Blogs on Digital Divide

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Mary Beth HertzMarch 13, 2013

Back in 2011, I wrote a post about the "New Digital Divide." Based on Pew Research data from 2011, it was apparent that, while many previously marginalized populations now had more access to the Internet, these populations were accessing the Internet mostly through mobile devices, which are limiting, especially when trying to build and create online or access job applications or opportunities. Just this past week, Pew released a new study called How Teachers Are Using Technology at Home and in Their Classrooms. It explores how teachers use the Internet for their own professional learning, with their students and for communicating with families.

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Lori DayJanuary 3, 2013

At the highest performing urban school in the city of Providence, Rhode Island, the mantra when it comes to education is "children always come first. " And it isn't easy.

Like most public charter schools, the Paul Cuffee School strives to provide the same excellence in educational technology as nearby public schools, but because resources must primarily be allocated to paying salaries and leasing school buildings, extra money for technology is scarce.

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Ben JohnsonOctober 22, 2012

Yes, let's give students iPads so they can be smarter and learn better. It sounds so easy. The reality is that there are many unknowns, like how do you hand out 800 iPads and keep track of which student has which iPad, and how do you get 800 students to register with iTunes so they can use their iPads on the school system? (The school system: How do you provide enough bandwidth for 800 iPads? That's another challenge entirely!)

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Lisa Michelle DabbsSeptember 25, 2012

A few weeks ago I was listening to one of my favorite classical radio stations and heard the DJ mention that a famous pianist likes to say he is a "painter at the piano." I thought it was a great metaphor to describe the way many artists and professionals feel about the tools of their work. For example, a carpenter could be a painter with a hammer, a potter could be a painter with a wheel . . . I could go on and on.

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Nicholas ProvenzanoSeptember 18, 2012

Teachers spend countless hours learning new tools to use in class, but do they set aside any time for students to learn these new tools as well? Too often, we assume that students know all about this stuff because they are young and hip to the whole technology thing. That's one of the worst assumptions a teacher can make about a student. Assuming student skills can be a fast track to student failure.

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Heather Wolpert-GawronJune 28, 2012

I see technology differentiation as vital to the education of our students. It's like there are different tiers of possibility.

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Mary Beth HertzApril 30, 2012

We often pontificate about the "haves" and the "have-nots" in our schools -- the unfair way that schools are funded, the ways in which some of our students are robbed of opportunity while others are awash in it.

What we don't reflect on enough is how some educators are connected to the global community, emerging trends and research, and larger conversations around reform and the direction of global education in general -- and how so many other educators are simply not tapped into that world.

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Anne OBrienFebruary 23, 2012

In That Used to Be Us, Tom Friedman and Michael Mandelbaum call the flattening of the world "the most profound inflection point for communication, innovation, and commerce since the Gutenberg printing press."

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Mary Beth HertzFebruary 14, 2012

Just recently I was lucky enough to attend a Hackjam session at the wonderful Educon conference here in Philadelphia. After we hacked Monopoly by reinventing the game, we were introduced to the tool Hackasaurus, which allows students to not only see, but manipulate the code on a website.

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Sugata MitraFebruary 3, 2012

In early 1999, some colleagues and I sunk a computer into the opening of a wall near our office in Kalkaji, New Delhi. The area was located in an expansive slum, with desperately poor people struggling to survive. The screen was visible from the street, and the PC was available to anyone who passed by. The computer had online access and a number of programs that could be used, but no instructions were given for its use.

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