Blog Journal #4

My experience with Twitter is very minimal. I have only ever had an academic Twitter account for my ENC2135 class. I found it to be very unnecessary in my academic needs. The 140 character limit hampered my ability to effectively ask questions and communicate with teachers and peers. However, I did find it to be beneficial in sharing links to videos and articles with my classmates. Twitter will helpful in my future career by providing a way to network with colleagues and communicate with students.

The digital divide is the gap between students who have internet access and technology at home versus the students that do not. The digital divide affects success rates of students in technologically advanced classrooms. Those that have access to the internet can effectively communicate with the teachers outside of class, immerse themselves in desired social medias, and keep up to date with current programs and technologies. Students without access to the internet and technology outside of the classroom find themselves in a disadvantage to those who are up to date with current technologies. Division of digital knowledge is often a result of upperclass and lower class students within the same classroom. This early development of digital divide can also be shown in the workplace as workers without prior technology access will fall behind to those who are knowledgable on current programs. As a future educator, I expect to teach students of all backgrounds and incomes equally so that there is no disadvantage within my classroom. I will accommodate to students with or without internet access by providing choices for completing assignments.  For example, for all online assignments I will provide a secondary printed copy for those who do not have access or prefer paper. Any assignment that requires internet access I will take my class to the computer lab.  I want my students to feel as though they all have an equal chance of success in my classroom.

As a future high school history teacher, I intend to use more simulation, drill-and-practice, and content-specific academic softwares. Simulation softwares can help my students to immerse themselves and interact within the time period I am teaching. Drill-and-practice will simply help my students to remember material through practice. Lastly, content-specific softwares can help to inform my students on additional material pertaining to the subject at hand. Conversely, I will shy away from softwares that involve educational games and problem-solving programs. There will be very little need for my students to problem solve within my history class; they will mostly need to grasp large subjects. My students will also belong to an older age group, therefore educational games will not be needed to enhance my teaching abilities.