Thursday - May 10, 2012
Despite having a computer in the home at several points in her life, my mother still doesn’t “get” them. First we had a Commodore 64 in the ’80s, then a PC in the early ’90s. Truth told, however, it was me using them, not my mom. So when in 2007 I gave her a Windows-based computer I had built earlier in the decade, she still reacted as if an alien had been invited into the house.
“You’re going to have to write down every step to using this,” she told me, “because I’ll never be able to remember it all. It’s just too confusing.”
I patiently wrote down the basics and walked my mom through it. Today she has a newer computer and can more or less check her e-mail, search for gardening information online, and make sure her anti-virus program is still updated. She’s still far from being comfortable with it, but through education and a bit of trial and error, she’s slowly becoming more technologically savvy.
Millions of Baby Boomers, now beginning to turn 65, have found themselves in similar situations. And while some of them may have minor experience with the technology so many of us take for granted today, others struggle to even understand the basic vocabulary — words like Google, download, and URL — associated with our tech world.
“Those are terms you think everyone would know, but you have to sit down and explain them,” Patrick Bolidoro, a tech tutor, told the Los Angeles Times’ Tina Susman.
Bolidoro is a student at New York’s Pace University, earning credits participating in a “gerontechnology program” designed to help seniors tackle the technology problem. The program, while unique in its own right as a university outreach effort, certainly isn’t an isolated one, however. From elementary schools to libraries, tech training programs continue to sprout up as seniors from all walks of life want to learn more about the rapidly changing tech world around them. Whether it’s a class at the local library on finding jobs online or a three-day seminar for seniors to learn the Internet, those without computer experience are finding opportunities to learn.
But what’s driving Baby Boomers to willingly try such classes? As journalist Susan Shelly demonstrates in a recent piece for Reading Eagle, while some seniors aren’t as excited about learning the ‘net as others, there’s a fundamental feeling of being “a bit isolated and left out of society as more and more of it revolves around technology.”
This feeling continues to drive many to learn how to better integrate technology into their lives. Shelly references how Nancy Dettra, 80, has grown fond of using Skype to video chat with her grandsons, who are studying abroad. Then there’s Carl Bloss, 78, who uses the Internet to research and share genealogy information. Yet amidst the optimism and excitement many seniors have about slowly feeling more connected and less isolated, a nagging concern remains about how well versed they are in protecting themselves online, especially from online criminals attempting to prey on the elderly.
“Criminals understand that seniors are from a different generation,” Dublin, California police Detective Alan Dumatol told The Oakland Tribune. “They’re a lot more trusting. They are vulnerable because they can be isolated socially, and seniors don’t always report being victims because they’re either embarrassed or afraid.”
Of course, such words shouldn’t be meant as scare tactics; we shouldn’t be trying to drive seniors away from tech learning. Rather, educators should stress the benefits and joys of technology and the Internet while at the same time being realistic about the risks any person may face while utilizing them. Such a balanced approach to teaching seniors about technology and Internet safety should in theory promote an even greater interest in the tech that enhances the lives of people from all walks of life. And in the end, seniors may very well feel more connected to others in their lives.
“My children look at me differently,” Roz Carlin, 93, told Susman after completing Pace University’s tech education program. “I feel like one of them, and they treat me like one of them too.”
Photo via Knight Foundation, Flickr Creative Commons
Thursday - Mar 22, 2012
If you’re a student or parent of a student, you’re likely to be at least somewhat aware of the push to include technology in education. Whether at middle school or graduate school, the presence of interactive whiteboards, tablets, and online lectures is greater every year. And while there’s still plenty of debate about the effectiveness of education technology in and out of the classroom, the fact remains that education institutions are plowing ahead with their goal to make education more modern.
Yet in the background — at least in the United States — the cries of frustration of those least able to take advantage of the ed-tech revolution are at times drowned out by the voices of those who stand to gain the most from it. In the end, students in low-income households or in situations where Internet access is not available face more challenges, especially when teachers increasingly expect students and parents to be participating in Internet-based activities outside of school.
Students are now assigned online homework like writing blogs, while parents at some schools are expected to complete registration forms or manage student progress reports online. Some schools have talked about adding mandatory online courses for high school students. Even digital textbooks — which may require Internet to access or to further research topics contained within — are making appearances in schools. Those who don’t have readily-available Internet access are at a greater disadvantage.
“The policy of providing digital textbooks is the direction schools should take,” University of Texas professor and social-media researcher Dr. S. Craig Watkins recently told the Orlando Sentinel, “but it is flawed if it assumes all students have equal access to the Internet.”
The voices of those most in favor of ed-tech seemingly make this assumption at times, relegating those students who don’t have Internet access to spend extra time in an often crowded computer lab at the school; use a family member’s, friend’s, or business’ Internet connection (assuming students have an Internet-enabled device); go to a library (many of which are struggling with public demand for their computers); or work with teachers on an alternative. This often has the effect of eating up even more time out of the student’s — and sometimes the parent’s — busy schedule.
This all leads me to the next logical question: how many people in the U.S. are still without Internet access? According to the Orlando Sentinel story, “11 percent of Florida households with school-age children still lack Internet access.” And across the country? According to a U.S. Department of Commerce report (PDF) released in November 2011, 71 percent of Americans had home Internet access in 2010. The report also noted that only about 46 percent of households with annual household incomes less than $25,000 reported having any kind of Internet access at home. According to the Census Bureau, there were 30.5 million households earning less than $25,000 annually, so that means roughly 16 million households were without Internet access. (It’s not clear how many of those had school-age children.) All of this number crunching is to point out that a non-trivial number of low-income households likely don’t have Internet access at home.
Assuming many of those households have students in them, it’s not unrealistic to believe that many of them are getting left behind in primary schools’ push to become more tech-friendly. If educators in this realm continue to expand online requirements for students, it’s clear to me this problem must be addressed, including somehow making Internet access as commonplace as telephony. How common is the phone? Last year the U.N. declared cellular/mobile phones “de facto ubiquitous,” reporting more than 5 billion people globally as having some sort of mobile phone service.
As Internet-connected smartphones continue to replace older phones, it’s worth asking if all this concern about student Internet access is overblown. Despite the increasingly present connection that comes with today’s smartphones, they certainly don’t make for a long-term replacement of a desktop or laptop. Imagine being required to type a grammatically correct 500-word blog post on a smartphone. It doesn’t sound appealing. Eye strain, screen size, slow download speeds, and lack of a mobile application variant also tend to work against students. And while some schools are handing out iPads and laptops like candy — again showing that in many cases the lack of an Internet-connected device isn’t the problem — those devices likely don’t come with home Internet access.
It’s unrealistic to expect educators to back down from tech at this point, so what can be done to make Internet access as common as phone access? The U.S. government has been trying to address that issue, though not without controversy.
“The future of American education undoubtedly includes a laptop on every desk and universal Internet access in every home,” said U.S. Education Secretary Arne Duncan at a recent conference in Austin, Texas. “We will do all we can at the federal level to support the use of technology in education,” he added.
The U.S. government has been working on that universal Internet problem, as I talked about last November. Yet despite the government’s attempts to regulate Internet service providers (ISPs), update its funding policies, and promote temporary affordable Internet service to low-income families, concerns of whether or not the federal government should even be involved with the expansion of broadband persist. Some argue such a task should be left up to state and local governments, though such arguments often fail to address who would then handle ISPs’ anti-competitive behavior.
While solutions to universal Internet in the U.S. are difficult to find, it’s not difficult to see that many low-income households with school-age children are at a disadvantage. As teachers continue to adopt technology and create online assignments, the have-nots are left to spend more time finding solutions to a process many of us take for granted: accessing the Internet. This leads me to one conclusion: until Internet access becomes as common as phone service, educators must remain flexible with their integration of technology in the classroom.
Photo via Brad Flickinger, Flickr Creative Commons
Thursday - Feb 23, 2012
Earlier this month news broke of parent Tommy Jordan and his somewhat unorthodox method of dealing with his daughter’s disobedience in the online realm. Jordan’s daughter, Hannah, reportedly used vulgarity on Facebook to talk poorly about her family. In response, Jordan lectured his daughter and then shot his daughter’s laptop nine times with a pistol. Additionally, he recorded the “lecture” and posted it to his daughter’s Facebook page as part of her punishment.
Jordan has since defended his actions, stating “you raise your children however you want.”
“As long as they turn out well in the end, then our jobs as parents was well done,” he added.
Despite a fair amount of support, there are still many who oppose Jordan’s discipline methods. And from that disagreement comes a few interesting points that apply to parents with kids learning to use the Internet.
1. Compared to their kids, parents need to be as knowledge if not more knowledgeable about technology and social media. If parents know significantly less, they risk not being able to set prudent household policies and being less involved with their kids’ development in utilizing online environments.
Jordan supporter Samantha Radecki hints at this, stating on her opinion blog that parents don’t have the same level of control over their kids due to technological advances.
“Fifteen years ago, when a home telephone was the only way to keep in contact, it was easy for parents to monitor their kid’s activities,” said Radecki. “Parents today have to be up to date on using social media websites, cell phones, email and everything else in order to keep track of their kids like they used to.”
This easily leads into point two, which is…
2. Parents must be less fearful for and more supportive of children who wish to explore and search for information online. If parents are “introducing children to online environments through a len[s] of fear” as author Daniel Donahoo says, their “need to control, interject and govern” what their kids do online will limit the learning development of their children.
That view may seem to oppose the first point Radecki makes about monitoring what kids are doing online, but it truly doesn’t. Rather, a parent who knows how to use social media and other Internet technology not only relates better to their child, but also makes more intelligent household Internet policies, which can be created without the fear factor. That parent can sit down and explain what cyber-bullying is and why passwords shouldn’t be shared, all the while encouraging healthy online search habits. “Children supported to explore and search for information online will actually be better equipped to manage and avoid inappropriate content,” said Donahoo.
Looking at how Tommy Jordan handled the situation with his daughter’s Facebook postings in light of these two points seems extreme. While we don’t know all of the circumstances that led up to him shooting bullets through his daughter’s laptop, it’s easy to wonder if there was a better way to handle it.
When he defended his actions, he said that he didn’t have his daughter close her Facebook account because he’s an avid user himself and can empathize with the thought of losing years of memories. There are additional reasons to believe Jordan isn’t completely tech ignorant, leading me to believe that there was still the opportunity for him to spend productive time with his daughter on how to better use social networking. Instead he chose to shoot bullets through her laptop.
In the end, he’s at least partially right: parents more or less have the right to raise their children how they wish. However, there seems to be enough scientific evidence to show some methods are more productive than others. When it comes to raising a child in a tech-laden world, isn’t it more responsible to understand how that tech works and to spend time with the child creating a healthier, more meaningful view of the Internet and what it offers?
Photo via Oleg1975, Flickr Creative Commons
