"New digital divide [phone/email/broadband Internet usage]...but laptop ownership...about even for [whites/minorities]” 2010 Pew

Shallow wading... deeper reflective learning, teaching

What about access for EDUCATIONAL USES of "smart" mobile devices? iPads and its emerging competitors?  Does Internet access via small mobile devices encourage brief, shallow encounters? Induce habits contrary to effective learning and deeper understanding?  How can we use small mobile devices to engage deeply with online information? 

"Fifty-one percent of Hispanics and 46 percent of African Americans use their phones to access the Internet, compared with 33 percent of whites, according to a July 2010 Pew poll. Forty-seven percent of Latinos and 41 percent of African Americans use their phones for e-mail, compared with 30 percent of whites. The figures for using social media like Facebook via phone were 36 percent for Latinos, 33 percent for African Americans and 19 percent for whites.
"A greater percentage of whites than African Americans and Latinos still have broadband access at home, but laptop ownership is now about even for all these groups, after African American laptop ownership jumped from 34 percent in 2009 to 51 percent in 2010, according to Pew."
"New digital divide seen for minorities on Internet" by Jesse Washington, Associated Press, Sunday, February 13, 2011

Image 

Photo of people standing in shallow water  "finding the first clams after crossing the marsh grass, seaweed, and mud. The seaweed has air sacks on it that allow it to float upright when the cove is filled with water. At low tide, though, it just looks like this."  by Roban Hultman Kramer, robanhk http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1427/866345788_a1cf248392.jpg

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