Digital Divide/Digital Inequality

VoiceThread Presentation
Google Doc Presentation

The digital divide has been at the forefront of my mind during my educational technology coursework, so I have been looking forward to this assignment.  I knew going in that the digital divide is an issue in my district, since I have had many students who self-report that they do not have access to a computer or Internet connection at home, so I was eager to dig into some of the data surrounding the digital divide as well as to explore possible solutions.

In the articles I read while working on this, most of the steps I found to address the digital divide would need to occur at a district or government level rather than in the classroom.  I am glad to have a deeper understanding of the systemic approaches since some are already being discussed in my district and others are likely to arrive in the near future, especially given that our demographic trends suggest we will have a growing number of students on the wrong side of the digital divide.  More and more, I am convinced that to get the full benefits of a 1:1 device or BYOD program, the district must also take steps to ensure more households have access to broadband.

I would like to learn more about what individual teachers can do at the classroom level to address the digital divide and plan to explore that through future coursework, professional learning communities, and independent reading.  I tend to avoid requiring the use of technology in assignments students will complete outside of the classroom to prevent putting students without a home computer at a disadvantage, but this limits what I can have my students do.  There must be better ways to approach this problem and, until a broadband connection is as ubiquitous as electricity, teachers need to keep seeking out those better ways.