[REBLOGGED] The New Digital Divide: Media Literacy
6.19.07 | The new digital divide is not about access to technology, but rather “a lag in competence and confidence in the fast-paced variegated digital universe,” says Jonathan Fanton in an op-ed in today’s St. Louis Post-Dispatch. Fanton says new research is revealing that young people today are developing a new kind of literacy that extends beyond reading and writing, and he argues we must find ways to help our education institutions meet this new challenge.
The op-ed coincides with the 2007 National Media Education Conference—the nation’s largest gathering of media educators—that gets underway in St. Louis this week.
Those particularly interested in media literacy and participatory culture may be interested in a recent white paper on the topic by MIT’s Henry Jenkins.
Leave a comment
Comments are moderated to ensure topic relevance and generally will be posted quickly.
Comments
Mechelle De Craene (MirandaNet)
7/17/07
6:42pm
Today I was in the university college of ed library working on my research and wanted to share:
For their 76th anniversary issue The Journal of Negro Education has a special issue titled, “Looking Beyond the Digital Divide: Participation and opportunities with Technology and Education” (Winter, 2007).
This is a must read for any teacher and/or scholar interested in learning more about the digital divide to help ALL our school children. I hope this is helpful to Mac Arthur’s researchers as well.
As both a teacher in the trenches and as a scholar, I question the research methodology of The Pew Report…especially their contention that, ?93 percent of kids between 12 and 17 are regularly online.?
Access is still and issue, hence the divide in skills. Furthermore, the digital divide starts early (i.e. before age 6) and the level of skills widen as students get older.
Indeed, numerous studies indicate the quality of computer time between richer and poorer schools differs. At poorer schools kids are typically using the computer more for drill-and-skill activities and at richer schools they are using computers for higher-order thinking activities. Thus, one could examine classroom computing through Bloom?s taxonomy framework and see the educational implications. The way teachers teach with technology affects outcomes. Sadly, very often times our most vulnerable children have the least qualified teachers. This is especially so for special education. Because of the shortage of special education teachers in many states have alternative certification procedures. Therefore, a teacher can teach special education with little or no training in special education.
Furthermore, in the South there is much need for school reform. Professors Losen and Orfield of the Harvard Civil Rights Project wrote about the Racial Inequality in Special Education. I wish that we had more advocates for our school children. We need to examine digital equity more closely in our schools?for that matter, equity as a whole. As I write this I am reminded of the words of one of my favorite authors Professor Sara Lawrence-Lightfoot, “A final way of judging institutional goodness for students is to observe the regard and treatment of the weakest members.”
Where are the advocates for our school children?
Kind Regards,
Mechelle