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 - Jan 12, 2012
2011 has come and gone, and tied to it were numerous stories related to education technology. E-readers and tablets like the Amazon Kindle Fire and the Apple iPad gained momentum, big-name universities offered even more free online classes, and the flipped classroom gained more attention. And while some ed tech predictions weren’t realized in 2011, this year shouldn’t be any less exciting.
I’ve talked a bit about education technology here, most recently on whether or not the rush to adopt it has moved too quickly. The reality, however, for Internet newbies and long-term users alike is that technology and learning are increasingly difficult to separate now. While schools like the Waldorf School of the Peninsula are still resistant to technology’s march, many more work to integrate it into curriculum. But education technology isn’t merely relegated to the school; even the simple act of going online to learn about new technologies highlights the role tech is playing in our learning.
That said, 2012 should continue to change how we use technology while learning, with experts already making bold predictions. Technology author Audrey Watters recently posted her list of 12 education tech trends to watch in the coming months, a list that includes important concepts like higher-quality interactive content and “social learning.”
“The ability for learners to connect with one another will be one of the most important trends of the coming year,” said Watters in her piece for MindShift. “This isn’t just a matter of connecting learners with online resources or with online instruction. Rather, one of the big opportunities will be to create a space in which learners can help and teach each other.”
With the recent news that students of online schools are lagging behind more traditional schools, it’s easy to wonder if the isolated, somewhat impersonal nature of an online course is at least partially to blame. While solid research into social learning over the Web is still needed, there are at least a few studies that indicate that learner-learner interaction is just as important as teacher-learner interaction in online programs.
At least one company is already betting on the importance of that interaction. Last week education start-up Piazza announced it had received a $6 million infusion to fund further research and development into its social learning platform. The start-up states that its service is “designed to connect students, TAs, and professors so every student can get help when she needs it — even at 2AM.” Similar efforts are sure to make headlines this year.
Another important area that Watters addresses is the consideration of high-speed Internet access to schools and how it may sadly get worse than better. She notes that while the U.S.’s Federal Communications Commission (FCC) recognizes the importance of high-speed Internet in schools and libraries, “even those schools with broadband access may find their resources strained in coming months.”
This topic was discussed here in September and again in November, addressing both the importance of broadband access to schools and the actions the FCC took last year to expand broadband access. The news also highlighted the Idaho Education Network and how despite its successes, funding cuts to the program have already forced some Idaho schools to reduce availability. This news highlights what is likely to be many more education cuts before 2012 ends, potentially leading to further reductions in tech investments at schools.
Despite the cutbacks, education technology will likely continue to be a hot topic this year as people from all walks of life take to the Internet and mobile devices to study, learn, and teach about our world. That very concept is what drives Learn the Net, a site utilizing technology to help you learn how to use it better. It’s also a reminder that education technology, while contentious, isn’t going anywhere. We may or may not see many changes this year, but ed tech’s importance will only grow.
Photo via Erin Lodes, Flickr Creative Commons
Thursday - Nov 10, 2011
Two stories have been playing out recently involving the expansion of broadband access and usage in the U.S. Let me touch on them both briefly and then discuss them together in further detail.
The potentially good:
On October 27 the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) voted to overhaul an antiquated telephone subsidy plan which first began in 1934. By spending the next six years transitioning the funds from the controversial Universal Service Fund, subsidies to telephone carriers will likely disappear in favor of a new Connect America Fund.
This new fund will go towards a vigorous expansion of “broadband build-out to the 18 million Americans living in rural areas who currently have no access to robust broadband infrastructure.” Though it’s incredibly early, cautious optimism is due, with an array of potential future benefits to some Americans.
The potentially not so good:
On November 9 the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) announced the expansion of a pre-existing Comcast program that provides low-cost broadband Internet service to qualifying low-income households. Comcast’s “Internet Essentials” program was introduced on September 20 as part of an agreement with the FCC concerning its merger with NBC Universal. The newly-proposed expansion would involve most of the country’s major cable providers. All would adopt similar aspects of Comcast’s program in their own tailored-made programs, which wouldn’t receive an investment of federal funds.
There’s a hitch, however. The qualifications for the program would likely be so archaic that few U.S. residents would be affected positively for the long-term.
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There’s no doubt that the U.S. needs greater broadband expansion. The common refrain for years has been that the U.S. lags far behind other countries in adoption and infrastructure, with an FCC report earlier this year stating that broadband access is only getting marginally better compared to previous years. Recent news out of Alaska and Idaho has further emphasized the need for rural broadband access across the United States. The FCC is betting that the recently announced Connect America Fund will help. And to be honest, it’s difficult to imagine broadband access not being positively affected with the transferal of funds allocated to now ubiquitous phone access subsidies to more sparse Internet access subsidies. The fund would essentially have to be mismanaged, though it wouldn’t be a first.
Conservatives are already deriding the new fund, however. “By subsidizing rural broadband, the FCC is attempting to offset the additional costs of deploying technology to communities with low population density,” said Diane Katz and Luke Welch in a recent article on conservative mouthpiece The Foundry. “But those costs reflect the realities of rural life, and it is simply wrong to force city dwellers to pay for the choices made by rural residents.”
Despite their argument, data by the Pew Internet and American Life Project shows that broadband adoption in rural areas* has more or less kept pace with suburban and urban adoption rates since 2006. This would seem to indicate that broadband saturation hasn’t occurred yet in rural communities. The same research also showed that of those who don’t go online, 21 percent don’t do it because the price is prohibitive.** This leads me to talk about the second bit of news from the FCC dealing with low-cost broadband Internet service.
While it sounds like major cable providers offering $10 per month broadband service would go a long ways towards appeasing the previously mentioned 21 percent of non-users, the details reveal the stunt to add up to little more than a positive PR ploy, one that again fails to address what many view as the major problems with high prices: the lack of competition in the U.S. broadband industry. It’s likely the details of the participating providers’ low-cost service will be similar to Comcast’s requirements for eligibility, which are:
• must have at least one child receiving free school lunches through the National School Lunch Program
• must not be a current Comcast Internet subscriber and must not have been a subscriber within the last 90 days
• must not have an overdue Comcast bill or unreturned equipment
Sadly these requirements likely mean few will actually be able to take advantage, as Karl Bode notes for DSLReports.com:
“Once you’ve eliminated those who don’t qualify for the school lunch program, eliminated those who already have service (not uncommon even in poor homes), and eliminate those who also owe Comcast money (also obviously not uncommon in poor homes), how many customers will Comcast actually wind up having to serve at the $10 price point?”
Brian Stelter of The New York Times rightfully points out another aspect of the program that fails to address the long-term goals of the FCC. Stelter notes that for those who do qualify, the $10 price point will only be good for two years, leaving low-income customers to either discontinue their service or pay beyond their means to continue with the service.
“The price is akin to an on-ramp for new customers,” said Stetler, “with the hope being that they will decide to pay more for access once they have had it for a while.”
What seems strange here is the assumption that low-income households will suddenly have additional money to cover the price increase two years later. If the FCC is counting on wider broadband adoption to last beyond the two-year period in low-income households, I believe they’re being entirely overconfident.
These recent and any future tactics by the FCC to expand broadband service, if anything, will likely continue to draw ire from some Americans. Additional research by the Pew Internet and American Life Project (published in August 2010) has shown that 53% of Americans don’t think the government should meddle with the expansion of affordable broadband. Yet without government intervention, it’s difficult to imagine the problem of stifled broadband competition fixing itself. Rather, the FCC likely will need to gain a better understanding of the rural broadband picture and spend more time focusing on methods to encourage lower pricing. Such action won’t fully solve the complex issues surrounding the opposition to who foots the bill for broadband in areas of low population density, but it will at least bring greater legitimacy to its fervent push to catch up.
* See slide six of the hyperlinked slide show for the relevant information.
** See slide 21 of the hyperlinked slide show for the relevant information.
Photo via Gavin St. Ours, Flickr Creative Commons
