Further Thoughts on The Digital Disconnect

Doug Levin - American Institutes for Research
DLevin@air.org

     The reactions to and interest in The Digital Disconnect have been tremendous. Some of the more interesting popular media coverage of the study and related topics can be found at:

• Christian Science Monitor (8/15) "Net savvy students to teachers: You just don't get it!" http://www.csmonitor.com/2002/0815/p25s01-cogn.html
• USA Today (8/26) "Net-savvy teens want teachers to keep up" http://www.usatoday.com/tech/webguide/2002-08-26-tech-teens_x.htm
• Washington Post (9/11) "Cheatin’, Writin’ & ‘Rithmetic" http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn?pagename=article&node=&contentId=A4968-2002Sep11&notFound=true
• New York Times (9/19) "I Think, Therefore IM" http://query.nytimes.com/search/abstract?res=F00C14F639540C7A8DDDA00894DA404482

     Yet, there are those that don't seem to understand the purpose of the study and what its implications might be. Perhaps it is for the simple reason that what it illuminates is in some respects so obvious and in other respects profoundly challenging of our assumptions about using technology in schools. Perhaps it is because it points out tensions and problems with the current system, but provides few answers. Perhaps it is because of the recent politicization of appropriate education research methods and questions. So it goes.

     Given these types of reactions, allow me to shed some additional light both on the purpose of this study, what we found (very briefly), and what I believe to be its most important implication.

Why This Study?

     The primary purpose of this study was to illuminate how Internet-savvy students use the Internet for school. To address this issue (and with the support of the Pew Internet & American Life Project), Sousan Arafeh and I conducted an exploratory, qualitative study of large numbers of students drawn from around the country.

    In so doing, it diverges from past research on educational technology in a number of important ways:

• Research on educational technology tends to focus on teacher-directed, in-school use of technology. This study focused on student use of technology for educational purposes—with or without school or teacher knowledge and approval—across all settings, including school, home, friends’ houses, libraries, etc.

• Research on educational technology tends to try to understand student use of technology through teacher and administrator perspectives. Yet, students are early adopters and heavy users of technology—often inventing new uses for technologies that were not intended or even imagined by technology developers and certainly not fully comprehended by most adults. Consequently, this study collected data directly and solely from students.

• Research on educational technology often presumes we know the important questions to ask. Yet, the use of technology (such as the Internet) for learning is a new and rapidly evolving phenomenon. There is every reason to believe that students think about and use technology for learning in ways that the adults around them may not fully understand. Findings from survey-based research, therefore, may not provide an accurate picture of the use of technology for learning.

     This study is not intended to be evaluative or judgmental about student use of technology for learning. It does not inform the question of whether students are demonstrably learning more or less because of the Internet. It does reveal in rich detail student self-reported behaviors, beliefs, and attitudes about using the Internet for school—for better or worse. In this regard, it is one of the first large-scale studies of its type to address this important topic.

What Did We Find?

     In short, the study found that Internet-savvy students rely on the Internet to do a whole host of activities related to school, but that their educational Internet use occurs largely outside of teacher direction, outside of the school building, and outside of the school day. The reasons students give for this disconnect reinforce what others have found: uses of educational technology are limited to what can be accomplished during class time because of equity concerns, instructional time in schools is limited, quality of technology access is poor, usability of technology is often poor, technical support and professional development is often insufficient, software is not well integrated or aligned with instructional goals, and concerns about inappropriate use of technology overshadow potentially more positive uses. Nonetheless, students are completing their schoolwork differently because of their reliance on technology. This reliance by students has implications for educators whether or not they use technology in their classrooms.

What Should We Do About the Disconnect?

     Perhaps the single greatest implication arising from this study is one that challenges the conventional wisdom about the use of technology in schools. Conventional wisdom suggests that student use of technology should be integrated with their other class time activities, either supplementing face-to-face instruction or supplanting it altogether. There are a whole host of barriers to this approach and, when mandated by administrators or policymakers, it appears to sometime lead to a striking under utilization of otherwise powerful resources.

     Instead, students pointed out that perhaps the real opportunity to leverage the power of technology for learning is to better coordinate student technology use at home, outside of the school day. Indeed, students argued that they wanted their schools to be the center of their educational use of the Internet, but because of the digital disconnect they were left with no other choice but to use whatever online resources they could find on their own to help them with their schoolwork—for better or worse. This suggests that educators think very differently about how to use technology for learning, how money for educational technology might be spent, and how educators organize their work (and work days). For instance, teachers could post lesson plans and assignments online. They could offer online tutoring sessions. Teachers could coordinate the sharing of helpful and high quality online resources for their classes. The Christian Science Monitor article of 8/15 effectively illustrates this point.

     Of course, to enable this sort of shift—a shift that better reflects changes in how students do their work (a change not seen in the student population perhaps since the rise of Sesame Street)—requires attention to many other issues. Teachers and administrators both need professional development on how to use these new tools, as well as on how their students are using them (for good and for ill). Perhaps most importantly, though, if schools shift their focus to leveraging out-of-school uses of technology, issues of the digital divide rise to the fore.

     There are many, many other implications of this line of inquiry and plenty of additional research to be conducted. In closing, let me make two other points that I think illustrate the emerging and underlying problem:

1. Students who rely on the Internet to do their schoolwork believe they have an advantage over students without such access.

2. The only other demographic group that is more likely to use the Internet than middle and high school students are college students.

     Indeed, if reliance on the Internet for conducting schoolwork is associated with academic success and student Internet use for school is occurring largely outside of teacher direction, what responsibility do we have to ensure that the nation’s middle and high school students are being prepared for their future? Perhaps it is time to engage students themselves in the conversation about how to improve their education. We might be surprised at what they will tell us.

 

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