Lynne Schrum article

Two Challenges to Technology in our Schools: Commercialization and Digital Equity

Lynne Schrum - The University of Georgia

Introduction

With the general acceptance of technology in our educational system two major problems have emerged. First, commercialization has spilled over into the use of technology. Second, technology has become one more educational component that is exacerbating the divisions that exist within our society. This brief article will describe these two issues and then provide some possible ways to counter the problems. It ends with a call for all educators to work toward ethical and equitable use of technology in pedagogically strong ways.

Commercialization

Two significant trends have converged to influence the commercialization of education. The first comes from the perceived reduction in funding for educational institutions in a time of rising costs – or perhaps rising expectation. Schools are being told to find their own funding and reduced resources have led administrators to become raisers of funds. The second trend evolves from the nature of marketing in America. Young people have large discretionary funds to spend, and they directly influence spending by others. As it has become more difficult to target young audiences (due to more cable channels, video games, and programming on demand), schools have become attractive as an avenue to this market.

Individuals and groups raised questions regarding the effects and ethics of using "captive public school audiences to advertise products in return for schools receiving money or equipment" (McCarthy, 1995, p. 5), even before Chris Whittle introduced Channel One. A recent study by the U. S. General Accounting Office (GAO) looked extensively at commercial activities in our schools (GAO, 2000). They found that, while they expected to see advertising on soda pop machines and scoreboards, in actuality advertising was all over the schools they visited, for example, computers, electronic message boards, and school buses. The GAO classified school commercialization into four categories: product sales (directly benefiting schools through rebates, cash or fundraising); direct advertising; indirect advertising (corporate sponsored materials, teacher training, contests or grants); and market research (just fill out this survey and we will send you a nifty pencil – and dozens of targeted emails and ads will follow!).

Consider these examples:

•Labels for digital cameras and computers (typically labels are from highly processed and expensive food and the equipment may be of questionable value)

•National Soft Drink Association providing a poster titled, "Soft Drinks and Nutrition;

•The M&M Mars candy company declares nutritional value in their products;

•ZapMe and Channel One offer free equipment to schools in exchange for captive audience viewing of commercials;

•Children’s web sites offer information and also take information for future advertisements; Ask Jeeves for Kids bombards users with multiple ads, and leads them to "How Things Work" which offers to pay them a bounty for getting others to purchase items;

•A recent math book, Mathematics: Applications and Connections (McGraw-Hill), currently in use by sixth, seventh and eighth-grade students in at least 16 US states, inserts products as Barbie dolls, Big Macs and Oreo cookies right into math problems. For example, "Will is saving his allowance to buy a pair of Nike shoes that cost $68.25. If Will earns $3.25 per week, how many weeks will Will need to save?" (Grierson, 1999; Kaplan, 1996; Molnar, 1996).

These issues are significant and the use of commercial free materials and equipment are more frequently in schools and communities that have resources to buy materials, and in which equipment is found in most of the homes. Is it reasonable that schools without computers must subject their students to continual ads so that they can have some access and experience? This introduces the second challenge to the use of technology in our schools, the quest for digital equity.

Digital Divide

The path toward technology implementation has always been a challenge, and yet the goal has continued to be that educators are able to create authentic active classroom curriculum activities that infuse technology and expand students’ possibilities. We all know that time, access, experiences, and lack of support can interfere with the most determined educator, but these barriers are exacerbated by the lack of equity in the use, access, skills and experience in some classrooms, schools, and communities.

We also recognize that the gap is more significant for students, schools and communities that are minority, rural, physically or mentally challenged, culturally or linguistically different, low socioeconomic status, or female. McAdoo asked fundamental questions about the digital divide,

The issue of equity now centers not on equality of equipment but on quality of use. The computers are there, yes, but what is the real extent of access? What kind of software is available? How much computer training are teachers getting? And are schools able to raise not just students’ level of technical proficiency, but also their level of inquiry, as advanced use of technology demands? (2000, p. 143-44)

Additionally, if students only perform drill and practice or remediation activities with the computer, they miss the opportunity to explore the synthesis, analysis, hypothesis testing, and problem solving activities that lead to higher order thinking, or for creative and imaginative uses of technology. Herbert Kohl, a well-known educational researcher, visited many inner-city schools looking at how computers are used and believes that "covert" racism limits the types of activities that children of color can accomplish on the computer (Reid, 2001). He stated, "…students in schools with predominately minority enrollments are more likely to use their state of the art technology for drill, practice and test-taking skills. Meanwhile, white students in more affluent communities are creating Web sites and multimedia presentations" (Kohl, cited in Reid, 2001, p. 16).

It is equally important to consider the challenge for females in this technology-dominated world. One of the most popular ad campaigns in the last two years is by Dell Computer with the young lad who says, "Dude, you’re getting a Dell." But consider the role of girls or women in those ads – the main appearance was for one to sit in a car and look impressed. Is it any wonder that the College Board reported that only 15% of those taking the Advanced Placement exam for computer science were girls (Gehring, 2001), 0r that the U.S. Department of Education reported that women received 27% of the computer science undergraduate degrees, a downward trend from the 37% in 1984. This is also a serious problem facing technology implementation.

Next steps

Obviously this article has only touched on a few points about these complex issues. In the most profound way, we as educators have allowed the technology industry as well as other commercial entities to co-opt our role as curriculum designers and pedagogical experts. It is important that leaders in this area actually take the lead and begin to talk about these issues.

The situation that we find ourselves in is not new, but should we be concerned about these situations? Bennis (1990) observed, "America has always been at war with itself. We have always dreamt of community and democracy but always practiced individualism and capitalism" (p. 102). It is not enough to recognize the dilemma but it will take a loud and constant voice to change the way these trends are growing exponentially.

One small step was taken in September 1999, when Representative George Miller introduced a bill to ban the collection of any information in school from any student under 18 for commercial purposes without first getting written permission from parents. Others include:

•Encourage examination of curriculum from multiple perspectives, including biases presented or voices not represented. This might take the form of assuming others’ roles’, investigating events through primary documents, and challenging statements that appear to favor the perspective of the materials’ developer.

•Create rubrics for acceptance of ‘free’ materials. The process for developing this could be a useful activity for groups and would also heighten the awareness of the larger educational community.

• Teach search and evaluation skills in preservice education, and reintroduce information literacy into K-12 curriculum. With the easy availability of an abundance of information, especially on the WWW, it is extremely important to create cautious and skeptical consumers of all information.

•Engage all stakeholders in this discussion, including parents, policy makers, and students themselves in the K-12 schools, and professors, preservice educators, and administrators in colleges of education. Decisions that are made collaboratively will have some logic and standards that everyone has agreed upon, rather than decisions being made by one person in a cavalier manner.

References

Bennis, W. (1990). Why leaders can't lead: The unconscious conspiracy continues. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass Publishers.

Gehring, J. (2001). Technology Counts 2001: Not enough girls. Education Week, XX(35), 18-19.

Grierson, B. (Summer, 1999). Brand names in textbooks. Adbusters, 1999, 33. [Available Online] http://adbusters.org/campaigns/commercialfree/toolbox/textbooks.html

General Accounting Office. (2000). Public education: Commercial activities in school (GAO/HEHS-00-156). Washington, DC: Author.

Kaplan, G. R. (1996). Profits r us: Notes on the commercialization of America's schools. Phi Delta Kappan, 78(3), pK1-K12.

McAdoo, M. (2000). The real digital divide: Quality not quantity. In D. T. Gordon (Ed.), The digital classroom: How technology is changing the way we teach and learn (pp. 143-150). Boston: Harvard Education Letter.

McCarthy, M. M. (1995). Private investment in public education: Boon or boondoggle? Journal of School Leadership, 5(1), 4-21.

Molnar, A. (1996). Giving kids the business: The commercialization of America's schools. Boulder, CO: WestviewPress.

Reid, K. S. (2001). Technology Counts 2001: Racial disparities. Education Week, XX(35), 16-17.

Web Sites for further information:

Center for the Analysis of Commercialism in Education (CACE)
http://www.uwm.edu/Dept/CACE

BadAds
http://badads.org

Center for Commercial-Free Public Education
http://www.commercialfree.org/

The Media Literacy Online Project
http://interact.uoregon.edu/MediaLit/HomePage

The Just Think Foundation
http://www.justthink.org/

Dissect an Ad
http://www.pbs.org/pov/ad/

American Academy of Pediatrics: Children, Adolescents and Advertising
http://www.aap.org/policy/00656.html

Consumer Reports Center for Children, Youth, and Families
http://www.zillions.org

Book of Interest:

Solomon, G., & Resta, P. (Eds.). (2003). Toward digital equity: Challenges of bridging the divide in education. Boston: Allyn and Bacon.

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Two Challenges to Technology in our Schools: Commercialization and Digital Equity Lynne Schrum - The University of Georgia Introduction With the general acceptance of technology in our educational system two major problems have emerged. First, commercialization has spilled over into the use of technology. Second, technology has become one more educational component that is exacerbating the divisions that exist within our society. This brief article will describe these two issues and then provide some possible ways to counter the problems. It ends with a call for all educators to work toward ethical and equitable use of technology in pedagogically strong ways. Commercialization Two significant trends have converged to influence the commercialization of education. The first comes from the perceived reduction in funding for educational institutions in a time of rising costs – or perhaps rising expectation. Schools are being told to find their own funding and reduced resources have led administrators to become raisers of funds. The second trend evolves from the nature of marketing in America. Young people have large discretionary funds to spend, and they directly influence spending by others. As it has become more difficult to target young audiences (due to more cable channels, video games, and programming on demand), schools have become attractive as an avenue to this market. Individuals and groups raised questions regarding the effects and ethics of using "captive public school audiences to advertise products in return for schools receiving money or equipment" (McCarthy, 1995, p. 5), even before Chris Whittle introduced Channel One. A recent study by the U. S. General Accounting Office (GAO) looked extensively at commercial activities in our schools (GAO, 2000). They found that, while they expected to see advertising on soda pop machines and scoreboards, in actuality advertising was all over the schools they visited, for example, computers, electronic message boards, and school buses. The GAO classified school commercialization into four categories: product sales (directly benefiting schools through rebates, cash or fundraising); direct advertising; indirect advertising (corporate sponsored materials, teacher training, contests or grants); and market research (just fill out this survey and we will send you a nifty pencil – and dozens of targeted emails and ads will follow!). Consider these examples: •Labels for digital cameras and computers (typically labels are from highly processed and expensive food and the equipment may be of questionable value) •National Soft Drink Association providing a poster titled, "Soft Drinks and Nutrition; •The M&M Mars candy company declares nutritional value in their products; •ZapMe and Channel One offer free equipment to schools in exchange for captive audience viewing of commercials; •Children’s web sites offer information and also take information for future advertisements; Ask Jeeves for Kids bombards users with multiple ads, and leads them to "How Things Work" which offers to pay them a bounty for getting others to purchase items; •A recent math book, Mathematics: Applications and Connections (McGraw-Hill), currently in use by sixth, seventh and eighth-grade students in at least 16 US states, inserts products as Barbie dolls, Big Macs and Oreo cookies right into math problems. For example, "Will is saving his allowance to buy a pair of Nike shoes that cost $68.25. If Will earns $3.25 per week, how many weeks will Will need to save?" (Grierson, 1999; Kaplan, 1996; Molnar, 1996). These issues are significant and the use of commercial free materials and equipment are more frequently in schools and communities that have resources to buy materials, and in which equipment is found in most of the homes. Is it reasonable that schools without computers must subject their students to continual ads so that they can have some access and experience? This introduces the second challenge to the use of technology in our schools, the quest for digital equity. Digital Divide The path toward technology implementation has always been a challenge, and yet the goal has continued to be that educators are able to create authentic active classroom curriculum activities that infuse technology and expand students’ possibilities. We all know that time, access, experiences, and lack of support can interfere with the most determined educator, but these barriers are exacerbated by the lack of equity in the use, access, skills and experience in some classrooms, schools, and communities. We also recognize that the gap is more significant for students, schools and communities that are minority, rural, physically or mentally challenged, culturally or linguistically different, low socioeconomic status, or female. McAdoo asked fundamental questions about the digital divide, The issue of equity now centers not on equality of equipment but on quality of use. The computers are there, yes, but what is the real extent of access? What kind of software is available? How much computer training are teachers getting? And are schools able to raise not just students’ level of technical proficiency, but also their level of inquiry, as advanced use of technology demands? (2000, p. 143-44) Additionally, if students only perform drill and practice or remediation activities with the computer, they miss the opportunity to explore the synthesis, analysis, hypothesis testing, and problem solving activities that lead to higher order thinking, or for creative and imaginative uses of technology. Herbert Kohl, a well-known educational researcher, visited many inner-city schools looking at how computers are used and believes that "covert" racism limits the types of activities that children of color can accomplish on the computer (Reid, 2001). He stated, "…students in schools with predominately minority enrollments are more likely to use their state of the art technology for drill, practice and test-taking skills. Meanwhile, white students in more affluent communities are creating Web sites and multimedia presentations" (Kohl, cited in Reid, 2001, p. 16). It is equally important to consider the challenge for females in this technology-dominated world. One of the most popular ad campaigns in the last two years is by Dell Computer with the young lad who says, "Dude, you’re getting a Dell." But consider the role of girls or women in those ads – the main appearance was for one to sit in a car and look impressed. Is it any wonder that the College Board reported that only 15% of those taking the Advanced Placement exam for computer science were girls (Gehring, 2001), 0r that the U.S. Department of Education reported that women received 27% of the computer science undergraduate degrees, a downward trend from the 37% in 1984. This is also a serious problem facing technology implementation. Next steps Obviously this article has only touched on a few points about these complex issues. In the most profound way, we as educators have allowed the technology industry as well as other commercial entities to co-opt our role as curriculum designers and pedagogical experts. It is important that leaders in this area actually take the lead and begin to talk about these issues. The situation that we find ourselves in is not new, but should we be concerned about these situations? Bennis (1990) observed, "America has always been at war with itself. We have always dreamt of community and democracy but always practiced individualism and capitalism" (p. 102). It is not enough to recognize the dilemma but it will take a loud and constant voice to change the way these trends are growing exponentially. One small step was taken in September 1999, when Representative George Miller introduced a bill to ban the collection of any information in school from any student under 18 for commercial purposes without first getting written permission from parents. Others include: •Encourage examination of curriculum from multiple perspectives, including biases presented or voices not represented. This might take the form of assuming others’ roles’, investigating events through primary documents, and challenging statements that appear to favor the perspective of the materials’ developer. •Create rubrics for acceptance of ‘free’ materials. The process for developing this could be a useful activity for groups and would also heighten the awareness of the larger educational community. • Teach search and evaluation skills in preservice education, and reintroduce information literacy into K-12 curriculum. With the easy availability of an abundance of information, especially on the WWW, it is extremely important to create cautious and skeptical consumers of all information. •Engage all stakeholders in this discussion, including parents, policy makers, and students themselves in the K-12 schools, and professors, preservice educators, and administrators in colleges of education. Decisions that are made collaboratively will have some logic and standards that everyone has agreed upon, rather than decisions being made by one person in a cavalier manner. References Bennis, W. (1990). Why leaders can't lead: The unconscious conspiracy continues. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass Publishers. Gehring, J. (2001). Technology Counts 2001: Not enough girls. Education Week, XX(35), 18-19. Grierson, B. (Summer, 1999). Brand names in textbooks. Adbusters, 1999, 33. [Available Online] http://adbusters.org/campaigns/commercialfree/toolbox/textbooks.html General Accounting Office. (2000). Public education: Commercial activities in school (GAO/HEHS-00-156). Washington, DC: Author. Kaplan, G. R. (1996). Profits r us: Notes on the commercialization of America's schools. Phi Delta Kappan, 78(3), pK1-K12. McAdoo, M. (2000). The real digital divide: Quality not quantity. In D. T. Gordon (Ed.), The digital classroom: How technology is changing the way we teach and learn (pp. 143-150). Boston: Harvard Education Letter. McCarthy, M. M. (1995). Private investment in public education: Boon or boondoggle? Journal of School Leadership, 5(1), 4-21. Molnar, A. (1996). Giving kids the business: The commercialization of America's schools. Boulder, CO: WestviewPress. Reid, K. S. (2001). Technology Counts 2001: Racial disparities. Education Week, XX(35), 16-17. Web Sites for further information: Center for the Analysis of Commercialism in Education (CACE) http://www.uwm.edu/Dept/CACE BadAds http://badads.org Center for Commercial-Free Public Education http://www.commercialfree.org/ The Media Literacy Online Project http://interact.uoregon.edu/MediaLit/HomePage The Just Think Foundation http://www.justthink.org/ Dissect an Ad http://www.pbs.org/pov/ad/ American Academy of Pediatrics: Children, Adolescents and Advertising http://www.aap.org/policy/00656.html Consumer Reports Center for Children, Youth, and Families http://www.zillions.org Book of Interest: Solomon, G., & Resta, P. (Eds.). (2003). Toward digital equity: Challenges of bridging the divide in education. Boston: Allyn and Bacon. • Previous Articles