Digital Badge # I – Chapter 12

In the section Digital Inequalities and the Participation Gap talks about the access to technology by students of various economic background or the digital divide.  The income of the family can certainly have an impact on a student’s ready access to devices and technologies.  But besides income being a factor, perhaps knowledge of the parent could also have an impact on the parent’s willingness to purchase electronic devices.  If the parent does not know how to use these devices and are concerned about the misuse of these devices by the student or even others directing malice towards the student then perhaps they may not be as willing to make the purchase or have internet access in the home. After all not all guardians are from the technology generation and can be influenced by the negative situations that they hear about briefly on the media.   The section goes on to say that African Americans and Latinos are more likely to have access to technology through the use of cell phone devices as opposed to actual computers, which can also be a disadvantage to these students.  It is possible to use a cell phone to complete some assignments but certainly a cell phone will not take the place of a word processing device when it comes to writing essays or reports.  There is a graph that shows access to technology in terms of income, in this graph it shows that income of under $30,000.00 greatly reduces access to technology.  In my previous employment in Virginia my job was to calculate family income in order to qualify migrant families for head start services, and I’m here to tell you that some of those families live on less than $14,000.00 a year and some are families of 5 or 6.  Perhaps you would think that they are lying about their income, well it was also my job to do home visits, and I saw how these families live, and I would find it hard to expect those families to make purchases of devices for their older children in order to complete school work, and unfortunately these student will be part of the digital divide because their parents can neither afford the devices nor do they understand these devices.


A good tool to use with students is emaze, its easy to use and students can also create their own presentation.


emaze created by Crystal Wood

In the section Bring Your Own Technology Programs, the section discusses the advantages and the disadvantages of the BYOD programs.  Although every student bringing in a device will increase there access to technology and enable them to further learn more ways to use the device.  There is the problem with the wide array of devices that students will bring in, perhaps the teacher does not have the knowledge necessary to work the device, also who is responsible for lost or stolen devices, and what about the content accesses on these devices? Is it appropriate?  While there are advantages to this program, I can also see disadvantages.  A disadvantage would also be to those students who do not own devices, will they feel left out? Or will they feel embarrassed about their older out of date device?  I do believe that devices are a great addition to curriculum and access to technology should be available to all students, but I also believe that the devices should be equally available and equivalent, which would allow all students the opportunity to learn on an even playing field and take advantage of technologies that some may not have access to at home.

Technology can be fun and interactive, FlipQuiz is an interactive activity that teachers can create easily for students to review lessons.  They can be simple or more advanced and the teacher creates the questions.

FlipQuiz created by Crystal Wood

In the section Using The Technology You Have Successfully, the section talks about teachers continually having to adapt to limited technologies available to them.  Some school have more advanced technologies available to them, while other school do not, which can be a disadvantage to many school today.  The section goes on to offer strategies for using technology in classrooms with limited computer access.  Although the classroom with few computers is limited, they can still be creative and the teacher can use small group activities to incorporate these computers into the lesson.  In small groups the students can access information, have online interactions, prepare presentations.  If the teacher develops a rotation pattern within their lesson plan then limited computer access can be overcome and students can still take advantage of lessons which include technology.

Sometimes teachers need to use the tools available to them in new and interesting ways, here is a tool that could be use to introduce an activity call: Making Fruit Salad.

What you need for fruit salad. on PhotoPeach

References:

Maloy, R. W., Verock-O'Loughlin, R., Edwards, S. A., & Woolf, B. P. (2014). Transforming learning with new technologies (2nd ed.). Boston, MA: Pearson Education, Inc.