8- gamification, digital divide, & PowerPoint

I believe that gamification holds the biggest promise for education. Gamification is a term used to describe added game elements to instructional content to make content interactive, and increase motivation in order to reach the goal of a deeper understanding of the content. Examples of gamification include manipulatives, video-style games, role-playing games, smart toys and many more. Today kids spend so much time playing games. If the children have access to any kind of technology, games are bombarding them 24/7 through apps on smart phones, computer games, Xbox, and PlayStation games. When I think about how much time a child spends playing games in just one day, it seems like a whole lot of wasted time. If kids replaced the time they spent playing angry birds on their phone with time studying for school, they would be much more productive. But what kid is going to put their phone down to read a textbook? Kids play video games instead of studying because video games are FUN, and studying is not. Gamification is a way to make studying and learning just as fun as all of the video games that kids have access to. Technology isn’t going away any time soon, so I believe it is vital for teachers to incorporate technology such as gamification in order to keep kids interested in their education.

The term digital divide can be defined as the gap between the people who do have access to technology and the people who do not. This is a problem that can be easily overlooked for people who have always been fortunate enough to have access to technology, but the digital divide does greatly affect the US and is not just a problem found in developing countries. Typically people use the phrase digital divide in reference to the educational and societal impact that unequal access to technology has. These impacts include knowledge and skills and show that the digital divide is a problem that goes much deeper than just access to technology. One societal impact that the digital divide has is that the kids who do have access to technology will be more prepared once entering the workforce, and will have more confidence when it comes time to work with technology in their careers.

How does the digital divide impact education? Students that have access to technology at home are believed to be at an advantage and are more likely to succeed throughout their education. In a bigger scale, schools that have more access to technology will be more effective than the schools that do not. The digital divide is important for teachers to be aware of because it isn’t fair for some students to have an advantage over others based on their access of technology. Teachers obviously can’t go around buying computers and iPads for every student to make things fair, so what can teachers do about this issue? The main thing that teachers need to do is be aware of the digital divide and show sensitivity towards the subject.  If you know that some of your students do not have access to technology at home, then don’t assign homework that requires technology or could favor the students that do have access. It is also important to strive to facilitate technology based learning during school hours to teach technology skills to the students who do not have the ability to practice or use technology at home on their own.

Personally, I have been lucky enough to grow up on the side of the divide with access to technology. The schools that I have attended have all had access to technology, and starting in middle school, I took numerous technology classes. At home I had access to a computer, laptop, cell phones, Ipod’s, Ipad’s, printer, scanner/copy machine, PlayStation, and even a Nintendo DS (yes I know I’m old). I feel fortunate to have grown up with access to technology and once I become a teacher I will need to be sensitive to the issue of the digital divide. I hope that I will get the opportunity to teach at a school that caters to middle class or wealthier community, and then the digital divide will affect my future classroom less, if even at all. However there is no telling what kind of school I will be teaching at and what socioeconomic class my students will be coming from. If the digital divide is evident in my classroom I will handle it with sensitivity and using some of the things that I mentioned earlier in this post.

Even though I have lots of past experience using PowerPoint, I still acquired some new skills from working on the PowerPoint for Information Dissemination assignment. I have never had to use a microphone, or record my voice for an automated PowerPoint presentation. Every presentation that I have made in the past, I had to present myself, so there was no need to create an automated recording. The thing that I didn’t particularly like about the assignment is that creating an automated recording leaves no room for class participation. Any effective lesson plan incorporates class participation so I feel that having an automated voice recording is not the most effective tool to use in classroom lesson plans. I wouldn’t be effectively teaching my students if I just got up and showed a looped PowerPoint presentation, especially since I am interested in teaching first, second, or third grade and a majority of younger children just can’t learn that way. Despite my concerns, it is always good to practice using PowerPoint and all of the tools it has to offer because I know it will be used many, many times in my future career as a teacher. Even though I don’t like the use of voice recorded presentations when teaching a lesson plan to a class, it will be a useful tool when giving presentations to other teachers if the opportunity presents itself.