The Digital Divide:
Implications for Vocational Learners

What is it?

• There are 2 divides: the traditional digital divide and the future digital divide

What are we going to talk about?

• What these divides are
• Why they're relevant
• How they affect vocational learners
• How do we address them?

Traditional Digital Divide

• Commonly referred to as gap between those who have tech and those who do not

So What's The Big Deal?

• Those who do not have access are at a significant disadvantage
• Without access, failure to thrive in the evolving digital environment

Digital Natives

• Simply avoiding the digital environment is not an option
• Students are growing up in the era of digital natives, tech is not going away

Benefits of Access

• Those who have access can thrive in their digital environment
• Will be able to use new tech intuitively and navigate the digital universe

Future Digital Divide

• Access for most people has significantly improved
• But there's a gap between teaching and learning
• We need to adapt teaching practice and start teaching digital natives in non-traditional ways

The Vocational Learner

• These divides affect vocational learners and their schools in 2 ways: lack of access and skill gap/ability among learners
• An overwhelming number of students at the vocational level have a learning disability which can be supported with technology

Lack of Access

• Vocational learners are falling behind
• Many still do not have access to computers at home or their own devices

Disparity in Skills

• There is an overall lack of developed tech skills and tremendous variation in skill level from student to student
• Some students may know how to use Facebook but struggle to use other tech tools and may not be able to intuitively figure them out

The Challenge

• How do we teach students with such a wide variety of access and ability?
• How to bring up the students with low tech ability while providing the challenge and risk-taking opportunities for stronger students and allow them to further develop their skills?

Where Do We Go From Here?

• We need to do whatever we can now, no matter how small the skill or task
• We need to make sure vocational learners are not falling further behind

Next Steps

• The digital world and the divide that exists for vocational learners is not going away
• Despite the inherent disadvantages, we need to do whatever we can to give vocational students the best possible chance to live and thrive in the digital world

Support for Technology Mandate

• Peel Vision for 21st century Teaching and Learning
• http://goo.gl/pC7aGI

Support for Technology Mandate

• Growing Success Document
• "Learning skills - identifies, gathers, evaluates, and uses information, technology, and resources to complete tasks. "

Support for Technology Mandate

• The Definition and Selection of Competencies (DeSeCo) Project, sponsored by (OECD),
• Identified Key Competencies – ability to use tools interactively

Conclusions

• Vocational learners are affected by both the Traditional and Future Digital Divide
• Just because students are at the vocational level does not mean they don't need access to developing these skills. They are still growing up in the "Digital Native" era

Conclusions

• We need to do whatever we can to ensure that vocational learners don't fall further behind
• This could include more tech funding for vocational schools and more PD related to this issue for vocational teachers

References

• Growing Success
• Take the Pencil Out of the Process TEACHING Exceptional Children September-October 2009 42: 14-21
• E-inclusion: Learning Difficulties and Digital Technologies (http://goo.gl/4mIQ5l)

References

• Digital divide and learning disabilities: counteracting educational exclusion in information society (http://goo.gl/ATCjD3)