Monday, March 26, 2012
Digital Divide 2.0
The digital divide is something that has been plaguing and concerning the education community for some time now. The growing gap between people with access to computers and people without has no diminished as technology has become cheaper and a force found everywhere. The new problem, coined as "The Digital Divide 2.0", is the gap between people with home internet access and people without it.
Most schools these days provide computers with internet access for students to use as classroom resources. Even schools with low SES get grants and donated computers. And teachers are called on more and more to make technology apart of their classroom. They are supposed to find new and inventive ways to incorporate social media into lesson plans to keep students interested. But teachers can help lessen the hurt of the Digital Divide 2.0 by keeping assignments the require the internet to the classroom and not at home. If a homework assignment will require internet access, be sure to have time before and after school as well as during lunch that students can come into your classroom and work on the school computers.
Most schools these days provide computers with internet access for students to use as classroom resources. Even schools with low SES get grants and donated computers. And teachers are called on more and more to make technology apart of their classroom. They are supposed to find new and inventive ways to incorporate social media into lesson plans to keep students interested. But teachers can help lessen the hurt of the Digital Divide 2.0 by keeping assignments the require the internet to the classroom and not at home. If a homework assignment will require internet access, be sure to have time before and after school as well as during lunch that students can come into your classroom and work on the school computers.
My First Lesson Plan
With a fellow Secondary Education- Natural Science Major, I made a lesson plan that I hope to use in the future. It is for teaching unit conversions (English to SI as well as within the metric system) and basic dimensional analysis. The lesson plan we created is actually three different ways to teach the same lesson: the first is for a classroom where each student has their own computer to use, the second is for a classroom of 25 students and five computers, and the third is for a classroom in which the only computer is the teachers. I hope that you find it useful (and one day I will be able to use it!), if you have any comments please let me know. I can use any and all help in this point of my career.
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