Rethinking the Digital Divide: impacts on student-tutor relationships

This article emerged from a series of debates and workshops on the impact of the Digital Divide on educational practice at the ‘Futures of Learning: New Learning Paradigms Conference’ in Paris. The conceptualisation of the Digital Divide into the ‘haves’ and the ‘have‐nots’, with a perception of the economically developed world as ‘high tech’ and the developing and underdeveloped worlds as ‘low tech’, is no longer tenable. Building on the recognition based on mounting evidence that old perceptions of the Digital Divide are simplistic and that the Divide encompasses not one but many discontinuities, the nature of such a discontinuity between student and tutor becomes the focus of the argument presented here. Many have argued that increased use and availability of digital technologies in schools bring important benefits and opportunities for learning and teaching strategies but are staff and students able work together to ensure positive outcomes? If not, why might this be the case? In examining the implications of the student/teacher Digital Divide some questions concerning the future direction of education emerge.