Blog Journal 4

Our use of Twitter in this class has been very beneficial to me in communicating with my classmates. I have enjoyed learning the ropes of Twitter use, as I did not have a Twitter until I started this class. What a great way to utilize technology within our class to better ourselves and our knowledge of education! I have been interacting with many of my classmates, through commenting on their posts, asking questions, and retweeting posts I think they will find interesting. I have been retweeting posts from educational twitter accounts, such as Harvard and Nat Geo Education, and I think that the information these accounts have posted is invaluable. Through my interactions on Twitter, I have found that interacting with others is an incredibly beneficial way to learn more about issues in education and current events. There is an abundance of information on Twitter, and it has been a great experience for me to not just be on my own in this class, but to have a huge community that supports me with what I am learning and allows me to learn from them. I believe Twitter will be helpful in my future career through participating in Twitter chats and creating a community of teachers like me. It will be so helpful for me to be part of a bigger community of teachers and to get advice from people that are in the same situation. I will absolutely use Twitter in the future!

The digital divide affects the success of students in school immensely. For some students, their success is higher in schools because they have more access to technology as a result of more funding in their school. However, for other students, there is a great disadvantage to their schooling because of the lack of access to relevant technology. When students have more access to technology, such as computers, Ipads, and educational games, they tend to do better on tests and exams because of the all-around education and focus that technology can give them. However, this becomes the opposite for lower socio-economic groups that don't have the privilege of using sufficient technology in their classes. These students are hindered because they are forced to use outdated educational practices, rather than modern practices that utilize new technology. One of the biggest causes of the digital divide is a lack of funding for certain schools. Schools that are in lower economic areas are insufficiently funded, while schools in higher economic areas receive more funds. Rather than distributing these funds equally, the digital divide is just increased, and kids become unfairly disadvantaged. One other cause of the digital divide is the fact that some schools don't have administration that enforces the use of technology. This problem could lead to laziness on the educator's side, which causes children to use technology less in their schooling, even if they do have access to it. As a classroom teacher, I will likely experience this digital divide. If I end up working at a school with insufficient funding, I will definitely have to face the fact that my students will not have access to much technology. I will have to adapt to the circumstances, and I will come up with ways to help students learn without technology, such as using in-class examples, helping students to visualize what they are learning, and giving them a creative outlet. While the digital divide is a huge problem, we must band together to create a change in the education system.

Academic software is a very helpful tool in education. There are many software tools that I would love to utilize in my classroom when I become a teacher. Two software tools that I will likely use in my elementary classroom are starfall.com and sheppardsoftware.com. Starfall.com is an educational website for students in grades K through 3rd grade. Kids can log on and press their grade level, which will bring them to games that they will resonate with. There is a variety of subjects that the games cover, such as science, math, and geography. I would like to use this website because the games truly are fun, so students will enjoy playing the games while not even realizing they are learning! I think this website would be a good tool to allow kids to have a break from lecture and learn independently. The other software tool I will use is sheppardsoftware.com. This website's slogan is, "we make learning fun". Truly, this statement reflects the website. Just like Starfall, sheppardsoftware also uses educational games to teach important lessons. These lessons span across multiple subjects including history, chemistry, and math, and they are focused on elementary students. I would like to use this website with my future students, because again, it provides a break from group work and lectures and allows the kids to have fun while learning. These websites are just two ways that software can be beneficial to a student's education, and I plan on utilizing as many of these websites as possible.