Working at a high-poverty school has exposed me to the digital divide in different ways every day. Out of my own group of students, I was very surprised that most of the students do have a computer at home. Many of them received this computer when they were at the Newcomer’s School. Some of them do not have Internet access, and most of them who do have access have issues with the Internet frequently and mention that they have access because they are getting it from their neighbor’s house. I know that my students often use the computer to help their parents with getting different information. In almost all cases, my students speak better English than their parents so they have a big responsibility in their families. One of my students knew what DOB stood for because she had spent so much time helping her mother fill out job applications. Almost all of my students have Facebooks and email addresses. However, many of them do not know how to do relatively easy things on the computer. I am not sure how all of them discovered Facebook so quickly!
“Investigating Children’s Emerging Digital Literacies” gave me more insight into the digital divide. Although most of my students have access to computers, I know that they do not spend a lot of time on them. Many of them are from big families so the sharing aspect is probably part of it. They are also expected to help out a lot with chores and many of them work with their parents, so that is probably another reason why they do not spend a lot of time on the computer. A big difference that the article discussed was the difference between leisure time on the computer between low-income and middle-income families. The middle-income families had much more leisure time on the computers. This leisure time is what helps them to develop such fluency in using the computer, because they are able to simply play around with it. Talking on AIM allows them to increase their typing speed, which is very helpful for school assignments. My students peck at the computer keys and it is painful to watch. When they watch me type they are amazed at how fast I can go and how I don’t look at the keys. I can tell just by watching my students type, who spends more time on the computer at home. In addition, my students with the least amount of access needed help at the beginning of the year with seemingly simple word-processing skills: copy and pasting, printing, capitalizing letters, and more. It is very important to me to use technology in my classroom because I want my students to be familiar with using the computer. I also know that if they are familiar with using the computer, they will be able to help their other family members with it.
It was very interesting in class to see the Digital Divide between schools that are in the same county. I am at a school that has an amazing amount of technology, but there are many teachers who do not take advantage of this technology at all. I’m not sure if there has been Professional Development in the past since this was my first year, but technology was never mentioned at any meetings and we did not have any Professional Development on it this year. I was never informed of what was available to me and had to search around to discover what we have. I think it is very unfortunate that there are teachers who are knowledgeable of how to use this technology but their schools do not have the resources available to them to make it possible. Even with the large amount of technology available to me at my school, I get frustrated because I only have two computers in my room and it would be amazing to have a few more because it is hard to get computer lab time. I can only imagine how frustrating it would be for the teachers who barely have anything available to them at their schools! With so many students who have limited access to computers at home, it is very necessary for schools to provide access in order to expose them to technology that truly is vital to their success.
Jennifer Clancy
1 comment:
You made many valid points in your response. It was interesting that you discovered many students had internet access through the use of their neighbors. I had not even thought about that before but that is very common in our communities. Some might even have access with internet through smartphones that their parents have as they travel near locations such as hotels and Panera who might also have internet access. I know my mom has a laptop but does not currently have internet in her home because she can just go down the street to the hotel where they have free internet service. It has been interesting to read about how families can find resources that they need nearby.
Many of my ESL children participate in family conferences because they do in fact speak better English than their family members. I have some parents who do not understand any English at all. I have seen children help their parents navigate the internet or computer because of the language barrier. I was not surprised that low-income families are able to use their computer for work-related! Although this difference between middle/low-income families exist, I do not think this affects the amount of exposure or experience children have with word processing or powerpoint. Middle-income children may have better coordination and familiarity with vocabulary and tools but when it comes to putting together a media project on the computer, they seem to have the same amount of difficulty typing, using shortcuts, etc. I saw you mentioned you felt it was important to use this technology to help expose them to that and I think this is true for all students. I do not know one 8 year old who uses Excel in their spare time or even creates a powerpoint presentation to show their parents!
I feel that even when teachers do recieve PD on a resource, they seldom use it. I am at a school that has very little in technology but do possess 2 CPS systems. A few people have used the CPS in PD of other programs just to show teachers the various features and how to use it. They seem so intrigued and interested by it yet one CPS stays in my room, and the other one next door because we are the only two people in the school that use it. I think it would be more benefital for teachers to spend time in PD setting it up and developing lessons to use in the future than sitting through demonstrations. I think it is hard for teachers to find the extra time to learn something new!
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