Digital Divide issues that you may have in your classroom setting and possible solutions.
As copied from Wikipedia: "The term digital divide refers to the gap between people with effective access to digital and information technology and those with very limited or no access at all. It includes the imbalances in physical access to technology as well as the imbalances in resources and skills needed to effectively participate as a digital citizen. In other words, it is the unequal access by some members of society to information and communication technology, and the unequal acquisition of related skills. The term is closely related to the knowledge divide as the lack of technology cause lack of useful information and knowledge. The digital divide may be classified based on gender, income, and race groups, and by locations.[1] The term global digital divide refers to differences in technology access between countries or the whole world." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_divide
There are a few issues regarding Digital Divide that I have in my classroom. The first, as mentioned by others, is computer access at our school. In addition to finding the computer labs booked when I would like to reserve them during the school day, it is frustrating that students do not have access to the library past 3:15 each day. The good news for me is that with the stimulus money being offered to special education departments, our request for an EEN specific mobile lab may be able to be granted this year....my fingers are crossed. Additionally, I am fortunate that I share a "suite" with four other special education teachers and between our two rooms we have four student computers available. As a result, I can schedule evening study sessions with my students who are needing assistance on projects and/or time to catch up on the assigned readings in Kurzweil for their mainstream classes. The other huge Digital Divide issue I deal with is an imbalance in skills. My students are often in "Basic" classes in their core curriculum areas where the focus is on how to improve their reading comprehension, reading fluency, and basic writing skills....technology skills definitely take a back seat. As a result, when they have to do projects for elective classes they are at a loss, fall behind, and become very frustrated....and often times a behavior issue for the regular education teacher. My solution: This summer find the curriculum and create a semester long Basic Technology course for students in my department! How soon can I make this happen?....wish me luck! :)
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2 comments:
You raise an excellent point that is often over looked. We can no longer consider technical skills (21st century skills) as "non-essential" - they are more important then ever and if we let students fall behind in these skills then it compounds their other educational needs.
Connie
I like your idea of having a summer basic technology course. If you can pull this off let me know how you did it. But seriously, I deal with the same types of issues and the basic technology class offered in the summer sounds like a great potential solution.
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