Digital Divide Between Students and Teachers

The digital divide between students and adults (including teachers and parents) continues to widen. Students are powering down to go to school and powering up after school to re-enter the digital world.

Teachers are so busy with their daily drudgery of preparing their lessons, quizzes, tests and then marking them, that they have little time or initiative to become as tech-savvy as their students.

Some teachers lack the confidence to learn from their most tech-savvy students. One such teacher was heard saying "If I hear the word 'INTERNET' one more time I am going to hit somebody."

Some senior teachers don't give a damn about ever using the internet and just want to continue in their old teaching mode. One such teacher always prepared all his lessons, handouts, assignments, etc.. during the previous summer before the start of school, and therefore saw absolutely no need to update his methods.
These old-time teachers become very angry when anyone suggests to them that IT provides a better method. Providing Professional Development training for these teachers only leads to more anger and opposition to the new methods.

School Board Members do nothing to improve the negative attitude of teachers. School Board Members are politically motivated to impress parents with their IT sophistication. They like to purchase vast numbers of Smartboards, etc.. and then force them on their unmotivated teachers to learn to use.

In the last few years, I have used the excellent math website at www.TheMathWebSite.com to slowly convince my difficult colleagues that using the Internet makes life much easier. Everything they need to remove the daily classroom preparation drudgery is right there - bellwork, lessons, quizzes, tests, enrichment, puzzles, activities, historical info, etc.. It also has those riddles, puns, trivia etc.. to fill in the short time gaps before the end-of-class bell.
And all that any stubborn teacher needs to know is how to click a mouse, how to connect a projector and how to printout a sheet using his own laptop.

If the educational establishment wants to close the digital gap between students and teachers, it does not require always buying the newest and most dedicated tech hardware or software. It only requires having the standard software and the standard hardware first.
Teachers must feel comfortable with their own rung on the IT ladder before being pressured to train into the next wave of educational technology.
A basic spreadsheet can easily crunch class marks, so why spend big dollars on a sophisticated marks program with all their confusing key-strokes, that take time to learn?
A simple and free software template can be used to encourage students to create their own multiple choice quizzes. So why spend money on a fancy commercial software package for teachers only?
The hardware and software should be at the level of the teachers in your school and no higher. The most sophisticated and most expensive is not necessarily the best in IT, since it only leads to teacher confusion, dislike and apathy.