Blogs on Digital Divide

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!)

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.

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.

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.