Video Post- Failed

I was going to make a sincere effort to get over my fear of video posting for our final blog session, but when I attempted to upload I was told that the file size was too large! It was all of four minutes, so I am not sure why this is occurring. How frustrating!

I too, was interested in the technological divides discussed in the MacArthur Foundation report. First, I thought the point about the generational divide and our tendency to dismiss what students do online as being another "kids these days" topic was really relevant. It is our tendency to compare our students' experiences with our own past, and to feel nostalgic for the way things were when we were walking to school, five miles, uphill, both ways in our childhood. I am guilty of this in my own practice as well. When I ask a student what they did after school and they tell me they played on the computer, I tend to tune out the rest and think, "why aren't they playing outside?" However, like it or not, this is how our students are choosing to spend their time and we have to pay attention to that. So much of what you read about in education emphasizes the importance of getting to know your students, and their digital activity is just one more thing that we need to learn about so that we can be connected with our kids.

The other component of the digital divide, the discrepancy between students' technology use in and out of the classroom, is also of importance. I graduated college in May, and about one third of my friends now hold a job title that has the word "digital" in it. Whether working in the field of social media, digital marketing, or production this is the world our students will be entering. No longer does proficiency in Microsoft Word cut it as a technological skill, nor is that the type of technology our students are interacting with when they go home in the afternoon. I tend to shy away from technology in my own practice because it is something I am often unfamiliar with, but this article really helped me to see the flaws in my own approach. Like getting to know your students, bridging the divide between school and home is another hot topic in education. One way to achieve this is to align our digital practices in the classroom more closely with the digital practice of students when they are outside of school. Clearly there is research supporting the potential benefits of such technology use. This, coupled with the reality of the digital world we inhabit, is yet another impetus to help our students become digitally literate in a practical, applicable fashion.

Lizzie Smith