Blog Post 4

Twitter is, in my opinion, one of the worst of the social media platforms, which is saying a lot since I believe that social media is honestly one of the banes of the modern age.  The format and users are overall, terrible.  Yes, there are useful things about it, and if you try, you can find good information and great links, but the format is conducive to insults and pointless one-liners and nearly anything seen by the general public is liable to go political.  Like all social media, Twitter is only as good as the users, and like all social media, the users tend to be awful.  I can see the use for it, but I find it very hard to deal with being on it.  I have followed one person outside of class, which is Dr. Bob Nicholson, who does humorous Victorian history tweets, but aside from that, I really can’t bring myself to be on there long enough to discover much, even though it will negatively impact my grade.  I am serious when I say that Twitter is the worst of social media sites.  It will likely not be very helpful in the future, because as soon as the requirement to have an account is over, I will be deleting the account and never, EVER, looking at it again.

The digital divide is a serious issue in schools today, particularly in areas with a disparity between socio-economic levels or rural and city lifestyles.  As a teacher, you have to take into account those students who do not have ready access to up-to-date technology.  If you teach in a rural area, the students may not even have access to computers at all.  In cities and large towns, children could at least go to the libraries to access one if necessary.  In smaller towns, even that may not be an option.  You must structure your classes in a way that does not disadvantage your students who do not have access to all the modern conveniences.  That means no homework or testing that requires online or computer research or work.  Luckily, we’ve been teaching without computers for a few millennia now, so figuring out how to go about this shouldn’t be difficult.  A lot of schools are now providing computers and/or iPads for the students now, but even then, you must account for any students that are not as adept at using technology as others, and anyone who may not have internet access at home.  

Next up is software for students.  Having just said you must accommodate your students who may not have computers and access to the internet, it seems like an odd transition to then talk about software for them to use.  Particularly since I am aiming to teach in rural communities where they may not have access to these things, so I will hopefully not be requiring my students to have any of this.  I suppose if I have to use them, then things like DropBox, which is a simple to use file sharing service.  I could use to share files like a syllabus and videos or allow students to submit assignments online.  The only other I can think of requiring students to use would be Microsoft Word, which is an easy to use word processing program.  I would mainly use this because as a history teacher, the students will be doing a good bit of writing, and I don’t have the time to be trying to decipher handwritten papers, plus the spellcheck is vital since nobody knows how to spell anymore.