I started using Twitter when I was in about ninth grade. I did not understand how to use it and did not like it very much. My mom, however, really enjoyed it and got a lot of her news from Twitter so she urged me to get it. After a while, I deleted my account because I never used it and now I will download it again every election year just to get all the information really fast from the candidates. Twitter can be really useful though when trying to find information on a person and can be a really good tool for teachers to explain how nothing online is ever deleted or forgotten.
The digital divide affects a lot of students in my home town Orlando. Because many students could not afford computers growing up most of my teachers would make accommodations and exceptions for those students to come in before or after school to do work. In my own community systemic racism has caused students of color to have less access to these digital devices. When I got to high school my school gave each student a laptop but in middle school, many students did not have one and could not afford a laptop. My middle school worked around this by not giving assignments on the computer. It took away from class time because of all the homework and notes we had to copy down before beginning to learn but it made learning accessible to all students. I think like my elementary teachers I will be an advocate for students who can not afford devices and I will make accommodations.
I think my exposure to academic software was great because I was always introduced to two different programs that did relatively the same thing like Microsoft and google docs. I will definitely do this to my students in the future so they know how to use both and can decide for themselves which one they prefer. I will definitely show my students photoshop and all the creative designs you can create on their as well as canvas because I have used canvas for many years now and it makes presentation visually more appealing. Most of the technology I use will be informative and hopefully help my students in their future careers give presentations and create with the software they are comfortable and confident using.
Thanks for sharing your experience, Brooke. I liked the idea of accommodating students' needs in terms of technology. I think that students still need to get exposed to technology at school as much as possible, especially if they cannot access computers at home. Without a level of technical proficiency, I feel they will be disadvantaged when looking for jobs and for self-development using technology. What do you think?
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