Ms. Honeyhuckle is a new teacher fresh out of Malaspina University's Education Program. She has developed a unit on frogs, and has planned a very interesting lesson in the computer lab. She has assumed that all of her students will be fully engaged in the lesson because it is technology based. Unfortunately things do not go as planned! Little Billy is staring at a blank screen, and quickly becomes disruptive. Ms. Honeyhuckle can not figure out why Billy is off task. Upon discussion with Billy it becomes apparent that Billy has had limited exposure to technology, and does not have access to a computer at home. Therefore, he is feeling frustrated at his inability to keep up with his peers.





The dilemma that Ms. Honeyhuckle faces is the Digital Divide in her classroom. The digital divide 'Refers to the gap between individuals, households, businesses and geographic areas at different socio-economic levels with regard to both their opportunities to access information and communication technologies (ICTs) and to their use of the Internet for a wide variety of activities'. http://web.worldbank.org/WBSITE/EXTERNAL/TOPICS/EXTINFORMATIONANDCOMMUNICATIONANDTECHNOLOGIES/0,,contentMDK:21035032~pagePK:210058~piPK:210062~theSitePK:282823,00.html Ms. Honeyhuckle had not considered that not all of her students would be computer savvy. In today's technological world, there is an unspoken expectation that everyone has a home computer, and the skills to use it. Unfortunately, in today's economic world, that is not always the case. The digital divide is perpetuating a system, of have's and have not's. There are students in the classroom that already are faced with disadvantages. Everything from clothing, food, transportation, entertainment, etc, ect, all of these things contribute to stratification in the classroom. The digital divide only adds to this mounting issue. therefore, students already faced with disadvantages, fall further behind their peers owing to the fact that it is impossible for them to keep up with their peers. according to the Digital Divide network, the digital divide is part of the overall academic performance gap. Therefore, is this related to the overall socio-economic gap? And how do we bridge this gap?

Please see these links for further information
http://www.digitaldivide.net/articles/view.php?ArticleID=957

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/special_report/1999/10/99/information_rich_information_poor/466651.stm

http://clinton4.nara.gov/WH/New/digitaldivide/digital3.html