Access to Technology
Access to Technology
Recently a colleague sent me a note about a discussion he had had with a parent about the placement of a computer and fast Internet connection in the home of a student of his. In particular the parent noted that the child wanted to have the new computer system installed in the bedroom. My colleague’s advice was straightforward: computers, and in particular Internet-equipped computers, belong in common, high-visibility areas of the home. They do not belong in bedrooms.
Parents are eager to support their children with educational opportunities and many see computer technology as a key component of such support. Evaluating the effectiveness of these opportunities is another matter all together, one that I may consider in a future column.
However not all parents are able to offer their children the latest computer gear and a broadband connection to the Internet. In my own courses I have always taken the position that whether or not students have a computer at home should be immaterial to their chances for success. This year I began one of these courses with an assignment that required students to read an online article for homework. The following day one of these students dropped the course, noting that she did not have a computer, let alone an Internet connection at home.
Now it may be that there were other factors at play here but it did give me pause to reflect. Had I stepped over an invisible boundary by requiring something that was difficult to fulfill? Surely the student could have made use of the school facilities at lunchtime, or after school. But in this instance I had put an obstacle in front of one of the things students are particularly good at: completing a task at the last minute.
The broader issue here is, of course, one of equity. How do we, as parents, as educators, as a community, ensure that students have equal access to facilities? In my own school community, the student who dropped the course, ostensibly over a lack of computer facilities, was distinctly in the minority. The community is generally well to do. Of the 150 or students I will see this year, only a handful do not have computer access at home. A larger number, to be sure, do not have Internet access, but in percentage terms it is less than 15%. And for those with Internet access the broadband access numbers have grown exponentially these past three years to the point where cable or ADSL connections form a large majority.
A couple of blocks away, at the public elementary school, I wonder if the numbers are different. I suspect that they are. Furthermore, I imagine that they vary dramatically across the lower mainland. Presumably the differences in the schools themselves should, in principle, not be that great. But it doesn’t take a great leap of imagination to realize that a bake sale or discount coupon book drive to fund computer facilities is going to have far greater success in an affluent community than in one where subsistence is much more of a day-to-day nature.
A recent survey by the Pew Research Center for Internet and American Life found that college students are particularly heavy users of the Internet compared to the general population. One fifth of those polled began using computer technology between the ages of five and eight and the great majority of them (87%) own their own computer. More than a quarter use instant messaging services on a typical day, versus a little over ten percent for the population at large.
Eighty percent of the students agree or strongly agree that Internet use has had a positive impact on their college academic experience through such activities as e-mail contact with their professors on a regular basis. In fact nine out of ten students reported being contacted by professors and only four percent of the sample reported never having communicated with an instructor via the Internet.
Some educators and librarians are concerned that Internet-based research for class projects may be creating poor research habits. The Pew survey found that almost three-quarters of college students view the Internet rather than the campus library as the primary source of their information searches whereas less than ten percent used the library more than the Internet.
Interestingly, the survey found that college students appear to rely on information seeking habits formed prior to arriving at college, in other words habits formed at home and at school. All the more reason to put that computer in the family room rather than in the bedroom.
The full Pew report, The Internet Goes to College: How Students are Living in the Future with Today's Technology, is available at http://www.pewinternet.org/reports.
Peter Vogel is a Physics and Computer Sciences teacher at Notre Dame Regional Secondary School (www.ndrs.org). Suggestions and comments may be sent via email to peterv@portal.ca.
Recently a colleague sent me a note about a discussion he had had with a parent about the placement of a computer and fast Internet connection in the home of a student of his. In particular the parent noted that the child wanted to have the new computer system installed in the bedroom. My colleague’s advice was straightforward: computers, and in particular Internet-equipped computers, belong in common, high-visibility areas of the home. They do not belong in bedrooms.
Parents are eager to support their children with educational opportunities and many see computer technology as a key component of such support. Evaluating the effectiveness of these opportunities is another matter all together, one that I may consider in a future column.
However not all parents are able to offer their children the latest computer gear and a broadband connection to the Internet. In my own courses I have always taken the position that whether or not students have a computer at home should be immaterial to their chances for success. This year I began one of these courses with an assignment that required students to read an online article for homework. The following day one of these students dropped the course, noting that she did not have a computer, let alone an Internet connection at home.
Now it may be that there were other factors at play here but it did give me pause to reflect. Had I stepped over an invisible boundary by requiring something that was difficult to fulfill? Surely the student could have made use of the school facilities at lunchtime, or after school. But in this instance I had put an obstacle in front of one of the things students are particularly good at: completing a task at the last minute.
The broader issue here is, of course, one of equity. How do we, as parents, as educators, as a community, ensure that students have equal access to facilities? In my own school community, the student who dropped the course, ostensibly over a lack of computer facilities, was distinctly in the minority. The community is generally well to do. Of the 150 or students I will see this year, only a handful do not have computer access at home. A larger number, to be sure, do not have Internet access, but in percentage terms it is less than 15%. And for those with Internet access the broadband access numbers have grown exponentially these past three years to the point where cable or ADSL connections form a large majority.
A couple of blocks away, at the public elementary school, I wonder if the numbers are different. I suspect that they are. Furthermore, I imagine that they vary dramatically across the lower mainland. Presumably the differences in the schools themselves should, in principle, not be that great. But it doesn’t take a great leap of imagination to realize that a bake sale or discount coupon book drive to fund computer facilities is going to have far greater success in an affluent community than in one where subsistence is much more of a day-to-day nature.
A recent survey by the Pew Research Center for Internet and American Life found that college students are particularly heavy users of the Internet compared to the general population. One fifth of those polled began using computer technology between the ages of five and eight and the great majority of them (87%) own their own computer. More than a quarter use instant messaging services on a typical day, versus a little over ten percent for the population at large.
Eighty percent of the students agree or strongly agree that Internet use has had a positive impact on their college academic experience through such activities as e-mail contact with their professors on a regular basis. In fact nine out of ten students reported being contacted by professors and only four percent of the sample reported never having communicated with an instructor via the Internet.
Some educators and librarians are concerned that Internet-based research for class projects may be creating poor research habits. The Pew survey found that almost three-quarters of college students view the Internet rather than the campus library as the primary source of their information searches whereas less than ten percent used the library more than the Internet.
Interestingly, the survey found that college students appear to rely on information seeking habits formed prior to arriving at college, in other words habits formed at home and at school. All the more reason to put that computer in the family room rather than in the bedroom.
The full Pew report, The Internet Goes to College: How Students are Living in the Future with Today's Technology, is available at http://www.pewinternet.org/reports.
Peter Vogel is a Physics and Computer Sciences teacher at Notre Dame Regional Secondary School (www.ndrs.org). Suggestions and comments may be sent via email to peterv@portal.ca.
posted by Peter Vogel at 4:52 PM
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