digital-divide

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Internet Access for All: A New Program Targets Low-Income Students

March 21, 2013 | 3:00 AM | By
connection

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Technology has often been called a democratizer in education, allowing students from all backgrounds to access the same resources and tools. Others see potential for technology to do great harm, widening an already substantial achievement gap related to issues of equity. Access to technology costs money and some fear lower-income schools and students will lag behind the frenzy for newer and better devices, faster connectivity and effective teacher training on digital tools.

EveryoneOn is one attempt to make sure that doesn’t happen. The campaign, coordinated by the non-profit Connect2Compete, launched today brings together partners from both the public and private sectors to address some of the most vexing aspects of the digital divide. The program offers low-cost devices and Internet service, as well as access to digital literacy training programs around the country, hoping to give access to the estimated 100 million Americans who have no broadband connection at home and another 62 million who don’t use the Internet at all.

“Our goal is 30 million connected in three years.”

“The consensus is that a big piece of how we are going to work in classrooms is with digital tools, both in class and at home,” said Zach Leverenz, CEO of Connect2Compete. Kids living in homes without the Internet are increasingly at a disadvantage as coursework and workplace skills become more dependent on technology. To help students get access to the Internet at home, the group is working with major Internet providers Comcast and Cox Communications to offer low cost Internet. Families with K-12 students eligible for free or reduced lunch can get a free router and Continue reading →

FILED UNDER: Culture, Learning Methods, digital-divide

For Low-Income Kids, Access to Devices Could Be the Equalizer

March 13, 2013 | 10:35 AM | By
dv1992005

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No device should ever be hailed as the silver bullet in “saving” education — nor should it be completely shunned — but when it comes to the possibility of bridging the digital divide between low-income and high-income students, devices may play a pivotal role.

Access to the Internet connects kids to all kinds of information — and for low-income students especially, that access has the power to change their social structure by allowing them to become empowered and engaged, said Michael Mills, a professor of Teaching and Learning at the University of Central Arkansas during a SXSWEdu session last week.

“For minorities and for low-income students who have these devices, it might be their only way to access the Internet, to get information about their own health, access to social media,” he said. “And they’re using that as the agent to change their social structure.”

“The Internet is about empowerment. If we take away this access because we think certain people aren’t going to use it right, we’re no better than governments who take away voting rights from minorities.”

Yet it’s those very students who are deprived of the right to use their own devices in schools, according to a recent Pew report showing that access to devices is noticeably different between higher and lower income schools: 52% of teachers of upper and upper-middle income students say their students use cell phones to look up information in class, compared with 35% of teachers of the lowest income students. And when it comes to blocking sites, 49% of teachers of students living in low-income households say their school’s use of Internet filters has a major impact on their teaching, compared with 24% of those who teach better off students who say that. In the same vein, 33% of teachers of lower income students say their school’s rules about classroom cell phone use by students have a major impact on their teaching, compared with 15% of those who teach students from the highest income households.

Why is this the case? It all comes down to expectations, Mills said, that could also be related to blatant racism.

“We have some significant issues with race relations, and the core of what it comes down to is that Continue reading →

FILED UNDER: Culture, Learning Methods, Research, Teaching With Tech, BYOD, digital-divide, SXSWEdu

By the Numbers: Teachers, Tech, and the Digital Divide

February 28, 2013 | 12:00 PM | By
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A new Pew Research survey of more than 2,400 middle school and high school teachers released today shows that, while teachers believe technology has helped with their teaching, it’s also brought new challenges — including the possibility of creating a bigger rift between low-income and high-income students.

A few highlights from the report:

  • While 92% of these teachers say the internet has a “major impact” on their ability to access content, resources, and materials for their teaching, 75% say the internet and other digital tools have added new demands to their lives by increasing the range of content and skills about which they must be knowledgeable. And 41% report a “major impact” by requiring more work on their part to be an effective teacher.
  • 73% of AP and NWP teachers say that they and/or their students use their mobile phones in the classroom or to complete assignments, and 45% report they or their students use e-readers and 43% use tablet computers in the classroom or to complete assignments.
  • Overall, 62% of AP and NWP teachers feel their school does a “good job” supporting teachers’ efforts to bring digital tools into the learning process, and 68% say their school provides formal training in this area. (But that’s the average — there’s a bigger discrepancy when those numbers are broken down between high-income and low-income schools). Still, Continue reading →
FILED UNDER: Teaching With Tech, digital-divide, Pew Research, Technology in Schools

Can the Flipped Classroom Benefit Low-Income Students?

June 18, 2012 | 10:21 AM | By

Sarah Butrymowicz

Jasmine Redeaux (left) and Nakesha Wilkerson team up to finish a worksheet in a "flipped" chemistry class at their Macon, Ga., high school, while other classmates work on a lab.

By Sarah Butrymowicz

When Portland, Ore., elementary school teacher Sacha Luria decided last fall to try out a new education strategy called “flipping the classroom,” she faced a big obstacle.

Flipped classrooms use technology—online video instruction, laptops, DVDs of lessons—to reverse what students have traditionally done in class and at home to learn. Listening to lectures becomes the homework assignment so teachers can provide more one-on-one attention in class and students can work at their own pace or with other students.

But Luria realized that none of her students had computers at home, and she had just one in the classroom. So she used her own money to buy a second computer and begged everyone she knew for donations, finally bringing the total to six for her 23 fourth-graders at Rigler School. In her classroom, students now alternate between working on the computers and working with her.

So far, the strategy is showing signs of success. She uses class time to tailor instruction to students who started the school year behind their classmates in reading and math, and she has seen rapid improvement. By the end of the school year, she said, her students have averaged two years’ worth of progress in math, for example.

“We do need to figure out ways that students, regardless of Zip code, regardless of their parents’ income level, have access” to technology inside and outside of schools.

“It’s powerful stuff,” she said, noting that this year was her most successful in a decade of teaching. “I’m really able to meet students where they are as opposed to where the curriculum says they should be.”

Other teachers in high-poverty schools like Rigler also report very strong results after flipping classrooms. Greg Green, principal of Clintondale High School in Clinton Township, Mich., thinks the flipped classroom—and the unprecedented amount of one-on-one time it provides students—could even be enough to close the achievement gap between low-income, minority students and their more affluent white peers. Clintondale has reduced the percentage of Fs given out from about 40 percent to around 10 percent.

Yet anecdotal evidence suggests that flipping classrooms is a more popular practice in wealthier suburban communities where nearly all students have Internet access at home and schools are more likely to have computers in classrooms. Some skeptics say flipped classrooms still rely Continue reading →

FILED UNDER: Learning Methods, digital-divide, Flipped classroom

Changing Policies On Digital Books Wreak Havoc on Libraries

May 7, 2012 | 10:47 AM | By

Hutton

By Jenny Shank

Public libraries are a major hub for Americans to gain access to e-books and other digital resources. But the nation’s recent economic troubles and the transition to digital books are creating major difficulties for these public institutions.

Last month, the American Library Association released its annual State of America’s Libraries Report, and many of its findings were grim. “Public libraries continue to be battered by a national economy whose recovery from the Great Recession is proving to be sluggish at best,” the report concluded. Twenty-three of the 49 chief officers of state libraries surveyed indicated that their library systems faced budget cuts over the past two years. “For three years in a row, more than 40 percent of participating states have reported decreased public library funding,” the report states.

While library budget cuts continue, demand for library services has soared. Lower income and unemployed patrons often turn to local libraries as their only source of Internet access.

“It will take a few years for the dust to settle.”

At the same time, libraries have sought to accommodate Americans’ ever-increasing demand for access to digital materials, a mission that has put them at odds with the publishing industry, which is struggling to retain its viability as many American readers shift toward reading books electronically and purchasing those titles from online retailers rather than traditional bookstores.

“In the end, it will be a matter of leadership and vision that will guide libraries through the current conditions,” said Jorge Martinez, director of Information Systems for the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation, which supports libraries through grants.

SPARRING OVER E-BOOKS

One of the biggest challenges libraries face in this new digital age is the friction in their relationship with publishers, caused largely by the advent of e-books.

Publishers argue that borrowing a printed book from a library requires a patron to physically visit the building and then return a few weeks later to bring it back, which is more difficult than Continue reading →

FILED UNDER: Culture, digital textbooks, digital-divide, e-readers, library

Finding Money for Technology: “Where Do I Start”?

August 18, 2011 | 2:59 PM | By

Flickr: Kenteegarden

In the past two days, I’ve received a few comments and emails from readers about different articles that all point to the same problem: frustration over lack of money to take advantage of all these transformational tech tools that we write about here.

In response to The Most Anticipated Tech Tools of Back to School, reader Noi Schoch writes:

“All this tech is great! IF you have the cash for it! Most schools can’t afford it, and most can’t afford the staff development to train everyone how to use it and keep up with the newest uses for it.”

In reference to the article Math and Science: Out of the Classroom, Into the World, which describes why new technology makes this an exciting time to be a student, reader “mjamerson” says:

“This really sounds like a wonderful expansion of educational possibilities. But there is a potential downside. This new technology will depend on two things: teacher ability and access. As we know, in poor communities there are less seasoned teachers and less access, both at school and at home. So as much as I love the idea of using technology to widen the educational experience, this seems to widen the technology/educational opportunity divide at the same time. It makes me wonder; How many people will be left behind?”

And yesterday, I received an email from Shelley Tingle, with the subject head “Where do I start?”:

“I’m a parent of an 8th grader, 4th grader and 2nd grader.  I’m also a research civil engineer at the Engineer Research and Development Center in Vicksburg, Mississippi.  My junior high student goes to a school with virtually no technology!  Vicksburg is an odd society since it is home to many engineers and scientists but also has an extremely high level of poverty with the majority of the students on reduced or free lunches. See our district’s report card. Continue reading →

FILED UNDER: Teaching With Tech, achievement gap, digital-divide, Donors Choose, funding