I currently teach SDC Algebra at Grand Terrace High School in California. Grand Terrace is a community of 12,500 and has the highest median income in the region. Grand Terrace High School pulls students from 3 different cities: Grand Terrace, Colton, and Bloomington.

Digital Divide shows differences in:
Gender
Socio-economic Status
Developed vs Developing Worlds
Age of User
Ethnicity
Parent Education
Household type
Disability


Areas to look at:
Internet Use (at home)
Broadband Access (at home)
Mobile Access
City the student lives in

As you can see, there isn't much difference in online use between women and men.

71% of Men go online.
70% of Women go online.


*According to Emerging Learning Technologies/Digital Divide (Wikibooks) (2007).

Online use by ethnicity varies more.

78% of English Speaking Hispanics go online.
73% of Non-Hispanic whites go online.
62% of Blacks go online.


*According to Emerging Learning Technologies/Digital Divide (Wikibooks) (2007).

Grand Terrace High School is a very diverse high school. We have a total of 2310 students. Following are our ethnicity numbers:

Hispanic 771 F, 797 M, 1568 Total
White 178 F, 187 M, 365 Total
Black: 124 F, 113 M, 237 Total
Other: 59 F, 81 M, 140 Total

There are 3 main issues that affect our students at GTHS.

1. Some teachers use the chromebooks and some do not. Age sometimes has a factor.

2. Do students have a computer at home or only their mobile device? How can they access online classes without one?

3. Many students do not have wifi available to them. They only use their cell phones. Some have hot spots.

Possible solutions:

Our computer lab can be open longer hours to allow for the students to work on their homework at school. We have computers and free wifi available at school. Right now, they are only open on Tuesdays and Thursdays.

Students can sign waivers to check out their school chromebooks to take home. This wouldn't give them internet access, but chromebooks will save the document and upload it when it connects to the internet the next time.

Teachers sometimes don't use the technology because they are afraid of it. We need to have professional development time to help our teachers feel comfortable with the technology available.

Public school systems have must make their curriculum accessible to all students. If we plan on offering students online curriculum (our district uses Haiku), all of the students must be provided access to it. We can do that by offering longer computer lab hours and allowing students to check out their chromebooks, if needed.