Post #4

Believe it or not, one of my New Year resolutions was to stop using twitter. There was a point when I would consume all of my time tweeting and finding myself deep in celebrity gossip. When the class was given the twitter assignment, I wasn't too excited about it because I recently weened away from using twitter, and BOOM! temptation strikes again. 

I found that using twitter for professional purposes are a lot less exciting than using twitter for personal and social reasons. Therefore, using twitter is just another task or homework assignment I must complete every week. 

When using twitter I mainly interact with the class twitter page in order to attempt the challenges the page tweets out every now and than. Also, there is one classmate I follow that tweets hilarious memes, and I tend to retweet her post often. 

Using twitter has been beneficial so far because our course professors sends out reminders about assignments or who we may have forgotten to follow to get full credit on the twitter assignment. Twitter could help in my professional career by being a resource for networking. Many professionals own twitter accounts and spread important information to a wide audience.

Twitter is also a great resource to use as a professional to engage in interactive discussions, just by trending a hashtag. 

In my future career I plan to work with college students, and using twitter will be a great platform to reach out to students about activities and workshops that may be beneficial to them. 

The digital divide mentioned in the podcast is a term that refers to the gap between those who have access to technology and the internet, compared to those who do not.

 The digital divide also refers to the educational and societal disparity of internet access, that impacts the knowledge and skills that can be acquired by those who have easy access to the internet versus those who do not.  

The digital divide affects students success in schools because students who have easy access to the internet at home, in schools, and the latest computers with updated software and programs have an advantage over students who do not have this privilege. 

For example, if one student has the means to access new technology at home, in school, and from a smartphone, he/she will have more experience using technology thus creating an advantage for the  student to acquire more knowledge, technology skills, and social/networking skills. Whereas, another student will be well at a disadvantage and less likely to be challenged by teachers, due to the lack of accessible technology in the area. 

Some causes of the digital divide can be linked to the area in which ones socioeconomic status. For example, low-income communities and Title I schools may not have the financial assistance to provide students with the latest technology resources. 

Also, some families are at a disadvantage financially and cannot afford another bill for the internet, especially when families live paycheck to paycheck. 

As a teacher, I may have students who come from an area that has limited resources for internet access, and/or students who do not have internet access at home. 

This would affect my teaching strategy because I would like all of my students to be tech savvy, and be responsible digital citizens. Therefore, I will make sure that all of my lesson plans involve using the computer lab at school, to provide consistent exposure to the internet and the plethora of informative information it contains.  

Hypothetically speaking, if I were an Elementary school teacher, teaching multiple subjects to 2nd graders, the student software that I would use the most is educational games.
I would use educational games the most because "games present content in a format that engages the learner while providing practice"(Lever-Duffy, McDonald, 2015, p.177).
When teaching multiple subjects to young kids who have short attention spans, I believe that using educational games will be the best way for students to learn, practice, and recall information mentioned during class in an interactive way.
The software that I would use the least is reference software such as encyclopedias, and dictionaries online. The reason why I would try to avoid using this type of software is because "research software provides digital versions of resources found only in volumes of books"(Lever-Duffy, McDonald, 2015, p.183), and I am afraid that the material will be too contextual for 2nd graders to grasp, especially at a beginning reading level.