Digital Divide Access to Technology

Digital Divide Access to Technology Resources

Impact of lack of technological resources on the student body and teachers, plus the problems schools have on inconsistent provision of IT sources.

In the first section of this paper we will focus on how lack or inequality of technological advancements impacts the student body and teachers as well as the problems that schools face due to inconsistent provision of IT sources.

Not more then two decades ago, when computer technology was still under development, computer knowledge and use within the school dynamics was one of the most intriguing and daring recommendations made by A Nation at Risk (1983). It is true that even when technological advancements were still being tested, the use of computer technology in various domains of life was bringing forth more advantages then disadvantages and was benefiting the community by and large. However, educational standards and policies had not instilled its use for academic purposes as yet. It was, however, only a matter of time according to many experts when computer knowledge would not only become one of the most popular subjects in the curriculum but would also be sued as a very efficient source of academic service.

Since the recommendation from A Nation at Risk, it is easy to trace major reformations and enhancements within the academic structures of schools and colleges within the U.S. There have been huge investments made to promote the use of technology within schools from both the private and public sectors. Dickard in a relative study confirmed that over $40 billion had already been invested over the last decade to improve the school's infrastructure, professional growth and training as well as use of technical mechanisms (Dickard, 2003). Many of the investments for technological improvements within schools have also aimed to improve the overall familiarity with technology for both the teachers and the students as well as enhance the overall ability of keeping records and data for the school administrators and improve the overall student performance, communication, ability to sort and research and their problem solving/critical thinking skills. Despite all the investment that has already been done, there is still a lot more ground to be covered as a pattern of unequal access to technology seems to emerge where some schools are highly advanced in their use of technology while other find it hard to even access it, leave alone use it appropriately.

In a study conducted by the Partnership for 21st Century Skills it is asserted that, "To cope with the demands of the 21st century, people need to know more than core subjects. They need to know how to use their knowledge and skills -- by thinking critically, applying knowledge to new situations, analyzing information, comprehending new ideas, communicating, collaborating, solving problems, making decisions" ( as cited in McDevitt, 2007). Hence, by creating a national standard for students and educators of expecting them to know how to use technology and know its basic functions, they are indirectly ensuring that the students and teachers will inadvertently be techno-literate across the U.S. irrespective of large or small investments.

Many researchers and academic administrators or policy makers have been concerned about the ways that they can enhance the use of technology while simultaneously declining the negative impacts that the deficiency of technology will have on the student and teacher performance. Another main concern for administrators is to maintain a sort of consistency with exposure to technology in the long run. This is one of main reason why researchers and administrators have tried focusing on the getting the basic policies right under the light of all the public and private sector patterns and in accordance to the results and recommendations made by A Nation at Risk.

The fact of the matter is this: most of the economies like the U.S. that depend upon their knowledge and intellect to find their footing in the global market need to allow accessibility to technology to their citizens in order to ensure a raising level of excellence in every field. One of the biggest aspects of new technology that has gone through major investment in the education sector is the use and accessibility of the internet for the students. This allows the students who have access to the internet to be able to live outside the realms of time and space when pursuing their educational endeavors and also have access to those resources that may not be easy to find offline. This is the clear advantage that technology gives when it is made accessible to students. Hence, we see that the use of internet for students as well as teachers boosts their overall spectrum of knowledge whereas for those students or teachers who don't have access to the internet have an overall smaller expanse of knowledge in comparison.

Another major impact that the use of technology has for the teachers specifically is in the admissions process, things and information can e gathered and sorted in a much shorter space of time and can be referred back to quickly as well. Whereas in schools and colleges where technology is not accessible, most of the admissions processes take be time-consuming and also call for a lot of manual work which can be tedious. Furthermore, another disadvantage of not having technology available at the institution leaves the school out of the business of professional training that has emerged as a lucrative venture in recent years. This basically disallows the teachers to get proper and structured training of not only using technology but also teaching its use. This is a major disadvantage for the teachers on a personal level because it somewhat restricts their prospects of jobs in the future where they might find a technology-driven environment to be intimating. Also, this does not help the school enhance or increase its overall academic standing.

One of the biggest concerns that have emerged with the advent and enhancements in technology has been its overall impact on those groups or sectors of the society that are either minorities or are under-represented in general. There is no hiding the fact that the investors (private and public) have certain interests in boosting specific sectors of the society for profit-making reasons, hence sectors like the low-income earners, racial groups, minorities etc. witness very little to no investment coming their way. This pattern leaves their schools/colleges near the bottom of the chain and most students and teachers don't ever get to experience the positive impacts that technology can have on their overall learning like the use if Cooperative Work Groups (CWG) in an online environment, or the online courses available that compliment their choice of majors, or the vast library of online references that they can find on a single topic. This particular concern and disadvantage is perhaps one of the biggest reasons why administrators and investors need to sit together and discuss the appropriate and fair use of technology within the educational sector so as to decrease the overall unequal access that exists in the societies today.

Some of the basic problems that schools have due to the inconsistent provision of IT tools are explained in the following paragraphs:

There are numerous studies that confirm that the policy principles of the schools are main determinants of how certain technological mechanisms can be designed and incorporated in the insturtcional structure to positively impact the overall teaching techniques, administrative input and overall learning environment for the students. Hence, one of the main problems that schools need to overcome is the presence of loopholes in their policies that might hinder the incorporation of technology within their institution. Some of the most popular and effective educational policies that have been introduced over the years, as reported in the study conducted by McMillan and colleagues in 2003, are:

1. "1983 A Nation at Risk National Commission on Excellence in Education

2. 1988 Power On! New Tools for Teaching and Learning U.S. Congress, Office of Technology Assessment

3. 1989: Linking for Learning: A New Course for Education U.S. Congress, Office of Technology Assessment

4. 1992: Testing in American Schools: Asking the Right Questions U.S. Congress, Office of Technology Assessment

5. 1993: Adult Literacy and New Technologies: Tools for a Lifetime U.S. Congress, Office of Technology Assessment

6. 1995: Connecting K12 Schools to the Information Superhighway McKinsey & Co

a. 1995: Education and Technology: Future Visions U.S. Congress, Office of Technology Assessment

b. 1995: Teachers and Technology: Making the Connection U.S. Congress, Office of Technology Assessment

7. 1996: The Learning Connection: Schools in the Information Age The Benton Foundation Getting

a. 1996: America's Students Ready for the 21st Century: Meeting the Technology Literacy Challenge. A Report to the Nation on Technology and Education U.S. Department of Education

b. 1996: Kickstart Initiative: Connecting America's Communities to the Information Superhighway National Information Infrastructure Advisory Council (NIIAC)

8. 1997: Computers and Classrooms: The Status of Technology in U.S. Schools Educational Testing Service

a. 1997: Overview of Technology and Education Reform U.S. Department of Education

b. 1997: Report to the President on the Use of Technology to Strengthen K12 Education in the United States President's Committee of Advisors on Science and Technology

c. 1997: School Technology and Readiness Report: From Pillars to Progress The CEO Forum on Education and Technology

9. 1999: School Technology and Readiness Report. Professional Development: A Link to Better Learning The CEO Forum on Education and Technology

10. 2000: The National Technology Education Plan, e-Learning: Putting a World Class Education at the Fingertips of All Children U.S. Department of Education

a. 2000: The Power of the Internet for Learning Web-based Education Commission

b. 2000: The Secretary's Conference on Educational Technology, Measuring Impacts and Shaping the Future U.S. Department of Education

c. 2000: School and Technology Readiness Report. The Power of Digital Learning: Integrating Digital Content The CEO Forum on Education and Technology

11. 2001 Any Time, Any Place, Any Path, Any Pace: Taking the Lead on e-Learning Policy National Association of State Boards of Education

a. 2001: Education Technology Must Be Included in Comprehensive Legislation CEO Forum on Education and Technology

b. 2001: Investing in K12 Technology Equipment: Strategies for State Policymakers Education Commission of the States

c. 2001: Student Achievement in the 21 st Century: Assessment, Alignment, Accountability, Access, Analysis CEO Forum on Education and Technology

12. 2002 Technically Speaking: Why All Americans Need to Know More About Technology National Academy of Engineering, National Research Council

a. 2002: Visions 2020: Transforming Education and Training Through Advanced Technologies U.S. Department of Commerce, Technology Administration

13. 2003 Learning for the 21st Century Partnership for 21st Century Skills

a. 2003: The Sustainability Challenge: Taking EdTech to the Next Level Benton Foundation, EDC/Center for Children & Technology" (quoted from McMillan et al. 2003).

One of the tangible hurdles that most school administrators face is the transportation of technology to distant branches of an institution. Alongside that, even though, in the long-run technology and its use within the institution do bring the school more profits and a higher academic standing but initially it requires a lot of careful planning and investment of not only finance but time. This includes initiating training program for teachers, implementing new and different teaching strategies to make sure that the students not only understand the use the technology but are comfortable in using it outside of their academic need.

Another hurdle or problem that most schools face is the hereditary or conservative culture that they promote i.e. The kind of culture and tradition that have existed from before the introduction of technology. The implementation of technology calls for serious alterations made in the traditional format of the teaching environment. Most teachers and students have to cope with the dynamic, complicated and advanced levels and patterns of writing, researching, communicating and presenting an idea or a project. Furthermore, they also have to cope with the wide expanse of information that technologies like internet brings with it and be able to sort through all the f acts and use that are most relevant to their topic. The overall process of learning becomes a lot more intimidating at first and that's one of the biggest challenges that administrators have to prepare for by making efficient policies. This simply means that technology and its use can trigger a change in the overall approach that schools have towards teaching and learning (CEO Forum, 1997, 1999).

According to a study conducted by the OTA, the use of technology and its resources can "extend teaching and learning processes" but more so in certain spheres then in others (OTA, 1988). For example, technology can help the overall process of data and facts collection for students and teachers and can help the students partake in out-of-school projects without actually having to go out of school premises. Furthermore, technology can also help teachers expand the overall learning experience of the students for specific subjects like art, communication or math projects by using multimedia tools. But it is important that before technology is actually implemented within the school programs, the administrators and teachers are able to recognize and distinguish the spheres of education that will benefit most from the use of technology and start there.

Many researches have focused on how the use of technology can fulfill the needs of the teachers and how lack of it can restrict their teaching capabilities (NASBE, 2001? OTA, 1995b). These studies highlight that the use of technologies by teachers can help them use various mechanisms as merely complimentary elements that can help them attain the academic objectives they had in mind like the understanding of a complex theory.

However, the problem here for most schools lies in the late recognition that for this aspect to work appropriately, there need to be certain ethical, professional and social codes of conduct designed that need to be followed by the teachers. Most schools have no problems designing the ethical and social principles but face problems in trying to understand what strategy would be professional and what wouldn't be because at times the technologies being used are not fully understood by the administrators themselves. Hence, it is important that the administrators first make themselves fully aware of the technologies that they are choosing and understand how they can be used, in the literal and the transformative sense, and then design policies based on what use is acceptable ethically, professionally and socially. The important thing to note here is that while many schools employing technology for the first time face this problem, not all of them design the same principles because each school ahs its own environment to cater to when designing these policies (CEO Forum, 2000? U.S. Department of Commerce, 2002).

It is important to note here that the accessibility to technology in our view does not only mean physical accessibility because that can be overcome with investment. It is important to intelligently be accessible to technology too which means that all of the problems of training, use of multimedia tools, filtering relevant information, using technology to support an existing learning environment, etc. And other hurdles that have been explained above need to be tackled by the administrators before it accessibility can produce benefiting results.

Perhaps the biggest and the most intimidating problem that the schools that don't have technology and want to implement it in their instruction face is the daily rising demands and changes that technological implementations demands. The fact of the matter is that if and when a school decides to introduce and implement technological mechanism within their schools, they have to act on it intelligently and swiftly and understand what they employing at a quick pace because if they linger on too much or are too slow in actually employing the technology in practical use then the fact is that the software an multimedia tools that they employ might not necessarily be the most effective ones at the time because they are two or three years old.

Furthermore, schools have to recognize the fact that the sustainability of technology is constant upgrading. Even if they are able to employ the software and tools that are most efficient for promoting a specific format of learning environment as per the need of the teachers and the students, that software will also constantly be needed to upgraded and all of its functions, in the literal sense and transformative or complimentary sense, will need to revised and re-thought-out as the students and teachers' needs change over the passage of time. (CEO Forum 1997, 2000? Conte, 1996? OTA, 1995a? PCAST Panel on Educational Technology, 1997? U.S. Department of Education, 1996, 1997). Hence, not just getting the technology but using the appropriate software tools and upgrading techniques will help the school effectively use technological within the school setting in a beneficial way.

In summary, the above pages have highlighted how lack or inequality of technological advancements impacts the student body and teachers as well as the problems that schools face due to inconsistent provision of IT sources. Some of the problems that were highlighted include: the cooperation between the administrators and the investors (private and public) to reduce the unequal investment patterns and invest in schools within the areas of minorities, low-income earners, etc.; long-term understanding of the accessibility and implementation of the technology; changing the internal culture and tradition to adapt the new technological mechanisms; employing new teaching techniques; initiating training programs; familiarizing the students with the technology so as to not overwhelm them; amongst others.

Efforts that help decrease negative impacts and assist teachers and students to improve results.

In this, the second section, of this paper we will focus on the overall efforts and policies that can help decrease negative impacts and assist teachers and students to improve the academic and teaching results in the short as well as the long run.

In analyzing the aforementioned problems, we can highlight twelve main elements that can help schools overcome the negative impacts of lack of technological implementation within schools. These are:

1. Enhance the overall utilization facilities, accessibility, and relative mechanisms and outlets outside the school if it is not possible to bring technology within the institutions?

2. Form appropriate affiliations with other internet cafes and outlets to help students access technology and multimedia tools;

3. Alongside the implementation of the technology, invest in high-tech and quality software tools and look for upgrade windows on a quarterly basis?

4. Initiate and sustain the training programs that will help teachers understand the technology being used, their own flexibility and freedom of its use inside the classroom;

5. Provide the teachers with the right motivational tools to invest their time in the training and implementation of the technology?

6. Look for the private and public sector sources and investors who will be interested in increasing and supporting funding in the short and the long-term;

7. Guide the investors, both from the public and private sectors, in the role that they play and the responsibilities that they have as well as provide them with enough motivations and incentives to continue funding;

8. Invest time in improving the research & development strategies after the technology has been implemented?

9. It is also very important to continually test and re-evaluate the policies of the institution in order to adapt and stay efficient in the changing times;

10. All technological mechanism comes with added issues of privacy and security which also need to be tackled in the initial stages and policies need to be formulated that can be flexible and altered with the need of time;

11. Enhance and promote the activities that are technology-based over the passage of time so as to keep the teachers updated on the advancements and new teaching techniques that can be employed with technology?

12. All of the relevant relations between the technology and the subjects need to be established and how it can benefit a certain subject and its comprehension need to be recognized and communicated to the teachers.

Furthermore when assessing the recommendations that were made in the educational policies quoted above from the McMillan et al. (2003) study, we can also analyze the following elements as also helpful in decreasing the overall negative impacts highlighted in the above pages and assist teachers and students improve their teaching and academic results:

1. Improve the content of the curriculum and the subjects being taught to incorporate those that will not only help the students understand and use the technology they are being exposed to but also be able to use it outside of their schools.

2. Improving the content could ensure that the subjects being taught were relevant to the modern society and its trends.

3. Controlling the access and content available in the E-learning courses so as to make sure that the students were not exposed to the kind of information that was dangerous or disruptive in any way.

4. Funding was again emphasized strongly in all of the educational policies as the starting point for equal access and use of technology.

5. Professional and Personal development of the teachers was another focal point in a majority of the educational policies and recommendations that have been made over the years. Personal development simply means the personal interest of the teachers in utilizing the technologies with customized changes as needed in the subject they are teaching or the class that they are teaching.

6. Research and evaluation procedures were also given their rightful importance in the educational policies as most educators realized that the vast expanse and dynamics of the technological breakthroughs needed to be constantly monitored and assessed to use them accurately and in the most efficient way.

Besides the aforementioned recommendations, some of the other aspects that can be improved to reduce the negativity that comes with the lack of technological use can include the following:

Reinforce Management

It is important for the school managers and administrators to control the level of input they have once the training programs have finished and the technology has been employed. This is so because while their regular input and monitoring is required, they need to be able to macro-manage things and have the kind of impact with their training programs that they don't need to time and time again step in for the appropriate use of technology. They need to be leading the educational at the innovative, knowledgeable and transformative level instead of dictating it at those levels. Hence, to reinforce management, administrators can:

Enhance and encourage investments for the initiation of management training programs that are designed to teach leadership skills to the teachers as well as the students.

Establish programs and activities that promote the development of decision-making, problem-solving, critical thinking and organizational change skills and abilities amongst the teachers and the students.

Encourage and form affiliations with schools and organizations that have similar interests and goals as the school and the community it is serving.

Form associations with relative business firms.

Encourage the teachers and student council bodies to partake in the overall policy-making and technology planning structures for the school.

Promote Innovative Funding

Funding has already been mentioned as an important facet of any technological venture within the education industry. However, in the current scheme of recession, it is now more important then ever to employ innovative and creative funding and expenditure strategies. It is important for the administrators to efficiently and intelligently channel and re-allocate resources and finance to ensure durability and constant flow of profits and investments.

Hence, administrators need to from the very beginning have a clear idea of where the funding will reap most benefits and then prepare reports that back up their estimates on how and why they believe that investing with them would be beneficial and present them to the investors along with the appropriate motivations to seal the deal on a long-term investment project. For example the approach that the "No Child Left Behind Act" took that proved to be very successful for them was always have a clear perspective on the educational objectives with a specific amount of money and within a specific period of time.

The schools need to:

To clearly underline where the funding will be used

To clearly put up the funding, spending and costs requirements without having any hidden costs.

Constantly re-structure and re-allocate resources and finances ads the need arises

Formulate policies that help them carry forward funds into the next budgeting year.

Initiate and sustain E-Learning and Virtual Schools

Within the last decade, the use of E-learning or online learning and virtual or online schools have emerged as a tremendous success. This basically allows the students to partake in the educational activities all across the globe without actually having to even leave their homes. Online courses, while under-rated because of the criticism that the students don't experience the face-to-face peer building process, has found numerous success within and outside the U.S. As students are provided with a wide range and high quality array of subject to choose from. The main advantage of these online academic systems is that it empowers the students in order to do and study exactly what they want to. Many of the conservative schools have also embraced this particular approach in order to provide more choices for both students and teachers to expand their overall horizons of knowledge. Recommendations for initiating and sustaining E-Learning and Virtual Schools systems include (Phipps, 2004):

Accessibility to the websites and links that will help students apply and study online;

Encourage teachers to document and video tape their lectures for the purpose of online teaching

Use innovative budgeting techniques to ensure relevant and necessary finances are available for the creation of e-learning tools for both the students and the teachers;