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How Do We Address the Needs of Kids Without Mobile Access? April 4, 2011 | 3:00 PM | By Tina Barseghian * DIGITAL DIVIDE FILED UNDER: Tech Tools, achievement gap, digital-divide, mobile-learning * Leave a comment * * Share4 * Email Post * Link to this post Flickr:Shlala The $64,000 question in education: Does access to mobile technology actually help close the achievement gap? Bill Ferriter, a sixth-grade teacher in North Carolina, has been thinking about this issue, and writing about it on his blog, The Tempered Radical. In this recent post, he addresses a question from one of his readers, who sites Ferriter's source, about how to address the needs of the minority of kids who don't have mobile access? "75% of students are good to go, but do you just leave the other 25% to "fin for themselves", leave them out of the equation all together, or do you do something to supplement such as the school providing a temporary cell phone" the reader asks. Here's his response. One of the stumbling blocks to almost every reform initiative in schools is our stubborn refusal to move forward until the conditions are perfect for change. The result: Change never happens.

Because student's today are likely to be more "socially" oriented and technology-aware, it is a good idea to take advantage of this as you plan the introduction to your course. Your studentʼs have had access to a wide variety of technologies that allow them to instantaneously know what their "friends" are doing or thinking. This experience with connectivity will likely extend into your classroom environment.