Digital Inequality

At first, I felt lost in my direction of this presentation.  I am currently unemployed for a couple reasons.  As I have mentioned, I'm a stay-at-home mom, but I was employed at an online school that dissolved after this year due to changes in the administration and budget.  For these reasons I have been taking my past experiences and research to find a topic that is relevant to my teaching.  I decided to focus on my time teaching at an Christian online school.  Most of my students were from Detroit and needed to attend their online classes at learning centers due to the digital divide in that community.  This presentation was a great way for me to learn more about digital inequality in the Detroit-metro area.  I focused on the financial issues of the school system and the alternative online school for students who may not want to attend a public or charter school.  I was pleased to see that there are numerous organizations working hard to bridge the gap in Detroit.  I learned about the progress that Life Builders, the Knight Foundation, and Detroit Digital Justice Coalition have made.  It was surprising to me when I did my research how many people are in the "have not" category, even within the United States.

Online schools, like the one I worked at, can help bridge the digital divide by connecting with organizations in the communities they are involved with.  By networking with these organizations the school will be able to understand the level of technology students have access to not only during school hours, but also at home.  I found that there are a variety of grants available to help setup community technology centers or resources to purchase updated technology.  Overall, I saw the most important aspect of my finding to be educating those who are disadvantaged for free or at low-cost.  A community program to educate people, young and old, on basic computer programs will not only benefit the individual, but also the community as a whole.

This assignment led me to discussions outside my specific research.  My husband currently teaches at a public high school and will be transitioning to online textbooks this year.  The divide is also in the suburbs and students who are without access to the Internet at home will be at a disadvantage when they leave school and have to take a textbook home instead of accessing it online or on a tablet.  No community is without a divide, although we see some communities, like Detroit, may be at a greater disadvantage overall.  

This was my first time using VoiceThread.  I found this was a great resource to present my PowerPoint presentation in a more interactive way.  It was extremely easy to use and edit.  I liked the various options to comment on each slide.  When recording my audio presentation I had several interruptions.  My two dogs took it upon themselves to bark randomly and lap up their water quite loudly during my recordings.  Because of this I was please to see how easy it was to delete a recording and start over.  I look forward to using this program to make my PowerPoints more engaging.

Hope you enjoy my presentation on the amazing city of Detroit.


VoiceThread Presentation on Digital Inequality