Blog Post 5

    During my earlier experiences with twitter, I have interacted with different schools near where I am from and with @lrnchat where I participated in a chat and answered a question. I have also liked many of NASA Kennedy Space Center's posts and joined calls through twitter. I wanted to be an astronaut for the longest time when I was a kid and I love keeping up to date with what they are doing and the videos they post to educate others on what is going on. I also follow and like posts by the U.S. Department of Education and interact with other major educational programs on twitter.

    The digital divide is defined as the ability for some people to have access to internet and computers and some people are not. Without proper access to technology in school, students begin to fall behind their peers in understanding technology as well as falling behind in society. The modern-day world relies so heavily on technology and internet access that those who are not able to get on begin to become more alienated from society, not necessarily extremely but still. This digital divide can be caused by a lack of funding in certain places whether that be in a parent's salary or in the school's provided funding, both can keep students from accessing technology and thus further deepening the divide. If I am teaching and not all of my students have access to technology at home, it may make it harder for me to assign assignments and will force me to accommodate further to students without access, though accommodating is not an issue it is important to accommodate to a student's needs.

    In my future classroom I think it would be important to implement a classroom page as well as the use of a video conferencing platform. Through a classroom page, students will have access to resources and other resources that will assist them in class if they ever were to miss class or needed to know what was happening that night or in the upcoming week for work. The classroom page would also help parents better understand what is going on in the classroom as the school year goes on and may limit the number of confused parent emails I will get throughout the year. By using a video conferencing platform such as zoom, which I could link to my classroom page, I could do virtual calls with concerned parents or meet with kids when they may really need help with something or are out and falling terribly behind. Having the conferences available, busy parents and families that I may need to have conferences with will become more available, making it easier to interact online rather than forcing people to come into school to meet (though sometimes that may be a good thing).