Bridging the Digital Divide and Wikis

The article “Bridging the Digital Divide: A Building Block For Teachers” by Colleen Swain and Tamara Pearson offered some reasons why there is a divide in the use of computers in different classrooms. Despite the obvious, such as a divide of income and availability of technology (such as how many computers are available) there was also the interesting point that part of the problem is how computers are used. One such problem is access to computers. Citing teacher complaints that most computers were located in locked computer labs, the authors argue that not only do labs limit student access to computers, they also give off the impression that using computers is something special rather than a necessity in education.

The authors suggest that teachers focus their energies on how to best use the computer(s) in their classrooms. If there is only one computer in their classroom, they are advised to place it a central location where everyone has equal access to it. If there are several computers, they should be arranged in work stations where everyone has equal access. I have seen this layout in classrooms when doing classroom observations and it seems to work well.

Another topic of discussion is what software is being used on the computers. Rather than using “canned” software, the authors suggest using products that have students create their own activities, which would foster higher-level thinking. This is an interesting concept to consider.

Lastly, the authors leave us with a few questions: How are the computers in our classrooms organized? Who uses them, and when? What do they do on the computers?

Wikis are an interesting way to share information. I now understand Wikipedia better. Basically, with a wiki you create a page and can invite others to join in posting information on a given subject. In our wiki, we created a page for educators with guidelines on computer usage, copyright information, and ethics. We also included educational links. I think wikis also provided a better form for communication than Google docs did. I think I may use wikis in my future classroom for online group assignments.