Digital Divide = Educational Divide = Urgent Action Needed

Digital Native is a common term used to describe those who have been brought up during the digitalage of technology, and are therefore more familiar with computers and the Internet. It is widely thought that our young children are Digital Natives, however, in low socio-economic areas, the term Digital Native is often a myth. While students in higher decile schools will more often than not have access to an internet enabled device, this is not the case for students in low-decile schools (Hartnett, 2016).There is no doubt that digital technology is changing every aspect of life from how we communicate to the way we learn. In the age of technological ubiquity, digital expertise is now considered an essential life skill (Hartnett, 2016). Technology is in fact changing the way we view schools, teaching and learning.Unfortunately a by-product of the digital age is the “digital divide”. The OECD define the “digital divide” as the gap between individuals, households, businesses and geographic areas at different socio-economic levels with regard both to their opportunities to access information and communication technologies (ICTs) and to their use of the Internet for a wide variety of activities. The socio-economic group a young person belongs to is influential in determining where they sit on the digital spectrum. Young people from lower socio-economic groups are less likely to have their own internet accessible device (Harnett, 2016). In the digital information age those who are either unable to access the Internet through the application of Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) are increasingly disadvantaged in their access to information (Cullen, 2001). The digital divide causes a major inequality that has very substantial drag to our educational performance