Week 2 Blog Post
Week 2 Blog Post
There can be many perspectives on the dividing factors for my specific community. In Wilmon Brown’s work, he mentions how there can be limited technology due to costs (Brown, 2020). For my particular community, there have been issues with students receiving proper and updated technology for their schooling efforts. While we are ahead other districts nationwide by providing students directly with laptops, these laptops are incredibly outdated. Students, as well as teachers, are finding difficulty keeping up due to this lack of resources. Students have to endure the most struggle. Students are expected to use the same laptop they received from elementary school through high school graduation. When I heard this, I could not believe it was real. There needs to be a better system in place to give students more updated technology so they can utilize it as best as possible. Another issue students of mine could potentially run into is internet access at home. Brown’s work also mentioned that lower-income households cannot provide their children with the proper connection their computers need (Brown, 2020). Although this may not be the case for most students in my district, it is still a potential problem I could see happening. The student devices are already difficult to utilize in themselves, let alone not having the proper connection at home, which would make using them almost impossible. To back this point up further, in Roberto Gallardo’s work, students in high digital divide counties have more than double the chance of having a computer yet have no internet at home to use said computer (Gallardo, 2022).
Another potential dividing factor could be demographics. Most students in my community and district are Hispanic or other minorities. Although Gallardo’s work shows that minorities are more likely to experience lower levels of inequity when it comes to accessing technology, it stated to take into account that most minorities live in the city where there is a lower digital divide because it is more urban and modern (Gallardo, 2022). I believe for my specific community, there is probably a higher digital divide among minority students because we do not live in a city. I believe if Gallardo’s work only took into account minorities in suburban or rural areas, there would be a higher disparity in terms of the digital divide for them (Gallardo, 2022).
The findings associated with challenges from COVID are also considered in my community. Werfhorst’s work mentions the difficulties and extent to which teachers use technology in the classroom (Werfhorst & Colleagues, 2022). Many older teachers in my building struggle with the use of technology. This part of the digital divide has not been discussed enough. Although my project will not primarily focus on this, it is something I can keep on my radar. I believe it is crucial to get teachers to more training days so they know how to use the technology properly. If the teachers cannot utilize the technology properly, how can we expect the students to know what they are doing as well? It is essential that we all work towards digital literacy for both the teachers and the students. The article also mentioned how it measured school digital readiness by considering digital infrastructure (Werfhorst & Colleagues, 2022). This is an essential tool to measure in a post-COVID world. We need to understand the importance of device quality. For my specific community, I believe the quality of devices within my district is poor. While it is good to see that students have technological materials, I wish to seek change by getting them more updated materials.
References
Brown, W. (2020). Digital Divide. Retrieved from: https://open.library.okstate.edu/learninginthedigitalage/chapter/the-digital-divide/
Gallardo, R. (2022). The State of the Digital Divide in the United States. Retrieved from: https://pcrd.purdue.edu/the-state-of-the-digital-divide-in-the-united-states/
van de Werfhorst, H.G., Kessenich, E., & Geven, S. (2022). The digital divide in online education: Inequality in digital readiness of students and schools. Retrieved from: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9435462/pdf/main.pdf
It is hard to conceive the lack of technology in many regards, as a competent laptop can be had for a couple hundred dollars and will last for years, unless abused. I would question this as a prioroty-level misappropriation of funds. Cell phones are more than this. This and digital literacy. Somethings just need to be mandatory to engage. This may sound harsh, but it is my opinion.
ReplyDeleteAlex,
ReplyDeleteI can not believe that your school system uses the same laptops for their entire career in school. The district I work in replaces them after 4 years of use, however we just use iPads so it is a touch cheaper in that sense. Teachers are all issued MacBooks and those are replaced every 4 years as well. When we get new devices in our district they sell off the old iPads and laptops at a very discounted price which also gives students the opportunity to purchase a device to use at home, or even after high school. I purchased my sons MacBook from the sale when he graduated high school and he was able to use it in college. Maybe this type of system would work for your district? A laptop does not have a life span to last a student through their entire schooling so I imagine that is going to cause many issues as a students get up in grade levels. I can't wait to hear what type of solutions you come up with.
Hi Alex
ReplyDeleteI am also having a similar problem in my community as the school implemented a no cellphone policy in the classroom and we do not have any other technological devices to use in the classroom besides us the teachers using our laptops for slide and video presentations. The fact that your school expects students to keep their laptops from elementary to high school is amazing to me - with all the updates and advancements in technology - there is no way these devices will be useful in the classroom today. I assume there would be a lot of distractions when attempting to infuse technology into your class. This would be frustrating for me as a teacher.
I dont know how they can expect a student to carry the same laptop from grade school to graduation, the hardware won't support updated programs especially if they are a windows product. With an apple product they might last longer as the OS is updated annually with updated programs but even that may not have more than a ten year window. that is absolutely baffling. Has your school looked into any grants or tech programs that can assist with this situation?
ReplyDeleteHi Alex,
ReplyDeleteWell done on another blog post. You did an excellent job of weaving in the works of Brown and Gallardo within the context of your community. Having a lack of resources, especially how long your students have to hang onto the same technology for so long is definitely a major inhibitor. This not only hinders their learning experience but also impacts their ability to stay competitive in a rapidly evolving world. I'm excited to see how your research and perspectives continue to develop throughout this class.
All the best,
James Robinson