|
The status of the "Digital Divide" - the gap between people and communities who can make effective use of online technology and those who cannot-is the subject of vigorous debate. By the fall of 2001, 99 percent of K-12 schools had computers with internet access-so does that mean the digital divide is now resolved_
Hardly, according to PT3 grantees active on this issue. Bob McLaughlin, executive director of the National Institute for Community Innovations, and Joyce Pittman, a faculty member with the University of Cincinnati Teachers College, believe the gap between the online information "have's" and "have-not's" remains unacceptably wide.
Worse, reliance on broad statistics about the number of computers in the classroom glosses over such underlying problems as the ability of teachers to effectively use the technology, students' and teachers' access to computers outside of school, the lack of just-in-time technical support, and access to culturally relevant content. Unfortunately, according to McLaughlin, one of the more insidious results of the digital divide is that classroom computer use tends to be "dumbed down" in underserved communities, with a greater emphasis on vocational skills than on critical thinking skills.
Part of the solution needs to come from teacher preparation programs, McLaughlin and Pittman say. "Many [teacher preparation] programs place the best teachers in the best schools," Pittman says. "That is a trend that must stop."
They both agree that future teachers need to better understand the scope and nature of the digital divide-and how to overcome obstacles. As educational technology is integrated into teacher education, future teachers need to learn how to adapt what they are learning to classrooms with fewer and older computers, less technical support, and more students with less hands-on extracurricular experience.
"If future teachers are empowered to harness the wealth of online educational material at their disposal," Pittman says, "they will be able to overcome the inequities that exist in their buildings."
McLaughlin agrees, and adds that future teachers also need to be empowered to serve as educational technology advocates in their schools, especially in underserved schools. All teachers should be trained to find free computer resources in their communities for their students, he says. And teacher educators and the ed tech community need to do a better job of assessing and documenting the learning benefits of technology if they hope to win over the skeptics among their ranks-and among the ranks of those who control spending priorities.
Following are just a few of the many PT3 grant projects that address digital equity issues as part of an effort to reform their teacher preparation program:
- Sisseton-Wahpeton Community College is an isolated tribal college in South Dakota that is partnering with a four-year institution 90 miles away to "grow its own" Native American teachers.
- Xavier University of Louisiana, the only historically black Catholic university in the western hemisphere, has assumed a leadership role in raising the bar for African American teacher candidates nationwide, and its teachers are making an impact among underserved schools in New Orleans and surrounding parishes.
|
