Global Digital Divide

[Marilyn Doore]

I am in a class that is exploring the digital divide, the students who have technology and have access to technology and those who do not. I was wondering how it is in your schools. What percent of your students have computers? Internet access? Do they have it in their homes too? How about you?

Thank you for any thoughts, opinions or views on this.
Marilyn

[Katarzyna Wizgacz]

Well, in case of my Polish school the situation is very similar - some students have computers and Internet at home and some not. At school we have computer with access to internet. however because of the safety, computers are very "clean" and some programmes are not installed to protect students against access to some pages. Unfortunately I am not even able to show them the results of their October tasks as voki doesn't work and I can't install its omponents on computers to work :(

[Marilyn Doore]

We have filters, makes our computers "clean" too as you say. Sometimes there are things we can't do but we can use most of the Web 2.0 tools so far. What grade do you teach?

[Eva Rekkedal]

Hi, Marilyn
At my school (primary - in Tyssedal, Norway) there are 71 pupils - only one of them don't have a computer at home. The rest of them have one or more. Only one of them are without access to Internet. Everybody who have Internet access at home have broadband (ADSL).

It's just one month ago since I reported some statistics to our government regarding our pc and Internet at the 5 schools in our municipality - and I still have the numbers in my head:
(Internet = broadband, 10 Mbit lines)
Odda Primary school, 439 pupils; 215 pc's all with Internet
Odda Secondary school, 247 pupils; 110 pc's, all with Internet
Røldal School (primary and secondary); 75 pupils: 25 pc's, all exept 1 with Internet
Skare Primary school, 54 pupils: 35 pc's all with Internet (not so fast line, having trouble with videos, streaming and so on)
Tyssedal Primary school, 71 pupils: 37 pc's all with Internet

Our system allows us to use Voki's, Voicethread etc (all the web 2.0 tools that we've tried this far) - guess we are pretty "lucky"...

Best regards, EvaR.

[Marilyn Doore]

Thank you so much for the statistics! This is great, I have to write a report about the global digital divide and so I thank you and Katarzyna for your help with your answers.

Tyssedal is a beautiful place, small, it is also about the same latitude as Anchorage where I live! Right now it is cold and very little snow, some sun in the day but the days are getting shorter very quickly.

Marilyn