Ch 5: Revisiting the Access Issue

The exclusive point made in the last chapter of Barbara Monroe’s book was that it wasn’t the students or teachers who had control over the access issue, but the IT help and support who made it possible. Monroe had state that “change is only skin-deep without the technological resources and critical pedagogy to sustain it,” so if no one was available to change with the times than they would be stuck how they were. This chapter was of Monroe hearing of the changes made to schools that she had visited and studied their curriculum against the access issue. 

A few years after Monroe’s projects, she returned to Detroit High School where she found the enrollment had grown due to their reputation of acquiring computers and using them for class work. This school had also claimed to have their classes writing more than they ever had before due to their access to computers. Even when the school had dramatically increased their amount of students, the issue was not of the amount of their access but the IT help who could not repair the damage done once they had occurred. This also led the students to search for access for themselves to be driven to complete their coursework on computers at other places such as libraries or universities.

At the Garland school, which was much larger than Detroit High School, there were fewer computers that were available for use by the students. The same scenario seemed to follow here because most of the computers were not cared for as they should have been and even if the classes wanted to get into the lab they would have to schedule far in advance. And so this has shown that with new technology, access, and communication must come new ways of teaching to assist new students with new technology and their writing. Just as the printing press had changed how we write, technology is also ever evolving and we must try to do the same with it.

Ch 4: Storytime on the Reservation

For Monroe’s last case study, she chose another diverse group of students to study their writing through their level of access. This chapter’s location of the schools are most likely located in Washington based on the description, which features a school of primarily Latinos, Plateau Indians, whites, and Filipinos. What’s different is that all the students are together and Monroe is analyzing their writing from selected narrative prompts. This is the youngest group Monroe analyzes and should key examples to how generations can change and technology use and writing styles have changed. Keeping in theme of diversity, there were many prompts assigned to these young students to analyze many distinctions of their types of writing.

The last prompt gave the most insight with the students writing a fictional story about a two dimensional picture. Monroe had given the teachers points to follow so that they hadn’t generalized all of the writing as the same, factored bias, and realized that ethnicity isn’t a predictive value. From the narratives based off a two dimensional image, the Latino children wrote literal descriptions and didn’t elaborate upon their generated stories. The Plateau Indians wrote similarly but added dialogue with use of their own form of speaking determinant of their age group. The white students would use the strategy of “show, don’t tell,” with much more elaborate descriptions, dialogue, and formulation of a plot. The next part of the chapter tells of a most of the students would use television or other media used to inspire some of their narrative writing upon. Some could argue that technology has “dumbed down” our brains so that we are losing finding our own inspiration. The choices these students make how they converse in school is also partial to how they converse in their homes with their families. 

Ch 3: Crucible for Critical Literacy

This next case study takes place in another diverse, separate portion of the country between a tribal school and a predominantly Latino school. The different in races give this scenario insight to different cultural values stemmed from questions derived from both school’s classes curriculum based on The Crucible. These questions were mostly focused on justice and freedom (as they are discussed in the book they are discussing). The distinct race differences and distance between schools, seventy five miles, gives the schools incentive to use technology to share what they wanted to discuss. This study was conducted over two months to give enough time for the students to read, form discussions and discuss with their own class and the other participating school. The prompts created from The Crucible reading lead to investigating democracy of today’s America and the topic of the tyranny of the majority. The tyranny of the majority is when a democratic society goes exclusively with the majority of the vote, even if it’s 51% which is just a hair over half to be counted outright.

 Just as minorities are generally treated as lower level status, Monroe reveals “everyone can speak, but not everyone is heard.” Those who are part of this generation could say something meaningful to a large group of people, yet due to they would be the minority they can easily be shut down. In this case, they are given time to formulate their responses and talk with others about topics that mean something to them. This time was also allotted to reflect on what all the contributors had said. These discussions were first used with prompts to begin discussion but then the teachers would leave them for student facilitated discussion. 

Ch 2: Putting One's Business on Front Street

This is the first case study between two educational systems in Michigan of emailing and chatting between Detroit High School and University of Michigan.This study was to show the differences between the races, socioeconomic statuses of the participants, writing and use of technology in the classroom. This is a good choice to show what the access issue looks like for the lowest of the low status because this area is known as America’s “Third World City.” This study is relatable to technology access and communication of today because when you don’t know someone well and communicate over the web, you don’t want to disclose too much information about yourself through the web.

Between these systems of diverse races, they were not only trying to learn a little about each other but were also given prompts to speed communication along. Farther into the messaging, the Detroit High School students would notice how the University of Michigan tutors would change how they conversed and called it “acting white” or “acting black.” It was a good strategy to use a diverse set of people to study to recognize the linguistic characteristics of them over technology and to gain understanding of information sharing. Sharing stories between participants also shows the difference between the socioeconomic and cultural differences. This study was able to use technology to cross distance as we do today, but today we can reach even farther distances to converse with more people. 

Ch 1: Reconsidering the Terms of the Debate

The very first chapter is a good introduction to what the digital divide was to a person who has never heard the term. The standard issue of access to the web is those who are connected with technology and the internet and those who are not. When this was written, the web was quite a bit less far reaching and integrated as it is today. With this distinct point make, the access wouldn’t be as much of an issue as would someone of the current world would think. There are always those who are part of the have nots who won’t cross “the divide” because they do not know how to work with the technology. Ways to diminish that are to adhere to tech faith by spending allotted time online, and to pursue enough of that time to learn how to use it properly.

 Monroe begins to outline the three specifications in the title making the access issue not only through tech but is also illustrated through race differences, socioeconomic status, and differences shown through their writing. It would most likely believe that the minorities would have lacked access, when in truth it is economic status. The economic status had changed the availability of having the technology at home and school, but it was shown that the resources in the class had not changed either side of the divide. In any case, the poorer status still had the disadvantage. 

Introduction

The first time I had read through this book, I noticed mostly the top layer of the case studies and investigations. Browsing this book the second time to prepare for the book panel, I found that the title of Crossing the Digital Divide: Race, Writing, and Technology in the Classroom gave an outline to how the chapters would be structured. The author, Barbara Monroe, has divided this book into five chapters while at the same time redefining the digital divide, using examples from educational case studies, and revisiting the issues and case studies years after. To gain complete understanding, the author investigates numerous case studies around the country, and in different situational settings. Once reading through, the aim was to rethink what the access issue really means and the effect it had upon the educational system; although some of this information is a bit dated since it was originally investigated near the early 2000s. The revisioned debate of the access issue of the digital divide is between the haves, have nots, and the don’t wants. 

The haves are those with access to technology and know how to use it, the have nots don’t have access, and don’t wants are those who refuse to use the technology. Monroe looks at the issue from terms of gaining insight into teaching, writing and literacy based on institutional crossing of the divide. Each social point mentioned in the title is used as an outline for the next few chapters. In the end, all the information, study, and examples lead to a new found thought of rethinking what it means to be connected and have access to the internet. Monroe does a good job of showing different ways of thinking, doing things, and learning, which could be used to help educate the new generations who will grow up with ubiquitous web access.