digital literacy so that
organizations can know where they fit on the trajectory of learning when
meeting with different populations
• there is an opportunity to leverage skills sharing between students in high
schools and not only teachers, but also the greater community. Using the
model of post-secondary “work study credits” where students become
partners with teachers. This can help educators overcome technological
phobias that prevent the use of Facebook or other platforms in interesting
ways in classrooms.

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 Opportunities
• develop coop skills sharing programs between schools / students and
community-based job training programs
• assessment for progression

Where is the money directed?

• Money directed to education is a sign of how important governments treat
digital literacy objectives

Opportunities
• inconsistency at school / district levels
• success stories need to be leveraged (e.g., Coquitlam school district has
integrated many different digital platforms into schools)
• there are also models of government leverage of funds to get private sector
involved in supporting this, as well as in getting cost-effective access in
remote areas
• Digital Britain – public
• Promoting unstructured learning
• Opportunity to leverage students’ skills with teachers to develop / implement
learning resources

3.0 Business
3.1 Issues
y social media as it relates to employment
y how can I convince my office to move into “the cloud”?
y Social media as it relates to business
y What is the role of the business community in creating a digitally literate society?
y Support for innovation – funding - mentorship

3.2 Small Group Discussion

1. Personal vs. Organizational Branding

• Messy and educational opportunities for helping people not only brand
their organizations but also themselves
o Meet-ups
o Grassroots
• Personal reflects on organizational brand – how manage that? PR
discussion and media relations discussion. There are no guidelines. Is
there thought leadership?
• Can they also be complementary? Or not?

2. Social media as marketing tool

• Too many ‘experts’ holding back adoption – it is so new that there are no
real experts. There are experts but not expertise across all domains.
• People and organizations don’t know who to trust. They have bad
experiences and become fearful.

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 3. Tool Literacy (trust – convincing people that the tools are safe/functional)
• Risk Profile: Different organizations / people will have different risk
profiles
• Different levels of understanding
• In order to drive adoption need to understand the value model – what is
in it for me? Understand what the tool does and then how it contributes to
you.

• Fear

• Strategy for Humans – We need a strategy for humans rather than a

strategy for social marketing. How does this fit into your strategy for
engaging people at a macro level. Social media itself is not a strategy but
part of a bigger strategy. Otherwise it fails.

4. Return on investment
• Need a model that people understand and value.

5. Support for Innovation

• Help to support innovation in this space – intuitive, easy, find ways to
express the value and provide that support for innovation
• Opportunity for education
• Opportunity to connect these fragmented pieces in order to create that
expertise that is lacking today

Stakeholders
• BC Innovation Council
• BC Technology Industry Association
• Digi BC
• Bootup Labs
• New Ventures BC
• Canadian Youth Business Foundation
• Small Business BC
• Small Business Roundtable
• Forum for Women Entrepreneurs
• Wired Women
• CATA – WIT
• Vancouver Economic Development Commission (VEDC)

4.0 Creative Commons / Innovation

4.1 Issues
y Copyright and creative commons licensing
y How do we ensure that initiatives that seek to ‘shape’ individual access do not
restrict creativity?
y How do we facilitate healthy digital living to combat sedation?
y How do we protect value in creative arts without limiting sharing and access
y How can I find a digital mentor / role model for my niche?

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 y We may have a great network but it still needs to be filled with content.

The creative commons / innovation area was not discussed.

5.0 Leadership and values

5.1 Issues
y Is there really a “Canadian” context for the Internet?
y Provide platforms for government to engage with citizenry in substantive ways
y Online ethics and values need to be discussed often
y How to ensure leaders in Canadian society use and support the use of the
Internet

The leadership and values basket of issues was not discussed.

6.0 Regulation
6.1 Issues
y How do you create policy/ regulatory frameworks that protect individuals but
foster innovation?
y How do we engage government without getting buried in the red tape?
y Online fraud – resources available in Canada to detect prevent and deal with
fraud when it happens – cybercrimes units behind the times and need to stay
ahead of ‘the bad guys’

The regulation basket of issues was not discussed.

Plenary Discussion
What issues might be missing?

y This will be discussed on the online platform.

Who should be included in this consultation who is not here today?

What other sectors/stakeholders should be involved?

• Pacific Association of Artist Run Centres

• Librarians
• Parent Advisory Committees
• BC Teachers Federation
• Canadian Teachers Federation
• School Liaison Offices
• Vancouver Foundation
• BC School Trustees Association

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• City of Vancouver Cultural Affairs
• Youth
• More private sector
• ISP
• Technology providers
• Ministry of Education
• Gamers
• Police
• BC Youth and Care Network
• Google
• Bill and Steve
• Ministry of Employment and Labour Market Services
• Ministry of Housing
• Heritage Canada
• Immigration
• Entrpreneurial Development
• Services Canada (HRSDC)
• Intellectual property experts – lawyers
• Software developers

How might CIGF serve to help advance the issues?

y Longer time frame for the meetings so that we can get beyond brainstorming
y More substantive presentations and research
y Provide information about what is going on in other countries and in other models
y Keep the process going and sped up so that there are not long lags
y Balance in-person with an online forum and use meet-up
y Define what is the forum – its distinctive status and role
y Keep arms length to the government – this was brainstorming not consultation

Next Steps
• Provide a list of participants and contacts
• Follow-up with Jane Tallim if people want the PowerPoint presentation
• Set up an interactive online survey / forum for youth – and advertise it on MTV
• “Like” Damian’s group “Grunt Gallery” on Facebook
• Form a Committee Work Group
• Create a 30 second public service announcement (PSA) on YouTube – option to
use 3 Piece Media who have done similar PSAs effectively
• Send the meeting minutes

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