helianlingzi

Share an idea of two about how you could use the ideas from Richardson with ESL students.
I would like write micro-blog about the class I teach the present day. I want to share what I think about the class with my students, such as what is the key point, who should be praised, or give them relative resources of news, pictures, websites, and so on. The students just need spend several minutes in sharing my opinion. It’s more like a brief chat. And I also encourage them can write their concerns or questions via their twitters, then I can answer as soon as possible.
What is the “digital divide?” And why do Warschauer et al argue that this term may longer be applicable. What are the issues they found regarding differences in technology use with ELLs and other low socioeconomic students. What are some ways you could address this in your own schools or programs?
Digital divide is the gap between people base on gender, social status, race group, and locations in using information and communication technology in different levels, including availability of, access to, and use of this technology.
Inequality in education has been a critical social issue facing the United States for more than 100 years. Research on technology and equity revealed that unequal accessing to and using of new technologies at school or at home create a new gap among people from diverse groups and amplify existing forms of inequality. Because the technological and social realms are highly intertwined and continuously cocreate each other, it is very difficulty to overcome digital divide.
In this study, issues of workability, complexity, and performativity were compared between eight low-SES schools and high-SES schools. The results are as following: (1) Common pattern of performativity in technology are used at almost all the schools, but in low-SES schools, basic computer tasks are greater taught in class, and low-SES students least afford to be distracted from real and efficacious learning opportunities. (2) The three high-SES schools tended to invest more in professional development, hiring full-time technical support staff and developing lines of communication among teachers, office staff, media specialists, technical staff, and administration that promoted robust digital networks. The low-SES schools had achieved less success in creating the kinds of support networks that make technology workable. (3) Low-SES schools tend in the main to devote substantially more classroom time to explicit test-taking preparation than do high-SES schools. Low-SES students had lower home computer and internet access, which make the teachers in these schools avoid assigning homework using computer and internet, and spent more nonacademic computer time in class. Low-SES schools had roughly tree times the percentage of ELLs, which make the class activities, such as research and writing, were hardly carried out because the ELLs’ difficulties with spelling, vocabulary, or grammar.
To overcome digital divide, educational policy makers need create mechanism that ensure that low and high-SES schools have higher numbers of well-trained and experienced teacher, staff, and administrators. Teachers need to turn their attention away from mastery of software programs to using technology for scholarship, research, and inquiry. Schools should encourage students make use of publicly available computers. In general, sufficient financial and human resources are needed in low-SES schools. In my opinion, computer assisted language learning is a good approach to integrate computer, internet and English learning because CALL consists many ways of academic use of computers and internet. For example, each quick share in our class display a way of teaching English via computers and internet. They all require student use technology deeply and broadly.