Demographics of Teen Bloggers

In D. Penrod's book she explores how blogging might be closing some digital divides and therefore have real promise in educational settings.

In reading her book a few pieces really seemed significant to me
- Gender and blogs
- Ethnicity and Blogs

In her research she cites two Pew studies, but I think in reading both reports the findings really came from one report. I am having a hard time finding the same statistics in her report - even when I look directly at the cited material. She cites Rainie (2004) however, I could not find the statistic that was in the book at that urban youth were the largest block on content creators online. I did however find that among teen bloggers this demographic was reported to be the largest producers of content.

In this report (not the one cited) I can see these conclusions, but they are for youth only, they can be found on page 10). However, for all people (youth and adults) it seems like more traditional patterns still exist, since within this report there is another on Content Creators this study does not at all agree with her findings - and suggest that higher average household income is correlated with more content creation online - what I had thought. However in reading these Pew Reports it makes me realize that the trends in teen blogging may be out of sync with the trends for all bloggers.

She also reports that ethnic divides are closing with regards to blogging - she cites information from 2005 which states 17% of African American students in the study, 17% of Latino/a students in the study and 19% of Caucasian students in the study reported blogging. This move towards a more equal demographic was really exciting to read (and can be seen on page 14 of this report). I wanted to see how this trend had changed or maintained since the book was published. This more recent study showed that there had been an overall increase in blog creation (from 19% of teens to 28%), but no information about ethnic trends in this demographic.

Digital divides exist in many different forms, and the research from Pew is exciting because it suggests that blogging might be helping decrease these divides.

Participation Gap

Another way of looking at the digital divide (or divides) is through what Palfrey and Gasser call the Participation Gap. As they suggest in Born Digital "the harder issue arises when you realize that access to technology is not enough. Young people need to learn digital literacy- the skills to navigate this complex and hybrid world" (p.15). On a wiki of the Digital Natives Project they pose these questions:

Questions for Discussion

1. How do we explore the nuances of the participation gap, taking into account the impact of social inequality and parental fluency?
2. Who is our digital native? Do we accept the premise that digital natives process information in a different way than immigrants? How do we empirically explore the digital generation gap?
3. Does the technology develop first, or the social norms about how the tools are used? Are the technological limitations of these tools transforming the way natives socialize and understand themselves?
4. How do youth in different countries use online socialization tools differently, and what is the significance of these differences? How do on-line social activities affect off-line identity development?

More on the Digital Divide

In thinking about the Digital Divide (or the multiple divides suggested by Kelly) I consulted this reference source DigitalDivide.org and began by reading about what this organization sees as the fallacies to closing the divide. It is a really interesting list and according to the list fallacy number 5: "The key to closing the Digital Divide is investment in literacy and education." Arguing that attacking literacy may not be necessary to closing the divide. While it may not be necessary, does that mean that strategies to deal with the divide should bypass the importance of literacy (and especially now that technology skills could be considered a larger subset of what it means to be literate today?)

In terms of the 'truths' about closing the digital divide this organization seems to believe that closing the digital divide is about building a world economy and stopping terrorism. They claim it is the solution to growth in world markets.

I guess I have not thought at the digital divide on such a global level - I had been thinking about it in the State of Maine and how access and experiences might benefit all students - I guess it is time for me to think about situating these goals within the larger context to examine why I believe this is necessary and good. Reading this organizations materials is challenging the way I think about this issue.

Digital Equity

In reading Chapter 2 by M. A. Kelly of the Handbook for Technological Pedagogical Content Knowledge (TPCK) for Educators I was struck at the expanded way of considering digital divides in education. He suggests that there are at least three divides that teachers need to be aware of. These divides are not necessarily an either/or situation, but rather exist as a divide continuum.
1st: Access to technology hardware, software and the Internet (p.33)
2nd: Access to achievement-enhancing TMI (technology mediated instruction) (p. 39)
3rd: Access to culture-sensitive technological pedagogy (p.43)

His exploration of these divides includes suggestions for teachers to reduce or mediate the potential divides and the effects of these divides. As I think about preservice teacher education I had been thinking a lot about ways for prospective teachers to learn about the community and context of a school and its students. I had not considered folding a technology access survey into this context discovery previously, but now think it is important to have future educators learn about these issues so that they can more effectively plan for instruction with technology integration in a manner that is senstive to the social justice implications of technology use.

I had thought about this issue before with the article Paul Gravelle had written for USM's Center for Education Policy, Applied Research, and Evaluation: Impact on the Digital Divide. However this article was written in 2003 and I would very much like to know what has changed since then. Regardless of the changes though it is important inMaine for teachers to be aware of how issues of access can greatly impact the learning taking place and the hidden messages that students learn with the use and requirement of technology. Considering these issues is a vital component of trainging new teachers, and I look forward to blending this into my instruction.



Just found this article as well from PBS: The Digital Divide
What is Maine doing about this issue LD 2080