Social Networks, Virtual Environments and Digital

Divide
Tools Investigated:
iCivics is a website dedicated to helping students better understand the
American system of government as an interactive resource. The site was
founded by the first female Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day OConnor and is
a free resource for students and teachers. Teachers must create an account to
access all of the tools and information iCivics has to offer. Once signed, teachers
have access to lesson plans that are aligned with state and common core
standards. iCivics offers content organized by different units of study, lesson
plans with instructions and keys for teachers that are print-and-go and include
PowerPoints that have already been created and follow along with the lesson.
iCivics also has games where students can actively role play and decide real
world issues for themselves. It also offers a drafting board which helps students
to work on their writing skills, specifically argumentative essays and also a new
DB Quest that challenges students to use primary sources and analytical skills to
answer important civics question. Students also use photos, audio and video and
different texts to help answer their questions.
Missions-US is the other virtual world I explored. This website was designed
for Middle and high schools students who are learning about American History.
Specifically, it covers 4 major eras in History- Colonization of America, Slavery
and the flight to freedom, the Native American Struggle and the European
immigration to America. For students, they get to engage in a game that is played
out like a mission. As the character, students get to role play and are given
different situations and scenarios and they must choose what to do. For instance,
if a student chooses Mission 2: Flight to Freedom, they will be playing the role of
a runaway slave, who must survive without being caught. The student is given
different options on how to handle each situation. This gives them a more
realistic view of what it was like to be a slave. It is very similar to the old school
Oregon Trail computer game that many students enjoyed in the 1990s. While on
this mission, students engage in decision making using analytical and critical
thinking skills.
Facebook is a website that is used for social networking on the worldwide web.
Anyone who is at least 13 years old is allowed to become a registered user of
the website to enjoy its features. Facebook uses videos, instant messaging,
blogging and photos for its consumers to post. The Facebook site let's you like,
dislike, report behavior and become friends with users to name a few. Its
website was launched on February 4, 2004, by Mark Zuckerberg with his Harvard
College roommates and fellow students Eduardo Saverin,Andrew
McCollum, Dustin Moskovitz and Chris Hughes (Carlson 2010).

Diverse Learning Needs:

iCivics can be used for students who are excelling or having difficulties learning
the concepts of Government. For students who are struggling, each lesson
includes readings that are broken down and simplified so that the reader can
better understand the materials and concepts. It also uses bold print for
vocabulary words that are most often associated with that topic of study. Each
reading also includes illustrations and extra side notes/facts pertaining to the
topic. Each lesson also comes with worksheets for independent practice. Many of
these worksheets include vocabulary activities, writing complete sentences using
the vocabulary words, or answering questions from the reading. This site also
has WebQuests that include pictures, videos and a short blurb about a topic, and
a question for each student to answer and submit. All of these can be used to
check for understanding. For advanced students, WebQuests can be used to
check for understanding, but these students could also use the drafting board to
analyze thoughts, ideas and real world situations while practicing their writing
skills. They can also use DB Quest to tackle using primary and secondary
resources to research information. Both types of learners could use the games
provided. Struggling learners could use it as a fun way to better understand the
concepts, while advanced learners could use it as a reward for being ready to
move on.
Because so many students are technologically savvy, this website was user
friendly and students on all levels of learning could use this website easily. Since
technology is so prevalent in our society, many students want to use more
technology in their lessons. Because the game is also interactive, it is great for
visual and auditory learners as well as those who like to write, because Mission
US does include writing prompts. This site could be used not only as a reward
because it is an interactive game, but for better understanding for those who may
be struggling. Sometimes it is hard to make a lesson relevant or fun or even
capture the attention of students, especially if they are struggling. By putting the
lesson in a game format, it may be easier for some students to grasp and
understand. When making decisions throughout the game, students have to
analyze the situation and use critical thinking skills to figure out how to make it to
the end. The best part about it, is that students do not even realize this. These
are great skills for struggling learners as well as advanced learners. As with
iCivics, the games (missions) could be played by individual students or as a class
and could be used as a reward for understanding the lesson, or used as the
lesson to help struggling learners understand the concept better. It would also
give students a better understanding of what really happened in our History. It
can be very hard to relate material to real life or for students to understand the
severity of a situation, but with this game, students have to put themselves in
these difficult situations that so many people from our past have had to overcome
and make decisions for them. It can give students a whole new perspective and
understanding.
Facebook is one of the latest examples of communications technologies that
have been widely adopted by students and teachers. Facebook uses the
language barrier that is built between the English language and all of the other

languages in the world to be able to communicate with the click of a button. The
user of Facebook can translate words from a different language to help the
reader understand what is being said or the meaning of the statement.
Using the Tools:
iCivics tools would be great to use with both students and teachers. It not only
serves information in a much easier form for students to grasp, it also serves the
information in several forms, for those students who are more technologically
savvy, to those who would prefer to read, to those that excel at writing. Several of
the teachers at my school use iCivics on a day-to-day basis for their students.
Not only does it have lesson plans already prepared, it includes classroom
activities, individual work and power points that follow with the reading and
worksheets. It is also a very good review tool as well.
Mission US is definitely a website that I would share with students and
teachers, especially those in Social Studies classes. Teachers would like this
site, because of the premade lesson plans that include instructions, guides,
vocabulary, essential questions, and pacing guides/calendars, as well as already
having worksheets, activities and primary sources ready to go. It also includes
background information for not only students but for the teacher as well. The
students would like this site because it is something they could use at home and
in the classroom. It would also break up the monotony of work by including an
activity/game to coincide with it. I think would learn more from the site than what
they would anticipate.
Facebook is one of the social networking tools, that if used correctly, can help
both the teacher and the student achieve success in the classroom. It helps you
stay up to date on current events and building a stronger community audience.
One positive from Facebook is the option to use its messaging system to stay in
touch with peer-to-peer communicating. You can also use a voting poll and see
results as users reply.
Digital Divide:
However, it is often the case that individuals with greater education and income
are the first to adopt new technologies, and individuals in rural areas are the last
to be reached by the deployment of new telecommunications infrastructure
(Gorski, 2005). The digital divide in our school system starts with the lower
income students that do not have access to a computer or the Internet. Students
that live in the rural areas of the swamp usually have low-income levels.
Students that live in the city limits of Waycross have parents that have a higher
level of income to support the new technologies of todays status. Children living
in high-income households are more than twice as likely to have home computer
and Internet access than children living in low-income households (Corporation
for Public Broadcasting [CPB], 2003).
Strategies:
Rural areas in Ware County struggle with offering Internet access because of
the swamp region. Some classrooms have MacBooks, though a laptop cart that
can be checked out or a computer lab reserved. However, those can be time
consuming when a student does not understand how to fully use a computer
because of knowledge with the technology. It puts the socioeconomic status of

the student at risk because of the lack of use with a computer or Internet use.
Some students use Wi-Fi at the local schools, McDonalds, Burger King or
anywhere that offers free Wi-Fi. Ware County Schools offer an Intro to Business
Technology class to teach students how to use the Internet, computers and Web
2.0 tools. Students are supposed to take this class during the ninth grade.
Scheduling is sometimes hectic and depending on numbers, a few students may
get pushed back to the next year.
Refrences.
Facebook | (n.d.). Retrieved February 09, 2016, from https://www.facebook.com/
Gorski, P. (2005). Education equity and the digital divide. AACE Journal, 13(1), 345.
ICivics | Free Lesson Plans and Games for Learning Civics. (n.d.). Retrieved
February 10, 2016, from https://www.icivics.org/
Mission US | THIRTEEN. (n.d.). Retrieved February 08, 2016, from
http://www.mission-us.org/
https://www.icivics.org/teachers/lesson-plans/colonial-influences
http://www.mission-us.org/pages/mission-2
https://www.isidewith.com/political-quiz