Blog Journal 4

From what I can remember, Twitter became more popular when I entered Highschool. I never actually used it until this class where it became necessary. However, I always did find that my closest friends used it to communicate and primarily used it for humor. So far, I have actually found twitter to be very beneficial because I am connecting with other geography teachers. I can see what ideas they have to structure their classrooms and plan their curriculum. It is extremely important for students to learn about world cultures in the most efficient way possible. I think it will continue to be helpful in my future career because it is a great networking platform for social science teachers in general.

The digital divide is a term that refers to those students that do not have the same access to educational technology as we do. It causes students to fall behind because it can be more difficult for them to get their hands-on technology. The digital divide affects the success and educational outcomes of students because it creates disparity among them. The digital divide can be caused by socioeconomic factors as well as place and location. It is a social issue as well as one of privilege. As a future teacher, I may encounter that my students have unequal access to technology in general. It is my job to provide them with whatever resources possible, whether that be at my school's library or other community resources.

Academic software can be very beneficial for strengthening the tech skills of students. One software that I would be very interested in incorporating is something similar to Blogger. It can be a great way for students to get familiar with the advantages of the internet. When doing a little research I actually found a very interesting software called Montessorium: Intro to Geo. This can be very beneficial to geography teachers because it can provide students with a virtual map experience. This is a great database with information about different world countries. I would love to use something like this in the future beyond google earth and google maps.