Classroom training and eLearning each have their own strengths and limitations. 

• Availability of Subject Matter Experts and coaches to adapt to participant needs and questions
• Live group interaction, collaboration, demonstration, role-modeling, and mentoring
• Greater capacity for hands-on experiences with physical devices and equipment
• Addresses topics and issues that are outside of the packaged course material
• Face-to-face sharing of experiences and social interaction
• Dedicated time in a controlled environment, away from other work demands
• Closer simulation of actual work performance, particularly people-based interactions
• Building personal relationships, networking, and breaking down silos
• Easy to modify and adapt instructional strategies (activities and interactions)

​
eLearning

• Self-directed, learners can proceed at their own pace
• Convenient and flexible, available on-demand (24/7/365) even in remote locations
• Scalable—simultaneous, audience and/or enterprise-wide rollouts possible
• High individual learning accountability
• Consistency in the format and delivery of content
• Easy to update and disseminate content
• Reduced time away from work and cost of logistics
• Easy-to-manage administration and analytics
• Ideal for a multi-cultural and multi-lingual context

​
Why Blend?Considering that both classroom training and eLearning have their strengths and limitations, what would be a better strategy than blending these two modes of delivery?
Yes! This is exactly what blended learning is all about. Here are the various ways you can incorporate blended learning into your organization:

• Prepare your employees before classroom training using eLearning courses to kindle their desire to learn more.
• Assess your employees after classroom training using online assessments to reinforce what had been learned.
• Add more depth to your classroom training by incorporating microlearning nuggets during sessions.

The article was refereed by Elearning Infographics 
Via:https://blog.commlabindia.com/elearning-design/blended-learning-leveraging-ilt-elearning-infographic

This Top 20 Authoring Tools list has been created using a holistic approach and is based on input from actual Authoring Tool users. The order of appearance depends on System Usability Score, Perceived Usefulness & Net Promoter Score. You can also find User-Friendly Authoring Tool Resources that will help you choose the right software.

This web link and infographic is reposted from
​https://elearningindustry.com/directory/software-categories/elearning-authoring-tools/best/user-experience?mc_cid=68f28b5303&mc_eid=55e5b41e93  

Faculty support is about providing faculty with the necessary tools and resources to become better instructors, course developers, and learners, whether it's teaching online or face to face. A critical factor for faculty support includes being the learner when you want to become a better instructor. By this, when it comes to faculty support, we must let faculty know that you have to be the student of your course. If you're the student in your class, would you complete the work? Would you watch the video? Would you complete the assignment/s? To become better instructors, they must understand the student body, provide access to training, and be innovative. 

Understanding the Student Body
Faculty members need to understand the student body they serve. If the institution has over 35% first-generation students among the total student population, there is a high chance the faculty member will have ⅓ of its student body first generation. Faculty must understand its student body because not every student learns the same and comes from the same background. First-generation students may have more challenges than legacy students whose parents and grandparents attend the university. A first-generation student may need extra tutoring and assistance to understand better expectations and guidance in selecting a major. To get started, I suggest that the faculty member conduct a learner analysis. 

Access to Training 
Faculty members, just like anyone else, have 24 hours in a day, and of the 24 hours, only so much can be devoted to training. When I first started teaching, I had to train myself to teach both face-to-face and online. The institution did provide courses and just-in-time training, but it was not enough. Imagine a firefighter trained for two hours before being sent to an emergency. Do you think the firefighters would do a good job? Probably not. The same can go for a faculty member teaching in the classroom. Training is an essential part of teaching, and without training the faculty member, the classroom can be a disaster. The number of free teaching courses over the years has increased tenfold, but it's up to the faculty member to select the right fit. 

Think like an Entrepreneur
As a Certified Practitioner of the Entrepreneurial Mindset Profile, I take an entrepreneurial mindset to faculty support. I believe approaching from an entrepreneurial mindset is that faculty need to be innovative, engaging, and have differentiation. There is a saturation of online courses available from higher education institutions that look and feel the same. Universities need to take the initiative, especially faculty support, to approach online learning design from an entrepreneurial mindset of taking a pivot of embracing creativity, risk, and conformity. Faculty support is more than teaching how to use a learning management system; it's about putting on the entrepreneurial mindset hat and thinking creatively.​

As a faculty member, what will you do to improve the classroom better? 

I first got wind of Sutori when I looked up top tech tools for the classroom back in 2019. At first, I was hesitant to check out yet another tech tool for the classroom. My hesitation was from the countless times I would read about the next tech tool to take over the classroom. However, Sutori was not about taking over the classroom; it was more about providing a tool to use in the classroom. Sutori lets you transform your lessons into collaborative learning experiences. Sutori is the interactive version of PowerPoint that enables you to control your presentation with interactive tools such as quizzes, audio, video, forum, and files.  The three reasons you should give Sutori a try in your classroom is because Sutori automatically saves your work, provides several options for your presentation, and easy integration. 

Automatic Saver
When I first started to use Sutori, I was surprised at how Sutori automatically saves your work like Google tools (Google Word, Excel, PowerPoint). If there is anything that I despise about the desktop PowerPoint, I have to save my work. Remember the times when you were working on a project and your computer crashes without saving? Well, the good thing about Sutori is that your work saves automatically. You can focus on your work without having to worry about losing your work. Kudos to Sutori software developers for adding the automatic save feature. 

The Options
As consumers, we like options but not too many options, or else we become overwhelmed. Sutori provides a unique selection of options when adding a slide. The options include: text, link, image, multiple-choice, match quiz, video, audio, “did you know?” file attachment, forum discussion, and bibliography. The multiple-choice option is simply a quiz option, just like the match quiz. The “did you know?” is an option to add a fact about a particular topic. The rest of the options are self-explanatory. The “add media” option for each slide is incredible because you can upload your picture, upload a link, a YouTube link, Google Drive document, voice recorder or select an image from Unsplash, which provides millions of royalty-free photos. 

Easy Integration
Once you complete your Sutori you can share it on various platforms. You can share with Google Classroom, Microsoft Teams, Facebook, Twitter, and Pinterest. On top of the sharing, you can embed your Sutori presentation to your website. So if your educator with a classroom website, you can embed your presentation for easy access. You can also send out the public link to share with your students, colleagues, and the public. I am sharing one of the Sutori presentations I did for a conference a couple of weeks ago. 
​
What are you waiting for? Are you ready to give Sutori a try? 

Article is originally from Center for Teaching Excellence, University of Waterloo. All credit is given to main authors. 

Active learning in the classroom can increase student engagement and promote learning. The online environment can also be used to create active learning opportunities for students that help them engage with challenging concepts or that provide self-assessment of self-reflection opportunities. Blended courses, those with online and face-to-face components, provide an opportunity to integrate the learning that is done online and in the classroom so that students can see clear connections between what they are doing in both environments. Introducing an online activity in class and then providing feedback to the activity in class after the activity is completed can help “close the loop” of learning for students. The questions outlined below can help you think about the objectives of an online activity, the most appropriate technology for building it and how students will receive feedback and be assessed on their learning and work.
Online learning activities include: synchronous and asynchronous online discussions, online self-assessments, blogs, wikis, virtual field trips, virtual labs, case studies, simulations, problem solving, concept mapping, and interactive learning objects. Learning objects and reusable learning activities can be found in online repositories such as Merlot or through the instructor resources repository in our current learning management system (log into LEARN and go to the link in the repositories section of your course listing page). Activities can be relatively straightforward tasks that an individual can complete in a short amount of time, or more complex activities that can include collaboration between students and have a longer timeframe. All activities should promote meaningful engagement with course concepts and not become “busy work” for the students.  
Ask yourself:What is the objective or intended learning outcome of this activity?Most course outlines or syllabi have a set of course objectives or intended learning outcomes for a course; using these same principles, articulate one specific objective or intended learning outcome for the activity.  See the Centre for Teaching Excellence teaching tip “Writing Learning Outcomes”.

How long should the learning take?This will depend on the objective or intended learning outcome of the activity. The interaction and learning time can be short, for example a 5 minute self assessment for students to monitor their understanding of a concept, or longer, such as a series of practice problems that are linked to a java applets or web-based interactive simulations that could take up to an hour.

Will the activity be individual, collaborative or both?Although we tend to imagine students working alone at their computers, student often tackle their online activities in pairs or trios; two or three heads can be better than one! Peer–to–peer interactions and dialogue about challenging concepts and problem solving can increase their engagement and help learning, so it can be helpful to design activities with this in mind and to encourage students to collaborate on such activities.

Which media and technologies should be used?Keep it simple. The overwhelming range of tools and media options available can make it challenging to choose how to best design and deliver an online activity. Use the objective or intended learning outcome of the activity as a starting point to decide which visual and audio components will be most effective. Our learning management system provides many tools that can be the starting point of a learning activity (quizzes, discussion forums, wikis) and scaffolded learning opportunities can be created that provide access to a sequence of activities of increasing complexity or difficulty in a controlled timeframe or through a series of learner actions. Tools and resources that are external to our learning management system can be used to develop online learning activities, but may not provide opportunities to back-up student work. If grades are given for the activity or student participation is to be tracked and reviewed for participation grades, external tools may not have the stability and longevity that institutional resources provide.

How will the learners get feedback on what they have learned?“Close the loop” of learning by providing feedback to the activity. Effective feedback can direct and guide a student and help them understand if they have achieved understanding. When providing individual feedback is impractical, model answers or links to helpful resources can be provided automatically and immediately online and can be based on their performance in the activity. Effective feedback to activities can also be given to the whole class during class time where the online activity can be a springboard to deeper in-class learning or connected to new concepts.

How will the learning be assessed?We typically provide summative assessment to students by grading them on tasks and their grade, or mark, reflects how well they have preformed on the task. Formative assessment, on the other hand, can help students recognize misconceptions and guide them to better understanding and thus better performance on future assessments. Both formative and summative assessment can be part of a learning activity depending on the objective or intended learning outcome of the task.

How will I motivate students to participate in the activity? If an activity is perceived as valuable to students and properly integrated into a course, students will be more motivated to do the activity.  Participation marks or a small grade allocation for engaging in an online learning activity can also increase students’ motivation. Students are more likely to participate in low stakes activities if they are going to be integrated into their experiences in the classroom, tutorial or lab. Providing real world, authentic tasks that are relevant to students’ lives or future professional lives that are challenging, but achievable, can also increase motivation.

How will learners communicate with each other and ask the instructor questions?Providing opportunities for students to ask questions about the learning activity in class or through online frequently asked questions discussion boards can help create a supportive environment for learning to take place.

• Ambrose, S.A., Bridges, M.W., DiPietro, M., Lovett, M.C. and Norma, M.K. (2010) How Learning Works: Seven Research-Based Principles for Smart Teaching. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.
• Bonwell, C. and Eison, J., (1991). “Active learning: Creating excitement in the classroom.”ASHE-ERIC Higher Education Report No. 1.
• Chickering, A. and Gamson, S.C., (1996). Implementing the Seven Principles: Technology as a Lever, AAHE Bulletin,October, pp.3-6.
• Fink, L. D. (2003). Creating significant learning experiences: An integrated approach to designing college courses. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.
• Meyers, C. and Jones, T.B. (1993).  Promoting active learning: Strategies for the college classroom. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.
• Stice, J. E. (1987). “Using Kolb’s Learning Cycle to Improve Student Learning.” Engineering Education, 77(5), 291-296.
• Wiggins, G. and McTighe, G., (2005). Understanding by Design. Alexandrai, VA: Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development.

This Creative Commons license lets others remix, tweak, and build upon our work non-commercially, as long as they credit us and indicate if changes were made. Use this citation format: Developing Online Learning Activities for Blended Courses. Centre for Teaching Excellence, University of Waterloo.

Quora, the Q&A website where anyone in the world can ask questions and the answers are edited and organized by the community of users in the forms of opinions. Think about it as the live version of Wikipedia where people can go at you for posting the wrong answers. During my research for what is  educational technology I found a link to a Quora question about what is educational technology. In this post I focus on the 5 killer Quora answers on educational technology.
 
All of the answers were selected based on number of views and upvotes. Views do not signify that it’s the most accurate answer only that people in Quora viewed the answer the most thus making it a killer Quora answer.

I copied and past the answers to make it easier for you and was not intended to plagiarize an answer.

All of the questions come with the name of the person that wrote the answer, number of views and link to the answer so you can see for yourself the original posting.
 
Question 1
 
The first filler Quora answers on education technology is from the question, “what is educational technology?” The killer answer is from Gopal Iyer, works at Educational Initiatives – Answered August 8, 2017 with 3.9k views. 

https://bit.ly/2IqyUA9
 
Educational technology; defined as a platform to enhance learning through different digital tools, strives to improve pedagogical transactions anywhere, anytime. A crucial component of ET is its evolving nature, enabling children to learn better and faster. Now let me exemplify this and share my experience in the Indian context and how they have evolved in the recent years and what may the future look like?

First came the basic Windows Computers or desktop PC’s which stored information on floppy drives. Typically we were taught calculations, typing and a few basic languages and thus preparing us to take on the real world challenges. Since then education technology has come a long way, and its progress indeed amazes me. This is what a computer used to look like, during our ET sessions in our schools.

A few years later, in came, the laptops and tablets PC’s overthrowing the good old white elephants like the one’s above and made learning look more engaging and fruitful. However, what changed here was the shift in power from the teacher to the learner. Information was available at the touch of the button, thus making the student as powerful as the tutor. Learning also evolved - difficult concepts taught through apps, exercises provided for practices and real time feedbacks have been made possible, equipping teachers to point out gaps in learning. (a typical tablet equipped classroom)

Immersive learning the future
The future of educational technology looks further promising as the learner and the tutor both would be engaged simultaneously. Teaching in a classroom would be like a movie, lesson plans would be mounted on headsets and students would be encouraged to explore with their tutor. Imagine, biology being taught by immersive technique, wouldn't that be fun?

The power of engagement is indeed a gift of educational technology, and through its dynamic nature, it is certaintly capable of changing the way children learn in the classroom.
 
Question 2

The second question, “What is the difference between educational technology and instructional technology?” The killer answer is from Ed Caruthers, Lifelong learner with 4k views.
 
https://bit.ly/2U7KpOQ
 
The way the terms are usually used

Education technology is technology used to help with education. The education can be on any subject. See the Khan Academy which uses technology to help language arts education, music education. 

Technology education is education in one or more technologies. Science, engineering and math are usually included within the more general technology to make STEM.

Question 3

The third question, “what is technology in education?” The killer answer is from Bill Watson, studied at California with 288 views.  
 
https://bit.ly/2G9wMer
 
The best example for use of technology in education is Mentis. Mentis is an open enterprise system for higher education that organizes data, automates processes & transform academia management.

Given below are the reasons:
· Mentis has number of apps namely E-Learning Compliance (ELC), Profiles, Faculty Productivity, Community Service Learning, Grant Management, Conflict of Interest, Mentor and Track & Internal Competitions which are really very useful for Universities and Colleges.
· Profiles app provides platform to let faculty easily describe all their teaching, research and service activities. Furthermore, it makes these activities available online, for other faculty, students, industry and community partners, to easily search and find.
· E-Learning Compliance (ELC) app helps improve your compliance management. You can use ELC to track and stay on top of your professional licensure and state authorization compliance.

• You can access comprehensive database of state entities and licensure boards covering over 35 different professions.
• Record and track all business, employment, advertisement, instruction and recruitment activities by program.
• Slice and dice your student enrollment data with direct integration with your Student Information System.
• Gather analytical information and derive insights from a number of prebuilt analytical reports.
• A repository of all your program related information that can also be maintained by your program coordinators.
• Save time with auto-reminders, to-dos and automatic website publishing.

Leverage your investment in Mentis by getting other apps or creating your own apps. All apps in Mentis also interact with each other, and with other third-party systems, via services. Data generated in one app can be easily consumed by the other thereby reducing data redundancy and improving the overall integrity of data.
·  Trusted by many universities and colleges in USA.

Find the snapshot of E-Learning Compliance (ELC) app in Mentis below: (pics found on weblink provided) 

*Disclosure: I am an employee of Inknowledge Inc.
For more information, please visit our official website Inknowledge Inc. You can also contact us at info@inknowledge.com.

​Question 4 

The fourth question “What do you understand by education technology and educational technology?” The killer answer is from Michael Cenkner, Teaching in K-12 with 270 views.
 
https://bit.ly/2I6va7j

Here’s my answer. We see it having at least seven distinct roles:
Integrating the educational technology expert in medical education: A role-based competency framework
MedEdPublish - Integrating the educational technology expert in medical education: A role-based competency framework. 
After we published this paper, we decided that the roles should be thought of as applying to a team of ed tech people, not just all with one person. We are currently doing a follow-up study to see how much people agree with this concept. Hope this helps.

Question 5
 
The fifth question is, “how is technology changing education?” The killer answer is from Joseph Gudino, Creative Marketing Writer with 10.6k views.
  
https://bit.ly/2U4dRFx
 
I would use three words to sum up how technology is changing education: faster, lighter, and deeper. I'll quickly describe what I mean by each. 

Faster: Research and communication technologies are allowing for quicker transfer of data between institutions, teachers, and students. This is shortening the amount of time that is expected for people to turnaround assignments or finish research.

Lighter: With services like Google Docs students are having to rely less on what they bring to the table in terms of software and able to take advantage of free third party services. Electronic textbooks and paperless assignments/quizzes/tests have proved a successful alternatives to physical papers for students and educators looking to reduce their carrying load.

Deeper: Due to technological advances teachers have access to more content today that ever before. If they want to explore any particular topic, many are just as far way as a simple Google search and a YouTube video to bring it alive. 

I did a great roundup recently of my favorite technologies for education. Here it is if you would like some more info: 8 Educational Technologies That Are Changing The Classroom
 

The killer answers are to be educational on what people are saying about educational technology. What is your killer answer to any of the educational technology questions? Answer by commenting on this blog post. 

 When I was a first-year doctoral student three years ago I recall a moment when a lady I approached for directions to an office I was looking for at Oklahoma State University – Stillwater campus asked if I could fix the formatting on her graduate students’ thesis. I was caught off guard, and I said I could not help out with that because that’s not what I do. The lady thought I was knowledgeable in IT and could fix anything related to technology because I told her I was a doctoral student in educational technology. I had to correct her, and now I am letting you all know what the heck is educational technology.
 
What is educational technology?
If you type in “definition of educational technology” on the google search engine, you will get 226,000,000 results. I am not going to siphon through all of the results nor will I use Wikipedia as the definition of educational technology.

The first definition I will use for this post comes from the Association for Educational Communications & Technology (AECT) 2012 standards, which is a leading association for educational technology:
"Educational technology is the study and ethical practice of facilitating    learning and improving performance by creating, using and managing appropriate technological processes and resources."
 
The second source for defining educational technology comes from The Encyclopedia of Educational Technology:
"Educational technology is a systematic, iterative process for designing instruction or training used to improve performance."
 
To keep it simple educational technology is a systematic process for facilitating learning and improving performance with appropriate technology.
 
Is educational technology all about technology?
One of the main components of educational technology comes from assessing the need and cost factor. Last year a client I was working with that helped adult educators bring technology in the classroom had a significant setback that the educators faced, the cost and buy-in from their institution.
 
Educational technology is not about selecting the latest technology in the classroom that will change the way students learn. There is a lot that goes into using technology in the classroom. For example, does the institution have enough financial resources to purchase and maintain the technology for the long term? Does technology integrate into the curriculum? How will educators be trained in the use of technology?
 
Educational Technology fade
Educational technology has been around for over a century with the start of motion pictures and the radio. Thomas Edison once declared that videos would do away with textbooks. That was at the beginning of the 20th century, and we are still using books in the classroom in the 21st century.

Educational technology is not responsible for the latest technology fade that comes into education (e.g., MOOC, Smartboard). What educational technology does is that it facilitates technology and certainly does not do the teaching. Educational technology is not responsible for technology fades in the classroom just as pizza is not the sole responsibility for people’s obesity.

Educators need to their homework first before falling for the latest educational technology fade.
 
Educational technology is a systematic process for facilitating learning and improving performance with appropriate technology. When using technology in the classroom educate yourself on the technology and see who it will improve performance in your class.

I’ve had my fair share of life lessons with educational technology. Educational technology is continuously changing with no end in sight of new and innovate technologies for the classroom. As an educator, I get tired of the “new and innovative” technologies and methods for the classroom. I am open to new ideas but I’ve had my fair share of life lessons that have opened up my teaching for the best. In this blog post, I will discuss the three real-life lessons about educational technology.
 
Educational Tech is not your friend
As an educator, I’ve had experiences and seen it myself where technology is not your friend and probably will never be and here is why. Technology is not meant to overtake your teaching or intended to be better than your teaching. As the educator technology is supplemental to the, not the actual teaching.

I recall students telling me how they don’t like it when educators show them hour-long videos in the classroom when they want to learn, and they find it a waste of time.

Why show up to class if the educator will show one-hour long movies in the class instead of teaching, which leads me to my next point, videos in the classroom.  
 
Videos are not your answers
A video is not always the answer to your teaching. As I mentioned in the previous section, technology is not your teaching; it is the supplement to your instruction. When showing a video in the classroom, there are questions that you have to ask yourself first, which you can read about in a previous post I wrote.
 
After answering the questions and assessing the video than show the video in class. If you are showing the video at a conference test it before the presentation. I can’t tell you the number of times I sat during presentations to watch the video not work correctly.

The presenter wastes 5 minutes trying to figure it out and by the time the tech comes and figures it out it’s been 10 minutes to watch a 2 minutes clip that had no sense in showing in the first place. Remember, technology is not your friend.   
 
Don’t follow the crowd
Presenting at numerous conferences over the years throughout the country I am open to listening to other presenters discuss the latest technology and how they use it in the classroom. But I am not quick to jump and follow the crowd.

I remember Twitter being the big thing in teaching and how everyone needed to use Twitter in the classroom. I won’t lie I also fell into the Twitter in the classroom crowd, heck I even presented on Twitter in the class.

After realizing that Twitter only worked for one group of students and not others I stopped. Don’t follow the crowd, assess your needs first and see if it fits your teaching style and pedagogy.
 
Don’t get suckered into the educational technology hype and don’t rush to the technology. What works for one classroom may not work for your class. Let my three life lessons in educational technology guide you in the classroom.  

Self-driving cars and trucks are on the verge of being the norm. Kiosks are overtaking fast food restaurants and airport check-ins. And even UPS drivers are learning how to drive via virtual reality before hitting the road in an actual truck. But where does this leave higher education institutions? Higher education institutions may need to think about for the future such as do they need to embrace cryptocurrency in its curriculum? Should students be able to earn a degree that takes months not years? Will students be able to order via a kiosk rather than through a human behind a cashier? In this article, I discuss where will higher education be five years from now.
 
Courses in Cryptocurrency
There is a growing phenomenon about cryptocurrency, and higher education will have to embrace it sooner or later. Remember the whole crypto current phase were one bitcoin was worth over $9,000. Since then the price has dropped dramatically. However, that has not pushed people away from cryptocurrency. Cryptocurrency will be the norm on college campuses. There are even organizations on campuses for cryptocurrency. For example. The University of Minnesota has the Cryptocurrency Club. The reason why is because it’s the new wave of currency, ten years from now we will have a digital atmosphere, and students need to know technology.
 
Micro degrees will be recognized
Five years from now micro degrees will be more accepted by employers because they will come from institutions of higher learning and not an organization offering $50 for certification of completion.
 
Not all students have the time to go to college full time and may only need a few courses to get the proper training on a particular subject. With institutions needing revenue, they will come around and start granting micro degrees as an official degree to increase enrollment and as a revenue driver. 
 
Cafeterias will be self-serving
A while ago I was teaching a business course at an institution in a Chicago suburb where the cafeteria had self-serving vending machines and grab as you go. With institutions having to cut costs I can see where a large number of institutions will do away with its cafeteria staff and have vending machines and self-serving stations. Why waste costs on staff when you can place vending machines to serve student’s needs. And this also goes for coffees shops on campus where kiosks will be the norm.
 
Higher education institutions will have to move towards the future whether that’s jumping on the cryptocurrency bandwagon, awarding micro degrees or self-serving cafeterias time has changed and it's time higher education institutions do the same. Where do you see higher education five years from now?  

The ugly truth about technology is the digital divide. The digital divide in the United States can be a debate such as the have & have not’s, lack of access to technology due to geography or lack of access to the Internet to name a few. For the sake of argument in this post my reference of digital divide is the gap between those who have access to technology (e.g., computers, tablets) and those that do not have access to technology. I will discuss my intake on the importance of a needs assessment of the digital divide.
 
Personal experience with the digital divide
 
As a child growing up in Chicago, my father scored a used computer from his job that had limited capabilities. The only thing me and my sister could do was play the computer game programmed and watch a 1996 encyclopedia CD that my father had bought.
 
Our digital divide wasn’t due to access or geography but instead lack of training. It wasn’t until my dad moved us to the Southwest suburbs of Chicago, IL in the fourth grade that I had the proper computer training.
 
Moving to the suburbs where schools were funded at a higher level than Chicago Public Schools provided access to better quality technology and instruction on the technology.  That is why before stating that the digital divide is purely based on economics there needs to be a needs assessment.
 
The needs assessment of digital divide
 
A needs assessment to determine what is the digital divide can help determine if the divide is based on skills, geography, economic opportunity or some other reason. Once the divide has been clarified through needs assessment an implementation can be introduced for lessening the digital divide gap.
 
If there is an economic divide, then the focus could be on obtaining technology grants or increasing the budget for technology in the classroom. With budget cuts and lack of state support grants may be the solution for many. When applying for a technology grant think about sustaining the funding for the long term because technology breaks, gets lost, or needs repair. Grant money does good for access to the technology but remember that technology needs to be maintained.
 
If the divide is based on lack of home access, find programs that internet providers have for families that qualify for low-cost internet. Cox Communications has a plan for qualified households to get low-cost internet in their home. I would even go as far as providing computer skill classes to parents which is a win for both the parents and schools. The parents learn how to use technology which can help them get better jobs, and the schools get a parent who can help their child with their homework.
 
If the divide is geography than tools such as KA Lite, which is the offline version of Khan Academy, or apps that don’t need WiFi can be a solution. The amount of tools that can be used offline is limited but they are out in the market.
 
Moving forward
The digital divide won’t be solved overnight nor will it all be corrected with money. Starting with the need assessment is one way to assess the issue and move on to the next step which is finding an adequate solution to digital divide.

My sister and I didn’t face an economic divide instead we didn’t have proper access to training at our school, and my parents didn’t know any better.

​How will you assess the digital divide?