Bridging the Digital Divide

 I sincerely wish I did not have to use Twitter in any capacity. I have enough things distracting me from doing my work, let alone something with a constant stream of information. I'd rather watch it fall apart from the outside rather than have to navigate the falling rubble whilst in its midst, but what can ya do? The humans behind the app are enjoyable to interact with, and I have enjoyed talking with people in other fields that can provide different perspectives on my queries and issues, but that can be said about anything involving real people. I'm sure the app was more enjoyable and more fruitful in years past, and I envy those people who were able to do so and make connections with friends and peers without having to deal with its shenanigans and tomfoolery. I would say its a shame I never got to enjoy it in its hey-day, but I think I'm better off with being a little less socially literate if it means I didn't have to dive head first into the dumpster fire in order to even attempt to make an account, let alone interact with people there.

We were never required to make social media accounts unless it was for club activities, and I'm sure that's due to the wide disparity in access between students within my school district. Our student population was divided between a suburban population that went on semi-annual luxury cruises and rural and poorer students whose extracurricular activities included helping on their families farm. In my school, during the COVID-19 pandemic, the district was able to loan out its Chromebooks to students who demonstrated need, but many of these students I knew didn't or couldn't get online, mainly because their ability to tap into Zoom calls was limited by their geography. Some I knew had to tap into classes sitting in any cafes that hadn't yet closed down, or sitting outside public libraries in order to tap into their Wi-Fi systems. Of course, they spoke about falling behind due to the difficulty of accessing their work. Their more affluent peers with access to home Wi-Fi and devices did better than ever, and complained more about not being able to go on their cruises with their parents than the struggles their classmates were battling that kept them from their schoolwork. Many of my classmates already on the brink of flunking out just gave up during this time, because they weren't given adequate support during a time where they desperately needed it and felt abandoned in a way their wealthier and more well connected peers did not. 

In my future teaching efforts, I want to make sure that the programs I use are programs that can be accessed through school devices on school time, so that students aren't left behind the way many of my peers were just because they don't have access to home Wi-Fi. I would encourage and implement the usage of programs that are readily accessible from many home pages and browsers, including programs such as Google Scholar that they can utilize alongside narrowed search terms and key words to find very specific scholarly articles that gives them exactly the information they need. In addition, programs such as Docs/ Tables and or Word/ Excel are all programs vital to the modern workplace, and making sure my students have a place to learn both sets of programs and utilize whichever feels more natural or useful to them will allow them to adapt their technology usage to their needs, rather than adapting their needs and expectations to the technology available to them.