Bridging the digital divide between teaching and learning: typology, experience and some make-up cyber tools

Liu Hui-wen
National United University
Taiwan

When using an e-learning system, most teachers have no choice but to use what is provided by the information center on campus. Since teachers are supported by the system, it is, in most cases, the only cyber tool that teachers use. However, what is provided to and familiar to teachers somehow does not attract students at all because e-learning systems seldom concern students' needs and internet-using habits.

This paper first presents how students try to avoid checking the e-learning system, then tries to figure why this situation would happen. It was found that when setting up an e-learning system, the campus bureaucracy was concerned about the availability of tools first, then teachersÕ needs, and then the studentsÕ internet habits last. In this circumstance, the e-learning tool is no longer a helpful system, but a burden for students because they have to stop what they are already used to and move to a new frontier where they have never been. Between the lack of digital skills of teachers and generational-distinguished skillfulness of students, there exists a bridge. Second, this paper provides two kinds of free and easy-to-handle cyber tools for teachers to use as a supplement. With these two kinds of cyber tools, teachers do not have to learn new skills nor spend a penny, but they are seemly better spaces for attracting skillful students -- under certain circumstances, these tools help to inspire students' creativity. These are connections for the generations on the two sides of the digital divide.