While re-reading the preface today this quote struck a chord in me.
"Although almost 100% of schools have an Internet connection, far fewer than 100% of our kids have meaningful access." pg. viii
Not all current students are true Digital Natives, especially if they fall into the low income bracket. I teach at low income Title 1 school where 80% of the students receive free or reduced lunch. We also have two gifted classes where most of those students are middle income. So there is a stark disparity of income levels from extreme poverty to the average family that is doing well. With the great divide of income also comes the digital divide. Students in the middle income level are far more advanced with basic computer skills and their ability to adapt to new programs, where as the low income level students often need a great deal of help and get confused and frustrated easily. It is a serious problem that needs to be addressed; these students are not only getting left behind because of family and money issues, teacher issues at school and now they are getting left behind in the digital age. I know we can do things to help this situation; but I don't want to go on a social and political tirade. I just hope for the students sake, that we can help build a bridge so these kids do not get left behind forever.
When I got my grade for my submission, my instructor replied with the following:
The digital divide is, indeed, an issues we must address. Research show that even when low SES kids use computers at school it is for lower level tasks such as drill and skill practice. So, even at a place where we can be helping bridge the divide we are often contributing to it! Thanks for your comments.
Her comments reminded me of something that happened this week. I really wanted my students to type up the writing project they are working on when the went to their computer activity. The computer teacher at first said, "sure, great yeah." when I asked if the students could type their stories in her class in this upcoming week. But then a day later she came up to me in the lounge and said that they would not be able to do it. When I asked why, she said, they can't type. I was flabbergasted. That in my opinion is like me telling a teacher I'll teach their class a song and then coming back to that teacher and saying that the kids can't sing. How can someone say with a straight face that the kids cant type and they are the computer teacher??!?!? I'm still a little stunned but she went on to explain that all they do in computer class are math or vocabulary drills which do not require typing. I am just left feeling sad, not for myself or my project, for my students.
1 comment:
I also teach at a school where the majority of students are lower middle class or low income. In my own classroom, which is a Multi-Handicapped class, only 2 students have home computers. I really agree with you when you say that many students are being left behind in the digital age. I am trying to work very hard so that my students, who have many issues with reading and writing, can still use the Web for creation, not just, as you said was happening in your computer lab (and MANY other computer labs), drill and practice. Our whole staff (by the way, I teach in a very small school, where the whole student population K-12 is only about 215 kids!) went to a technology conference last Monday, an inservice day. I was very excited because there were sessions on wikis and digital comics and exciting things that I was studying in my UF class. I was busy looking at the offerings during a team meeting when one of the other special ed teachers said, "It's really not worth our time to go, there's only 1 offering for us." I was so disappointed he felt that way because MANY of the offerings could be used by our kids. The session he was talking about was one on the uses for Co-Writer and Write Out Loud, which are adaptive technology programs that can be used by kids who have trouble reading and writing. But I was telling him about the wiki class and how I was going to try to set up a wiki for my kids so they could do some interactive writing, and you would have thought I was growing another head or something--he just said it wouldn't work, why bother? I really agree with your comment, "Not all current students are true Digital Natives, especially if they fall into the low income bracket." I am going to keep following your blog so I hope you keep posting things you do with your class. I used to live in St. Cloud and we came to Titusville a lot.
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