Educational Origami

THE DIGITAL DISCONNECT -THE WIDENING GAP BETWEEN INTERNETSAVVY STUDENTS AND THEIR SCHOOLS

This is a report commissioned by the Pew Internet project. The project releases regular reports on the internet and American Life.

This particular report looks at the impact of internet “savvy” students on their schools. It details some of the key areas and comments from the students. The study is based on American students at American schools but parallels can be draw with other school systems, including our own.

Here are the key findings of the report are:”

• Internet-savvy students rely on the Internet to help them do their school work and for good reason.

• Internet-savvy students describe dozens of different education-related uses of the Internet.

• The way students think about the Internet in relation to their schooling is closely tied to the daily tasks and activities that make up their young lives.

• The Internet as virtual textbook and reference library

• The Internet as virtual tutor and study shortcut.

• The Internet as virtual study group.

• The Internet as virtual guidance counselor.

• The Internet as virtual locker, backpack, and notebook.”:

If we look at the bibliographies of our students research, how often would you find that the principal references are online resources. Lets extend this one step further, how often does wikipedia feature as a key source? When the students need to find out how to do something or how something works, do they turn to a text or howstuffworks.

The reports summary continues

“Many schools and teachers have not yet recognized—much less responded to—the new ways students communicate and access information over the Internet.

• School administrators—and not teachers—set the tone for Internet use at school.

• Even inside the most well connected schools, there is wide variation in teacher policies about Internet use by students in and for class.

• While students relate examples of both engaging and poor instructional uses of the Internet assigned by their teachers, students say that the not-so-engaging uses are the more typical of their assignments.”

This is a very interesting and compelling series of comments. The tone of schools internet usage is set by the schools system administrators, Principals or Boards of Trustees. They set the rules and over see how these rules are implemented. The level of filtering, whether its a white list or a black list, student and staff quotas, penalties and consequences. I often wonder with severely filtered or white list only internet access what we teaching our students. Are we teaching them to be appropriate ethical internet users who choose, who make a conscious decisions not to visit inappropriate sites or are we taking that choice away from them and preventing them developing ethical and appropriate internet use.

We have all seen the wide variety of abilities and usage of Information and Communications Technologies in classrooms. How often have we heard words to this effect… Why would teachers who have taught successfully for “insert number” of years, feel they need to change their teaching style. But how many of them know, have been shown or have had the chance to play with these technologies?

The report also recognises the “roadblocks” that schools, teachers and students face.

These include:”

The single greatest barrier to Internet use at school is the quality of access to the Internet.

While many students recognize the need to shelter teenagers from inappropriate material and adult-oriented commercial ads, they complain that blocking and filtering software often raise barriers to students’ legitimate educational use of the Internet.

Since not every student has access to the Internet outside of school, the vast majority of students report that their teachers do not make homework assignments that require the use of the Internet.”

Finally the report noted the following key points:
“

• Students urge schools to increase significantly the quality of access to the Internet in schools.

• Students believe that professional development and technical assistance for teachers are crucial for effective integration of the Internet into curricula.

• Students maintain that schools should place priority on developing programs to teach keyboarding, computer, and Internet literacy skills.

• Students urge that there should be continued effort to ensure that high-quality online information to complete school assignments be freely available, easily accessible, and age-appropriate–without undue limitation on students’ freedoms.

• Students insist that policy makers take the “digital divide” seriously and that they begin to understand the more subtle inequities among teenagers that manifest themselves in differences in the quality of student Internet access and use.”

This is brilliant. These are key points that we the teachers, educators and administrators should take onboard and consider. Does the cost of better internet access balance the educational benefits? What do we in New Zealand consider to be an acceptable level of access?

Do teachers need professional development specifically on the internet and the emerging trends and tools?

Is a high school with a one or two person ICT team providing an appropriate level of support and technical access to upwards of 1000 students?

Who teaches information or digital literacy to our students? Are we expecting the same teachers who need support in integrating ICT into the curriculum to teach our students about information literacy?

Should we filter or white list sites? What about social sites like bebo, myspace etc. Should they be blocked? Is there educational basis in allowing the students to access these. Do the potential risks of such sites outweigh their potential.

These are good question and the report is well worth reading. What is perhaps even more interesting is when the report was written

Source:

Pew Internet Project Schools Internet Report, 

THE DIGITAL DISCONNECT -THE WIDENING GAP BETWEEN INTERNETSAVVY STUDENTS AND THEIR SCHOOLS

Prepared by: Douglas Levin and Sousan Arafeh

www.pewinternet.org

 pip_schools_internet_report.pdf