My Reflection on Pew Internet Research Findings

The following statistics comes from:

Pew Internet Research Center: Pew Internet and American Life Project

The Berkman Center for internet and Society at Harvard University

March 13, 2013

 

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Report: Education, Mobile, Search, Teens, Digital Divide

“How Teachers Are Using Technology at Home and in Their Classrooms”

Link: http://www.pewinternet.org/reports/2013/teachers-and-technology.aspx

The Statistics:

1.      “Just over half (52%) of teachers of upper and upper-middle income students say their students use cell phone to look up information in class, compared with 35% of teachers of the lowest income students”

2.      “57% of teachers say it [technology/internet] has had such an impact on enabling their interaction with students”

3.      “Just 15% of AP and NWP teachers whose students are from upper income households say their school is ‘behind the curve’ in effectively using digital tools in the learning process; 39% who teach students from low income households describe their school as ‘behind the curve’”  

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My Reflection:

I am not at all surprised by these findings from the Pew Internet Research study because in America the discrepancy between the rich and the poor is evident in all the states. Therefore, it should be expect that schools within low income neighborhoods are subsequently experiencing a discrepancy in their students’ technological literacy compared to those from affluent neighborhoods. The first statistic is interesting because I do believe that the majority of young Americans have cellphones, but they might not have those expensive data packages which might be the reason that only 35% of teachers from low income report that their students use cellphones for educational use in the classroom. I would like to analyze the findings of a low-income school that provides free WIFI in all its classrooms because then students can use any smartphone without a data package for educational usage since they can simply connect to the school’s WIFI for free.

I find the second statistic interesting because it leaves me asking the question: if only 57% of teachers say that the internet has had an impact on enabling their interactions with their students then how or what other outlet are the remaining teachers using to interact with their students? I understand that schools within low-income neighborhoods are in a disadvantage since most of their students don’t have access to expensive high speed internet connections or simply don’t have a computer available but that shouldn’t deter them from cresting meaningful connections with their students. Honestly, students from low income environments need that profound connection with their teachers to keep them on track academically because they are the high risk students and teachers have the power and influence to help them when they are lacking that support at home. The last statistic surprises me because unfortunately I thought that the more than 39% of schools from low-income were ‘behind the cure’ technologically but I guess that 39% is not a bad number because it could be worse. However, we (tax payer) need to get decrease this percentage to zero because in our modern world students need to be technologically literate. In order to maintain America’s prosperity we must help the youth by providing the adequate skills needed to compete globally and one of these skills is navigating with and through technology. We need to stop looking at America through this dichotomous perspective of rich and poor and start perceiving ourselves as a nation and Americans and start helping each other starting with our future of tomorrow: the students of today, and provide them the skills and tools needed to help us persevere.  

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Lastly, these statistics help us as educators understand that all students need help, but students from low-income neighborhoods need our help right now to help them become competent in the revolutionized technology. I personally know that these statistics can help me determine in which direction I should direct my attention to helping our America students become equipped with technological skills.

Although these statistics are great information for educators they should not be taken without cautiously analyzing them because all research and findings are biased in some way. Therefore, we can use this to help us begin our own research but they should never be taken as the final and only conclusion.  

 

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