Pondering the Digital Divide and e-Learning
Writing this book chapter on the digital divide made me consider my university’s current push for offering increased online learning opportunities. Because we serve students who generally come from lower socio-economic backgrounds, I’m wondering if administration isn’t going about this the wrong way. Is it really about offering more online classes and more online-only degrees and gen-eds? Or would it be more useful to decrease the digital divide that exists within our student body, between the higher-income kids who grew up with computers and gadgetry and those who may have had to make-do with less access? Many of our students still don’t own computers and make constant use of those available in our student labs and library. Many of our students – at least, the ones I see in our library – are not terribly comfortable navigating technologies used in learning environments, including BlackBoard and the library databases they are expected to use to conduct their research. These are the stu...