In the first JAAL: Digital Literacies column, Cassie and I noted that digital divide refers to “inequities of access to technology based on factors of income, education, race, and ethnicity” as quoted from the National Telecommunications and Information Administration & U.S. Department of Commerce (2000). Whenever technology proponents like us extol the wonders of digital tools in the mediasphere, some of our school-based colleagues bring us back to earth. “We would like to use Web 2.0 tools and create media projects but we can’t even afford paper!” Schools or districts at the low end of the socioeconomic continuum remind us that the digital divide continues to exclude them from many or all of the engaging new literacies practices enabled by digital tools we talk about. Granted, schools and districts with more resources provide more opportunities for their students to use digital tools in school–but the digital divide does persist. Nevertheless, the most insidious hurdle, a “pothole” in our first column, is not always lack of access in school. Rather, it is reluctance on the part of administrators and teachers to enhance school curricula by requiring students to use digital technologies in ways that improve their engagement and learning. On the surface, the reluctance seems to be due to a concern that some students have less access or no access to the technologies outside of school needed to complete the assignments. Hence, giving assignments requiring, for example, Web searches and resources, would further disenfranchise some students. Youth in a national survey had a slightly different take on this reluctance.
Digital Disconnect
A report funded by the Pew Internet and American Life Project and conducted by the American Institutes for Research entitled The Widening gap Between Internet-savvy Students and Their Schools (Levin and Arafeh (2002) was eye opening. Most of the students in the survey reported that they did their homework using the Internet, that they shared web sties with friends, and they used the web to collaborate on projects. Of course this trend of internet use has only escalated since 2002. A key finding was that students reported a disconnect between how they used the Internet to complete schoolwork, outside of school without teacher direction, and assignments completed in school. While they used the Internet more and more to do school work, they reported little use of the Internet under teacher direction in school. When asked to explain this digital disconnect, among other things, the student respondents noted that even in well-connected schools, Internet use policies varied widely based on either individual administrators and the use policies typically resulted in assignments in which the Internet was not used or used in a not-so-engaging way. A disconnect problem cited by the students was that even in schools that were well connected access policies significantly limited students use of the Internet.
In the November 2008 issue of JAAL, Bill Kist wrote about a “fear factor” that permeates many schools and school systems resulting in an inhibition or prohibition of the use of Web 2.0 tools and other applications. But the most remarkable point he makes focuses on the case of “Ellen”–a preservice teacher who noted that because of the warnings of her state department of education and the state teachers’ association, that teachers themselves should be wary of participating in social networking sites. Kist grounded the fear factor historically by noting how other media like film and television precipitated similar fears when they emerged. But here we are, with only a ripple of revolution in education against the backdrop of a huge revolution in the broader world culture and global economy.
Change is slow in education. But the elephant in the room is not the digital divide, which educators have discussed, critiqued, and considered in the use of teaching and learning technologies in depth for at least a decade: it is the digital disconnect that separates generations of teachers, separates digital natives (students who have grown up with the technologies) from digital immigrants (people, some of whom are teachers, who are not natives but have embraced the technologies and learned about them) and, perhaps most significantly, separates non natives and non immigrants who hold power from the rest of their peers. The disconnect is meant to characterize teachers, administrators, and, to some extent parents and other stakeholders, who either wittingly or unwittingly maintain a gap between what youth do with technologies outside of school and what they do with the technologies in school. (See Marc Prensky’s oft-cited discussion digital natives and immigrants). The youth studied by Levin and Arafeh brought up the possibility that some teachers were not using available tools because of their own unfamiliarity with them or reluctance in learning new applications. But the other interesting indictment from the youth is this: The digital divide argument was being used as the rationale, or part of the rationale, in keeping the technologies out of the classroom or in stifling progress in the application of such technologies. In short, the digital divide argument, according to surveyed youth, served the purposes of some educators with power to shape curriculum content and make budgetary decisions that affected the lack of proliferation of the technologies. These powerful educators could muster a less-than-enthusiastic response and then offer that the technologies are not, are too expensive to purchase and maintain, and fail to help students meet standards and expected achievement (look at how school laptop programs met their demise).
One of the big “potholes” that we referred to in the inaugural Digital Literacies department column was the institutionalized educational practices and organizational schemes that move students to higher levels of achievement while dismissing innovations that don’t fit the efficiency/production model. My discussion here just offers a more blunt perspective on how the disconnect is perpetuated by educators among us whose best interest in maintaining the status quo is served by not moving forward and using a host of what appear to be reasonable arguments to serve the institution. In the spirit of taking action and making a difference with digital literacies I offer some ways to address the disconnect:
- Change the institutionalize practices that do not accommodate digital literacies and can be used to as a rationale to discontinue them
- Hire digital native teachers and administrators who are much more likely to embrace the technologies that enable digital literacies. This, of course, is a given as the more junior faculty entering the profession are now digital natives.
- Work with the more senior educators to facilitate an understanding of the technologies and ways that they may enhance traditional literacy practices while helping students develop new practices–all of which potentially make learning more engaging
- Do financial analyses of district budgets and examine the feasibility of shifting or reallocating funds from typical textbook budgets to purchasing computers, net books, or other devices that provide online access
- Develop and document new assessments that are particularly sensitive to digital literacies practices and can be used to augment or replace traditional assessments that do not tap into the skills and processes students use in creating and reading digital texts
To reiterate, I realize that the digital divide, and all other divides that privilege some children and youth over others, are real and apply to access and use of technologies the same as in any other area. I also want to emphasize, after many discussions with colleagues I respect, that embracing digital technologies without providing more basic literacy opportunities will not solve deep-rooted problems. We develop technologies tunnel vision and forget that many children and youth in the US and many other countries often cast as technology rich and savvy do not have access to these technologies and relatively few children and youth in the world as a whole have such access. But if your students do have access, or could have access, and you could make a difference by critiquing the divide argument, then it is worth tackling.
