This presentation will attempt to explain the digital divide and provide examples of how the divide manifests as well as solutions to some common problems.

As educators, it is important for us to be aware of, and be able to respond to, challenges within our field. The digital divide is not new, but it continues to present unique problems within our school systems.

By definition, a digital divide occurs when one group of people do not have access to the same level of technology that another group has. This creates a gap in how these groups interact with the world, with one group able to easily interact with businesses and people all over the world, and the other group having a much more difficult time accessing information and opportunities beyond what is locally available to them.

Lack of equal access to technology inevitably creates two groups of students- those who are comfortable working in digital environments, who know how to use online resources, and how to find what they need online, and those who cannot do these things. In a classroom setting, this means that some students will naturally have an advantage when asked to perform tasks that require the use of digital resources.

It is important to examine your local school for potential areas where a digital divide may exist.

Living in a rural school district, it is fairly common for students to not have internet access at home. Sometimes this is due to socio-economic factors; other times it is simply because the student lives in a remote enough location that no internet service providers exist to serve them. In addition, some students only have satellite internet, which is often unreliable and has upload/download speeds which make it difficult for these students to do anything involving video or flash animations. This creates problems for teachers who cannot reasonably expect a student with no/limited internet to be able to complete assignments at home that require internet.

Another difficulty in working in a rural setting is a lack of opportunity and funding for good audio/video curriculum. Apart from the yearbook program, the school has virtually no resources to help students learn how to create and share media, which puts them at a disadvantage compared to larger programs where students have access to equipment and instruction.

One way the school tries to make up for the fact that we simply cannot have physical instructors is by trying to give students access to online courses. The problem with this is that our online classes work on a different schedule than the school's, so students are forced to miss parts of other classes in order to attend their online courses. This means that students who struggle in a class may be discouraged from taking online classes in order to be able to be present in the class they struggle with. Our online offerings are generally only taken by our top students- a gap is formed by this where students who might benefit from online classes are unable or unwilling to take them.

For every Digital Divide, there are potential solutions.

Our school has recently switched to Chromebooks on our high school end. These machines have a feature where students are able to access documents in Google Drive offline. Additionally, teachers can have students download videos or animations at school which are then available in the student's Google Drive at home, even if they do not currently have internet.

Working with administrators, teachers can be given tools and training to help them incorporate media creation content into their classrooms. A small school like ours will probably never have a dedicated media teacher, but we can somewhat mitigate this by having students work on multimedia projects within our classes.

As a small school, we are unique in that we can be relatively flexible in our schedule. It would benefit students if they could take online classes without interrupting their normal classes, and many students would benefit from an expansion of the current online course system to include other elective subjects that we do not have within the school- thinks like multiple foreign languages, personal finance, creative writing, etc.

The digital divide does more than keep students from learning about computers- it actively limits student growth by denying them increasingly important tools for understanding and connecting with the world. Educators should be making every effort to ensure that students will leave school with the skills to effectively interact with the digital world.

According to the AECT Code of Professional Ethics, educators should "...encourage independent action in an individual's pursuit of learning and shall provide access to varying points of view." By being aware of gaps in digital access and trying to reduce or eliminate them, educators ensure that students have access to multiple resources for research and that those resources can be accessed by all students equally.