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September 8, 2006
Digital Divide... A State of Mind?
Is the Digital Divide also a state of mind? My first assignment in the graduate education and public policy courses I teach is to have students begin a blog. The population is about evenly divided between recent grads and experienced professionals. However, almost universally, the first blog entry says something like “I’d heard of this before but never tried it. I hope I can cut it with the technology.”
Now, blogs have been around since 2001, at least. I know I suffer from “first kid on the block” syndrome and my first entry was in 2001 with sketchy additions since then. But blogging is a pretty simple technology now. We read about the influence blogs have in changing the outcomes of elections or in moving public opinion, so how come these educated individuals aren’t living in the blogosphere? Or are they in it and just don’t know it?
On the other hand, the class wiki is going great guns. I did a 2-minute introduction, gave out the URL and password and haven’t had a question yet. I would have expected that to be tougher!
We live in interesting times!
Posted by Pat on September 8, 2006 7:54 AM
Comments
Is the issue more that people feel they have nothing to say in a blog and not the technological barrier? I've certainly been aware of blogs for awile...like most...they seemed incredibly frivilous, self-involved, or so opinionated I thought my little insights couldn't compete. We're also not used to just putting ourselves out there for raves or ridicule.
Of course, once I set up my class blog I had to turn around and do one for myself to share with friends...and if you ask nice I will let you see it!
Posted by: Vicky Tosh-Morelli on September 8, 2006 9:13 PM
Wikis and blogs are both great tools that my students enjoy. I find that I like to get my students into blogging through the use of a "question of the week." They can then post on their topic. I post about the best bloggers on my blog as sort of a reward. They like that.
My students have enjoyed the wikis because they feel that they are making something that can help others.
I find it interesting that the wikis were so easy to implement. I found that I had less questions on wikis as well. I think it is an underappreciated, undervalued educational asset. It goes hand in hand with blogging because you can use the wiki to feed from your blogs using RSS.
Great post!
Posted by: Vicki Davis on September 9, 2006 3:53 PM
