Bridging the Digital Divide among the Net Generation Students and Digital Immigrant Teachers Using Social Media

This paper attempted to look at how social media could be used to bridging the digital divide among the net generation students and the digital immigrant teachers. The social media are internet-based tools which the net generation students use to collaborate and share information that can be used in academics to promote students engagements and facilitate their learning potentials. The most popular social media sites and the number of active users were highlighted. The affordances of social media to both the net generation students and the digital immigrant teachers were discussed. The theoretical backings to the use of social medial like theory of connectivism, situated cognition, distributed congnition and engagement theory were discussed with their implications for the 21^st century skills. There were clarifications of these concepts; digital divide, net generation, millennial generation and the digital immigrants. The various strategies to bridging the digital divide among the net generation students and the digital immigrant teachers were x-rayed. The obstacles to the use of social media in closing the gaps were fully identified. There were also expectations from the digital immigrant teachers which would help them to effectively, teach the net generation students were also stated. At this juncture, the ways forward were also proffered.

Keywords: Social medial, digital immigrant teachers and digital divide., net generation students