Digital Divide and Digital Literacy: Learning Technologies to Bridge the Digital Divide Week 2

  

The term “digital divide” is an all-encompassing concept that covers the multitude of ways students might be disadvantaged when it comes to access, use, and understanding of various digital tools, equipment, and resources. In my context of a middle school in Anna, Texas, the digital divide is quite apparent from access to technology to digital literacy. In my current role as Team Lead of the ELAR Department and 8th grade ELAR teacher, I am seeing several dividing factors that are creating instances of inequality across students on my campus and in my district. The biggest challenge I am currently seeing among students is their lack of digital literacy.  

My district is fortunate enough to be able to provide a Chromebook to every student, but there is no training or lessons on how to use this technology both safely and effectively. I believe part of this issue stems from the COVID-19 Pandemic. Because of the rampant spread of the virus, schools were almost instantly forced to shut their doors and switch to virtual learning. The good news is that my district was able to keep teaching through means of technology. However, I believe this created an issue with long-lasting impacts. Research by van de Werfhorst et al. (2022) reiterates the inequalities that came as a result, “The COVID-19 pandemic has forced schools to rapidly digitize their educational process and demanded from children to be educated in an online environment (Werfhorst et al., 2022) Because of this almost overnight switch with no accompanying digital use lessons, some students were, in a sense, left behind.  

This overload of technology is producing a generation that is both addicted to and inadequately skilled in technology. From source credibility to an inability to manage screen time, students are completely lacking the tools to handle the ever-increasing technology within their world, and it just might have been propelled by the drastic switch to online learning during the pandemic. Without the tools to navigate technology, students are going to fall further behind which results in another layer of the digital divide. Werfhorst et al. notes, “The more education is digitalized, the more such inequalities may lead to unequal opportunities to academically perform” (Werfhorst et al., 2022). Teachers and other stakeholders need to be aware of the dangers that can result from a district full of students who aren’t properly educated in the use of technology. Moving forward, there needs to be conversations about how to fix this issue to provide our students with the tools necessary to succeed.  

 

References  

van de Werfhorst, H.G., Kessenich, E., & Geven, S. (2022). The digital divide in online education: Inequality in digital readiness of students and schools.  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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