Digital Divide

I am not surprised by the digital divide because of the academic achievement gap between poor and wealthy school districts as Sandy mentioned. Schools that have lower-income students have less funding for the kind of improvements needed for learning.

Poor school districts are not using technology to enhance teaching and access of information available to studetns. The students at these schools do not get the same learning advantages as those students attending a wealthier school.

The article by Alec MacGillis, "Law, Software fuel new 'digital divide', states that teachers in lower economic school districts use technology to replace themselves as teachers for a certain part of the day. They do not use technology to enhance learning. It is not used as something engaging for students. This is not beneficial to students' learning. Technology should be used to benefit student learning.

This digital divide is only going to keep increasing the academic one if something is not done. For the future, educators need to be aware of this and take it into account when teaching. Wealthier school districts should try to provide help for poorer school districts by raising money or finding computer companies to sponsor grants. As educators, we need to bridge this digital divide in the United States.