Journal 8

Journal 8:
A “Fantastic Super” Use of Technology: Closing the Digital Divide

Curtis , Diane (2002, November 2). A '"Fantastic Super" Use of Technology: Closing the Digital Divide. Edutopia, Retrieved November 2, 2008, from:
http://www.edutopia.org/fantastic-super-use-technology

This article brings in the warm happy feeling of teachers, parents and students using and communicating through technology. A class web site for homework, e-mail and other communication is established making this school in Chapel Hill North Carolina a productive example of how technology helps empower students through technology and how parents and teachers can communicate through it. The digital divide is breaking down making teaching and learning more effective.

I believe this would be great to establish national. Students, parents, teachers all working together with breaking new technology and constant communication is how the system is designed to work. However, it is not always like this and technology can bridge that gap. The more technology, the more tools are established to communicate with parents and establish academic goals.

Questions

1. Chapel Hill is like Beverly Hills, and the schools student population is 571 and 71% are white students. What if you were to take this technology to Compton California, would the results be the same?

I don’t think the results would be the same. People who live in Compton don’t have a white population near 71%, they don’t have the money like Chapel Hill and one can argue that the population does not have the technological means to communicate to teachers from home to check on there students progress. Technology only works if it is available and understood by all parties involved.

2. What can be learned by this example school of how to integrate technology?

They started to teach technology based education at the lower levers, K-5, which gives these students the tools needed to understand the technological world. Older students are on a curve regarding technology, but if you start young scores will improve as the student grows according to this article