Bring Your Own Devices Classroom: Issues of Digital Divides in Teaching and Learning Contexts

TL;DR

This paper investigates digital divide issues in BYOD classrooms through surveys, interviews, and observations, revealing challenges in equitable access and information literacy in technology-mediated learning environments.

Contribution

It provides empirical insights into digital divides in BYOD settings, highlighting equity issues in secondary education in New Zealand.

Findings

Digital divides affect access to learning resources.

Information literacy disparities impact learning outcomes.

BYOD implementation reveals equity challenges.

Abstract

Technology mediated learning provide potentially valuable resources for learners' academic and social development. However, according to recent researches, as the adoption stages of ICTs advance there arise further levels of digital divides in terms of equity of information literacy and learning outcomes. For the last three years we have been working with the first secondary school in New Zealand to introduce a Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) policy. Our research has included a number of methods, including surveys, interviews and classroom observations. In this paper we present the findings from the investigation into BYOD project, which gave us insights into the digital divide issues in the context of technology mediated learning.