The New Digital Divide

There is a new digital divide developing within education.  The most pressing issue is no longer the digital haves vs. the digital have-nots.  The issue has become digital immigrants vs. digital natives.  Natives usually play an integral role in assisting immigrants with learning customs of a new culture.  This is not the case in the education world.  In education, the digital immigrants must train and teach the digital natives.  This dichotomy is creating a great deal of tension.

Students at every grade level want to be engaged with technology in the classroom, just as they are engaged with technology outside of the classroom.  I teach high school sciences in an inner city school in a large district.  When my Biology students started working on a mock Facebook project, my Earth Science students came to me and said, “Can we do a Facebook project, too?”  When my Earth Science students were making animated public service announcements for a symposium, my Biology students came to me saying, “Can we use Go!Animate, too?”  Surprisingly, students must be talking about what is going on in their classes.  And somehow, my lessons involving technology became a topic of teenage discussion.  How often is it that students talk about what they did in class today?  And how rare is it that a student even thinks to himself, “I want to do that activity”?  Students are engaged by technology – but not technology for drill and practice.  They want to use technology for authentic, creative activities.  They need practice reading, writing, analyzing, synthesizing and forming opinion.  Technology can marry the two together if digital immigrants will provide the opportunities.

I was amazed recently when my administrator commented that I am one of the only teachers at my school who consistently and successfully integrates technology with my lessons.  Am I the only one?  When students use technology at home and in some classes but then sit at a desk in a classroom with an overhead projector and chalkboard, they frequently disengage.  The student plops his head on the desk, thinking “What? I have to take notes and listen to a boring lecture?  I wish I was home on XBOX Live or Facebook.”  That’s when the student slips out the smart phone from his pocket and posts “This English class is hecka whack” to his Facebook page.  Before he realizes, the teacher is at his desk, open hand extended, asking for him to give up the phone.

Wouldn't it be better and more engaging for students if the teacher said, “use your phone to post to our class Wiki about what you've been reading during our silent reading period?  If you don’t have a phone with internet, I’ll bring you an iPad.”  This gives students a chance to enter into the “conversation of their culture¹” using the technology of their culture.

Yet many teachers quiver at the thought of bringing out cell phones in class or using easily stolen iPads.  There are plenty of strategies for avoiding theft and administrators are becoming friendlier when it comes to using students’ personal technology for a classroom task.  Still, many teachers are hesitant to bring technology into the classroom because they fear that they will no longer be the expert in the room.  Here is where we digital immigrants need to recognize that it is OK not to be the expert.

When we offer students a chance to enter into the “conversation of their culture¹” using the technology of their culture, they will be the experts.  The excitement of “I know more than my teacher” spills over into engagement, effort and empowerment.  When students realize that they know something the teacher doesn't  they will frequently stand up and take a leadership role assisting peers.  I've seen it happen in my class. 

Engaged students work hard.   Engaged students, who need practice reading, writing, analyzing, synthesizing and forming opinions, will work hard on a task when it involves using the technology they want to use for authentic, creative activities.  We digital immigrants need to create the authentic opportunities for students to engage in our content, and then stand back and learn from them.

¹Gardner, H. (2004). The Unschooled Mind: How Children Think and How Schools Should Teach. New York: Basic Books. p. 263.

4.3 Social and Professional Networks Change how we Learn

The Internet has changed the way I access information and therefore it has affected the way I learn and communicate with the world.   For example, search engines allow me to be curious and follow my curiosity to an answer within minutes.  Via the extensive availability of resources like Google Scholar, online White Papers, YouTube and online university courses, I can go as deep into a topic as I want.  I can keep up with trends in education via LinkedIn, Edutopia and EducationWeek. 

I can stretch my technical know-how, build 21^st Century skills and establish a web presence by accessing free online resources like Picktochart, GradeCam, Collaborize Classroom, Google Sites, Blogger, wikkis, SlideShare and more.  In the New Media Age, learning and doing do not have to cost much more than your time and the cost of a device for online access. 

The Internet can distract me from focused learning, too.  I think in multiple directions at once.  As a result, I end up with 8 – 10 tabs open in multiple browsers on a daily basis.  That is just how I process.  I tend to want to extensively investigate and explore options before taking action or creating new content.  I may be writing a blog post and come to a thought that I want to explore further.  I could zip around the web for an hour or more before returning to the writing process.  And then, of course, I’ve left up five more tabs that I resist closing . . . I just don’t want to say goodbye to the content I’m holding in my mind.

Last week, I popped my computer onto the LCD projector to show some high school students the type of information available through Ancestry.com.  Sure enough, I heard gasps and laughs and “Oh my gosh, look at all the tabs she has open!”  High schoolers aren’t as likely to have “multi-tab browser disorder” like me, but they have other vices that slow them down in an online environment. 

Based on my observations and conversations with students, adolescents and young adults get distracted mostly by social media, music sites and online gaming.  When I walk the classroom supervising an online activity, I often see students attempting to hide their AngryBirds and drop down Pandora before I arrive at their desk.  This tells me that I need to keep working on creating engaging online activities that will keep a majority of the students focused on the task at hand. 

While high school students do get distracted in an online environment, that distraction can help them discover resources that can actually assist them in their learning.  One high school student I know stumbled across YahooAnswers when looking for help with a physics problem.  Now she uses the site regularly to check her work in physics and advanced math. 

When students come across an online tool that really helps them, they often share it with me.  Then I share the “new discovery” with all of my students.  In this way, I can support my students in using the Internet as their own personal learning space.  

2.2 Reflection: Methodologies of the Online Instructor

The role of the 21^st Century teacher is changing.  As flipped classrooms and blended learning environments become more prevalent, teachers must adapt to a new role that requires a greater degree of precision in written communication and creative approaches to individualized learning.  To prepare myself for teaching in online and blended learning environments, I will need to adjust several aspects of my instructional methodology.

           

While “many core elements and practices in successful ‘brick and mortar’ teaching are also present in the blended and online environment,” online teachers must take a step beyond and engage their students, determine student strengths and weakness, accommodate for learning disabilities and differentiate instruction all without ever meeting students face to face.  Online teachers must not expect that the technology in itself will keep online learners engaged.  The online teacher’s role includes creating or selecting engaging content and tasks that move students “beyond the mere acquisition of information into the development of critical thinkers and learners.”  As an online teacher, I will need to know how to create online discussions using Learning Management Systems AND know how to design discussion questions and feedback that get students analyzing, evaluating, creating and engaging in intelligent online debate.  From my practice in brick and mortar schools, I know that the skills needed to create, select and promote online discussions of this kind will take years to develop. 

Writing learning objectives and assessments for an online environment will be significantly different than in a typical face to face learning environment.  I will need to rethink the types of tasks that students can do and how to measure student learning.  When the entire Internet is at student fingertips, fact-based questions seem useless as an assessment.  Project based learning using 21^st Century tools seems much more fitting.  Asking students to synthesize and create is more appropriate in this environment than asking students to recall or understand. 

Online teachers must also infer student learning styles and learning disabilities through student communication.  I will have to remain alert to nuances of language and read between the lines.  In a brick and mortar school, I often pick up on body language and intonation.  These clues will be lacking in written communication.  I will need to pay close attention to word choice and even spelling.  Then I will need to ask carefully worded questions in order to investigate the need for accommodations and differentiation.  Student – Teacher email dialogue could provide clues about student comprehension, but it will take time and experience to develop an intuition able to identify those students most at risk.  An excellent resource for an online teacher would be a “red flag” list that alerts one to the types of comments that would likely require intervention.

As an online teacher, I will also need to improve and expand on my communication skills in order to best support student learning.  I will need to be very precise in my written communication and be aware of how my words can be interpreted.  In addition, I will need to increase my familiarity with video conferencing tools and research best practices in online communication.  As a frequent participant in webinars such “Making Digital Curricula Meaningful” provided by Education Week, I will be able to discern what can go well and what can go wrong in a synchronous web-mediated lesson.  This information will help me to learn from other’s mistakes and avoid common pitfalls.  I will also need to keep abreast of current trends in online education via websites like Edutopia and Ted Talks on Education.

While learning to teach in an online environment is a daunting task, it is necessary to engage 21^st Century learners and prepare them to be successful in the jobs of tomorrow.

Note: All quotes are from LEC Text Module 2, Online and Blended Learning: History and Concepts