The Digital Divide of Usage Instead of Access

About two weeks ago, I was working with my English language arts class on a literary analysis essay they were peer editing. One student's partner had to leave class early, so I encouraged the two of them to work together at home electronically via email or some other program; one of the students replied, "Yeah, no problem, we can just do it over Skype."

Right about that same time, this article appeared in the Denver Post in which it reported on the use of the internet by minority populations. Even though the article focused on race, I suspect there is a certain amount of socioeconomics that factors in as well, particularly since it refers to the use of smartphones and the like to access the internet which are much less expensive than a computer, particularly if given the choice between a phone with internet access included or a computer with internet access as a financial add-on. While a smartphone can get you online, you can still do more online with an actual computer, and that seemingly small difference is actually pretty huge.

I think part of the issue is also simply training and awareness of the potential represented by an online presence. The potentialities for the relay of information became incredibly apparent during the recent State of the Union speech by President Obama. As has been the case for many years now, there was a simple television broadcast carried by the various networks. However, for anyone with an online presence and who was interested, the experience became completely and totally different. The White House had a live streaming feed alongside of which was space alloted for graphs, images and so forth (The tag line: "Watch and Engage.") After the speech, various members of the White House staff took questions via Twitter and Facebook.

The Sunlight Foundation not only had a live stream of the speech via C-Span, but also had a live blog going on via Cover It Live with various journalists and others posting comments; questions; links to sites, files, and videos as a means to "fact check" the speech even as it was occurring as well as a live Twitter feed and posting of graphs and the like on the page as well. Anyone without internet access or who was busy watching cute kittens on YouTube was out of the conversation and denied the access to the information that was being shared. Now more than ever, it holds true that those without an online presence are simply not a part of the conversation.

It is not enough to teach our students how to use Power Point or how to use a word processing program. It is not enough to tell them about Facebook or Twitter. We must teach them how to use these (and other) tools to their advantage; we must show them the potentialities of the web beyond entertainment. We must close the new digital divide.

Worlde your way through vocabulary building

(Image from Wordle.)

Last week my Theory of Knowledge students and I attempted to define the word art. Now while this seems perhaps somewhat straightforward, and all we really needed to do was to consult a dictionary, in reality, we found the dictionary definition rather lacking, and so we decided to embark on our own definition, including the connotation of the word as well as its simple denotation. We sent out the question via text message, email, Facebook, Twitter, and I let my freshmen and sophomores join in the discussion by writing down their definitions on a 3x5 card and dropping it in the box. We ended up with some pretty amazing answers, and I decided to put the answers on the class blog page and to see what might happen if we decided to make a word cloud out of it. The answer is above and can be seen on the TOK blog as well. As I looked at the cloud, I realized that this has some potential when it comes to exploring word meanings, especially in regards to connotation and the ideas that each of us brings to and puts behind the words we use.

This is a tool I definitely plan to use again, not only for this class, but in my other classes whenever the opportunity permits. There was high student engagement, and our discussion was strengthened by the inclusion of the definitions of others. Very valuable indeed!

Back at work and back at live blogging

We had another live blogging session in my epistemology class today. The kids have really gotten into it; it's definitely become a part of the classroom culture. Actually, yesterday we had a brief moment of panic when I said we were going to discuss the blog topic but not have an online conversation. The kids misunderstood and thought that I was saying that we weren't going to use coveritlive anymore, and I almost had a mutiny on my hands. Today's conversation was "What is the goal of science?" Before we started the conversation, I asked the students to take out their phones and turn them on. There were a few sheepish looks from the students who already had them on, and general confusion all around. One student looked at me, laughed, and said, "You know they're waiting for the snatch and grab, don't you?" Once the phones were on, I had them send text messages to as many people as they wanted to (preferably not other students), asking those people what they thought the goal of science was. It was pretty amazing... I think many of the students were a bit surprised to be using their cell phones and sending text messages as part of class work, but they certainly weren't complaining. As messages came in, we added them to our class discussion on coveritlive, where John Albright and someone named Angel had joined us.

I love the fact that the students have taken to this so readily and have really become much more active participants in class discussions; it's even bringing out the "wall flowers," especially when they could incorporate text messaging. My only wish now is to get more people participating in the live blog that are not only outside of the building, but outside of the district (and not just through text messaging); I've begun posting the links and notifications on Twitter, Facebook, The Global Education Collaborative, and even MySpace, but we haven't quite gotten the response I've been hoping for, at least not yet. Then again, it's new, so I'm not really discouraged, either... I figure once I make this a more regular thing, I'll get more outside participation.

(Cross posted to the Global Learner blog.)