Blog #4

At first, I was nervous about the Twitter page because I've been avoiding using Twitter for years. I used it in 2009 and that's about it. However, it has been a pretty positive experience so far. It has been fun and I have been learning a lot about how Twitter works in general. I have been communicating with other people in our class about things that are happening in our class, what we're learning, and various jokes throughout the week. Twitter may be beneficial in my career because it is a great way to communicate with people as well as keep people updated on what I'm doing. It's another social media platform that I can use to help display myself in a good light. The digital divide affects students' success in school for multiple reasons. Firstly, not all students have equal access to technology. Technology can get expensive, especially the more advanced it gets and for many families that is a luxury they cannot afford. Additionally, many students may just not be well equipped in terms of understanding technology and may just not be great with it. Some of the causes of this would be a simple lack of income for students' families as well as a weaker history of technological education (since I want to teach middle or high school, it is possible that some of my students' elementary educations may have technological gaps). I may experience a wide range of technical abilities in my classes due to this and I can combat this by providing as many resources as possible to help fill in these gaps (instructional resources to get students up to speed and access to my help whenever they may need it). The software I expect to use the most simulations and presentation tools because they will be most relevant to older students' learning (middle and high school aged students will do a lot of presenting and simulations may help them in general). Since my students will be older, I expect less usage of educational games, but they may still be of use in some aspects. The software I would use the least would be Drill-And-Practice software simply because I am very against this style of learning and find it extremely ineffective in most if not all subjects of learning. I think that this would be dull and monotonous, especially for my age group, and that students would simply hate what they're learning.