Digital Divide Cassandra Johanns , Brianna Schroeder, Kristine Swenson

1. Digital Divide Cassandra Johanns, Brianna Schroeder, Kristine Swenson • Introduction • Digital divide is the gab between those individuals and communities that have, and do not have, access to the information technologies that are transforming our lives. • There are many different view points on how important and influential the digital divide is in our society. People who believe that the digital divide is a concern in today’s society believe: it is not fair to those that do not have access when there are simple ways to raise money to get technology to the places that need it. These places include: libraries, schools and community centers. Those who think that the digital is not a major concern to today society think that the money can be used for more important things to help the community. Also those people think that the digital divide is not important because people have been without technology in the past. Therefore , people can survive and succeed without the use of major technology. After seeing the different view points on the digital divide we noticed that people’s view points may result from their use of technology in the classroom when they were in school. • Nothing drastic is being done about the digital divide but it’s rather communities and nonprofit organizations that are stepping in and are trying to bridge the gap so that the students are given the opportunity to work with technology. One organization called the “The Computers for School Foundation” collects used computers and then refurbishes them and then gives them to K-12 schools. This program has been running for about 30 years now and has distributed over 80,000 computers all across the country to all 50 states. In many districts, the Computers for Schools program is the only source of computer equipment. Nobody believes that technology will be a quick-fix solution to poverty, but ensuring that underserved individuals and communities can access education and tools to improve the quality of their lives certainly appears to be a critical piece of the answer. • After conducting our research we asked questions that we wanted to know along with what we thought others wanted to know about the digital divide. The questions we asked were personal because we wanted to see how the digital divide has affected each person individually. Some other questions we asked dealt with their general understanding of the digital divide. These questions gave us a knowledge of what their background was with the digital divide Findings • Conclusion • We concluded that the Digital Divide really does have a big impact on our peers. • Majority of the people we surveyed used technology in their own classrooms growing up and thought that it has helped them a lot in enabling them to further their career and education. • There were a lot of people that had no idea or a vague idea of what the digital divide actually is even though it is still really important to our society today. • Doing this survey has helped us realize that technology is an important factor in the classrooms for teachers and students. • Because of what we learned we now know that technology is important in our classroom and we will strive to be able to use it to better our students learning. • Methods • We invited 29 people to take our survey on the Digital Divide. • We received 20 responses from the 29 invitations. • Our response rate for our survey was 68.96%. Not that great, but we still gathered enough information to get a good knowledge for what people thought about the digital divide and how it has affected them personally. • - The questions that we asked in our survey about the Digital Divide were: • 1). What is your definition of the digital divide? • 2). Do you think technology in the classroom is important and why? • 3). Did you have more than two different types of technology in the classroom (ex: computer, smart-board, video games, etc.) • (yes or no) • 4). Which different kinds of technology did you use in the classroom? (check all that apply) • - Computers • - Smart-board • - Video games • - Podcasts • - Microscopes • - Scientific calculator • - Games (hand held games such as jeopardy) • Other • 5). Describe your school district (check all that apply) • - Public school • - Private school • - Rural setting • Urban setting • 6). Do you think having technology in the classroom is based on the amount of money schools receive? (yes or no) • 7). How often did you use technology in Grade School? • - Every day • - Once a week • - Once a month • Never • 8). Your use of technology in the classroom enabled you to further your education. (True or False) • 9). What social class do you think has more technological opportunities? • - Lower class • - Middle class • Upper class • 10). The digital divide is a major issue in today’s society. (True or False) This graph tells us that most people have a vague understanding of the digital divide. They have a general idea of what the digital divide represents but does not see the whole concept of it. • References • Besser, H. (n.d.). UCLA. The Digital Divide: Politics & Education. Howard Besser. Teaching to Change LA: an online journal of IDEA, UCLA's Institute for Education, Democracy, & Access. Retrieved February 25, 2010, from • http://www.tcla.gseis.ucla.edu/divide/politics/besser.html • Dickard, N. (2010). The Digital Divide: Where We Are | Edutopia. Improving Public Schools & Public Education | Edutopia. Retrieved January 21, 2010, from http://www.edutopia.org/digital-divide-where-we-are-today • Digital Divide Data - Digitization & IT services with a social impact. (n.d.). Digital Divide Data - Digitization & IT services with a social impact. Retrieved February 25, 2010, from http://www.digitaldividedata.org/ • - Education World: Technology in the Classroom: Caught in the Digital Divide. (2000). Education World: The Educator's Best Friend. Retrieved January 22, 2010, from http://www.educationworld.com/a_tech/tech041.shtml • - Gorski, P. (2001). Understanding the Digital Divide. EdChange - Diversity, Multicultural, Cultural Competence, Inclusion, & Social Justice Training and Workshops. Retrieved January 22, 2010, from http://www.edchange.org/multicultural/net/digdiv.html • Trotter, A. (2007, September 12). Education Week's Digital Directions: Digital Divide 2.0. Education Week American Education News Site of Record. Retrieved February 25, 2010, from http://www.edweek.org/dd/articles/2007/09/12/02divide.h01.html Our data from this graph shows us that many students were privileged to have the use of technology in their classroom once a week. This shows us that most of the people that were surveyed had the knowledge of what it was like to have technology in the classroom. This data shows us that technology is important to people and future. They also believe that technology has given them more opportunities to further their education and career.