For all students, becoming fluent with the use of technology is critical in this ever-evolving digital world, both for their education and future opportunities. Unfortunately, not all of us have equal opportunities to online access and modern technology. This gap in one’s opportunity is known as the “digital divide”. Australia is considered a lucky country, in that overall it has a very high percentage of households already online. Yet still, according to Thomas, “Austalia’s internet is highly stratified, with more than three million people not online and a very uneven distribution of digital skills and capabilities”. Socio-economic factors, geographical factors and education can all contribute to this evident divide in our users today.
It’s needless to say that a more affluent person is likely to have better access to the internet and more advanced technology, than lower-income families. This advantage considered the norm for the affluent, can be seen as a luxury for the lower class person. Rural areas also face disadvantages with the lack of speedy reliable internet connections. Regardless of the which contributing factor is responsible for the digital divide, as educators, we must accommodate diversity and aim to bridge the gap in the classroom. Learning needs to be accessible at all times equally by all students. This is easier said than done. As teachers, we cannot completely solve the imbalance of technology access for our students, but we can help equal the playing field. Understanding a student’s access outside of the classroom is important when assigning homework and assignments. We can steer our students in other directions, such as using public libraries or even after school computer lab access. No matter which way we look at it the digital divide will always exist, but we have the power and resources to work around it.
References
Howell, J. (2012). Teaching with ICT: Digital Pedagogies for Collaboration and Creativity. South Melbourne, VIC: Oxford University Press.
Gonzalez, D. (2014). Digital Divide in the Classroom-Innovation: Education. Retrieved from http://tiie.w3.uvm.edu/blog/digital-divide- in-the-classroom/#.ws2vpft_u1l.
NetRef. (2016). The Digital Divide in the Age of the Connected Classroom. Retrieved from https://net-ref.com/whitepaper- connected-classroom/.
Thomas, J. (2017). Australia’s Digital Divide Creates New Inequalities. Retrieved from https://www.rmit.edu.au/news/all- news/2017/jun/australias-digital-divide-creates-new-inequalities.
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