The Digital Divide: Access to Technology
Part 1 of an SoCTL Series

Chalk is a technology. Really. So are college-ruled paper, the number 2 pencil, Xerox machines and a lot of other objects of educational daily life. A colleague of mine reminded me of chalk’s innovative beginnings recently, during a discussion at CTL’s Realizing Student Potential/ITeach conference. While his point went on to be about the appropriate use of technology (i.e., we should use chalk for some things and a Smart Board for others), it also said a lot about our fears of technology. (Why would we need to remind ourselves that chalk is a technology if we aren’t just a little bit afraid of the Smart Board?) While the discussion of the appropriate use of other classroom technologies is an important and ongoing one, it depends on the very complex issue of whether some faculty members and some of our students are ready to use some forms of technology in the classroom, and whether we are doing everything we can to bring everyone up to the speed of technological advances.

In this SoCTL series, I’ll get at some of the major factors contributing to what’s largely called “the digital divide,” with a more focused look at the problems specific to our campuses and classrooms: student access to technology, lack of skill, the speed at which we make technological adaptations, and the disparity between faculty and student views on appropriate uses of technology. In this month’s column, I’ll focus on the issue of access. In future SoCTLs, I’ll go into each of the other factors in more detail.

The access problem starts before our students enter our virtual or physical campus doors. The March, 2008 edition of NEA Today highlights the digital divide in a feature article entitled “Mind the Gap: It's a high-speed, high-def, Wi-Fi world. But not for everybody.” The article explains how the problem is being addressed in the world of secondary education, and can give us a picture of the students that will be coming to our classrooms in the very near future. There is still a gap in our society between those who have access to computers and broadband Internet outside of school and those who don’t. This lack of access is much more common in underserved and low-income populations, as well as in rural communities. A recent study by the National Telecommunications and Information Administration, A Nation Online: Entering the Broadband Age, shows some very interesting patterns:

• Among Internet users, those with broadband connections at home are more likely to be daily Internet users (66.1 percent) than those with dial-up service (51.1 percent).
• A lower percentage of Internet households have broadband connections in rural areas (24.7 percent) than in urban areas (40.4 percent). 
• Rural households with dial-up connections are significantly more likely than their urban counterparts to list "Not Available" as the reason they do not have a higher speed Internet connection (22.1 percent to 4.7 percent, respectively).

So who has broadband at home? The following data comes from a report on the Pew Internet & American Life Survey, December 2007:

• Percent of internet users by race:
  1. White: 55
  2. Black: 38
  3. English-Speaking Hispanics: 57
• Percent of internet users by income:
  1. <$30K Income: 40
  2. >$75K Income: 77
• Percent of internet users by location:
  1. Rural: 42
  2. Urban: 60

Access to computers and the Internet leads to use of those technologies--and eventually proficiency in Web navigation, basic document creation, and electronic communication. All of these are essential skills in most post-secondary classes AND the modern working world. Recognizing this fact, there are some individuals advocating government-assisted universal access. Short of government aid, there are other ways that people can acquire low-cost computers for home use. At techsoup.org, would-be users or their advocates can search by country or ZIP code for companies or groups that refurbish used computers and either donate or resell them to families or individuals in need. A quick search of my own ZIP code yielded information on Boy Scout Troop 929 in Rosemount, Minnesota, which “will refurbish computers for under-privileged, handicapped, and or non profit organizations.”

As Linda Russell points out in her Teaching in the Disciplines column, the technological under-preparedness of incoming students, often resulting from their reduced access to technology, is possibly the biggest problem that our faculty members face around the digital divide issue. The next SoCTL installment on the digital divide will provide some research and insight on the subject of technology skills—of both students and faculty.

-Martin Springborg

Full citations appear at the bottom of this HTML version and in the PDF version.

CTL Resources for Faculty

Teaching in the Disciplines

Linda Russell, Minneapolis Community and Technical College

As a developmental reading instructor I see great diversity in our classes. At my college, although we have increased numbers of younger students, we still have an average age that is in the mid-twenties, as well as many students who are much older. But beyond age diversity, what we have in large part is a population of mostly low-income students who have very little discretionary money to purchase computers or monthly internet subscriptions. Despite all the talk about our “wired” youth, I am reminded every semester that the ubiquitous computer in every kid’s bedroom is not the norm for most of our students.

Why is that an issue? We are expected to join the headlong race to online learning. We’ve got D2L, and our administrators and our students clamor for us to put our course materials, grades, and other aspects of our courses into the D2L environment. The capacity for the online features to supplant traditional interactions, use of class time, and distribution of materials brings both opportunity and problems. On one hand, I’ve had students quickly catch up after an absence because of the availability of materials and the chance to submit their work and take their quizzes from home. On the other hand, here are comments from my students this semester:

I tried to take that quiz online, but I got to the lab and it was closed. I don’t have a computer at home. What should I do?

I couldn’t get to a computer before that dropbox folder due date, so I couldn’t submit my work.

I have dial up Internet, and something weird happened while I was trying to take that quiz. It all froze up and didn’t save my answers. I got a zero.

I know I was supposed to bring that article, but I have to get it printed in a computer lab, and I don’t have time to get there before our class.

Access is one issue, but skill is another. If our students aren’t wealthy enough to purchase every new gizmo, they have not had the chance to become skilled users of new technology either. Many of my developmental reading students are not experienced in reading screens. They miss important information that is in a sidebar, get lost moving from screen to screen, and don’t necessarily notice all of the helpful menus and tabs that are supposed to improve navigation. They haven’t mastered the lingo, thus they get things mixed up (What’s the difference between Paging and Email? What’s the difference between add message and reply in Discussion?) I have to be sure to overtly teach the skills of navigating and using D2L in addition to reading strategies.

As is often the case, we need to be careful about our assumptions. Perhaps we should poll our classes to find out how many students have 24 hour access to online materials. For those who do not, we must be sure we don’t put them at a disadvantage by offering materials only online or posting materials too late for students to access them before class. For reading students (and most other developmental level students) we should provide clear and easy directions for the tasks we are requiring, such as attaching documents, navigating web sites or D2L, or even emailing us. Then we might not get the email that I received this semester:

Hey Ms Russell I email u 2 let u kno I kept tryin 2 take the quiz but the computer wouldnt download the “lock thing” so I dont kno wha 2 do about taken it I dont have a computer at home and library computer dont let you download ethier…so wha am I to do?