Warschauer 2000

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In this reading/study 2 schools in Hawaii are examined in terms of the digital divide. One school is a private, wealthy, affluent school and the other school is very low socioeconomic and underperforming school. Warschauer examines the difference in the way the two schools are using computer technology in the classroom. In the last decade the "digital divide" has been a hot issue amongst educators and politicians. To try to bridge the gap in the digital divide schools were acquiring more computers. In Warschaur's study it shows how both schools have computers but simply having the same numbers of computers in not decreasing the digital divide. Research showed that the way students are taught with the computers has an impact the digital divide. In the study the poor school used the computers for repetitious drills and learning basic computer software programs. The affluent schools used the computers to create projects that used critical thinking, and collaborative skills. One important aspect that came from this study is that the digital divide is still around even when poor schools and rich schools have access to similar technology.