Strategies for Increasing Access to Educational Technology for Rural vs. Urban Schools

Education Technology

Technology in Education

An Brief Analysis of Methods that could work to improve access to Educational Technologies in both Rural and Urban Schools

Integrating technologies into classrooms general requires that a wide range of obstacles to be overcome. Not only do modern technologies have hefty price tag that can weigh heavily on school budgeting, but it also requires additional training for both the teachers as well as the students. Furthermore, it is often also the case that the school's culture is prohibitive of embracing new methods of class room education and teachers often have resistance to integrating new technologies into their lesson plans. However, in the modern environment, if technology is successful integrated into the classroom setting this can often not reduce some of the instructor's workload but also better prepare students to meet the challenges they will face in the twenty first century. The analysis will investigate different strategies that can help improve access to educational technologies in both rural as well as urban environments.

Technology in Rural Schools

Rural areas that embrace technology-can-not only support the rural-education-system but it can also work to promote-economic-development in that community (Turner, 2009). However, technology infrastructure in these applications must be structured in a way to-preserve-the-sense-of-community-that-rural-places are known to value. However, many of these cultural barriers can be overcome or embraced. Many rural educational systems have built-strong-culture-of-education that utilizes fully embraces modern technology without sacrificing the way of life that the community has grown accustomed to.

The world is increasingly becoming more globalized and more technologically advanced. Many rural communities have struggled to stay abreast of developments that have occurred outside their immediate areas. Not only is there a level of unfamiliarity with new technologies, but often the costs associated with these technologies is prohibitive for these areas. One of the defining factors associated with a rural community is its lack of population density. Thus providing the needed infrastructure, such as broadband for example, often carries a significantly higher cost per capita that can be found in more urban areas.

It is often the case that the costs are so prohibitive for the rural population that they cannot feasibly introduce new infrastructure without assistance from public funding. However, the value of the internet is so powerful that the United Nations recently declared access to the internet a basic human right (Estes, 2011). Many countries around the world have also taken a stand to provide broadband access to all of its citizens. Many individual states as well as local communities in the United States have also made commitments to further its infrastructure as well. Although developing the infrastructure only represents the first step to be able to provide rural students more technologically advanced classroom curriculums, this is the main obstacle that must be overcome before subsidiary challenges can be addressed.

Technology in Urban Educational Systems

Urban centers generally do not face the same challenges that rural areas face when trying to improve the level of technology integrated in their classrooms. In urban areas the technological infrastructure is far less expensive per capita and much easier to develop. Rather, in urban areas, the challenges primarily lay with finding or training people with the skills need to harness technologies and build them into their classroom curriculum. In the United States for example, teachers are paid much less than in other industrialized nations. Thus there is a financial incentive for anyone with technological skills to use these elsewhere to earn a higher income.

There are many teachers who are not motivated primarily by their salaries and chose to teach despite more lucrative career paths being available. However, a vast number of qualified individuals seek employment in other areas because of this reason. Therefore, in urban areas there are often great deals of teachers who are simply not qualified to utilize the latest technological developments in their classrooms. Some of these individuals have the capacity to be trained, however many are not motivated to do so. One study of teachers' performances and their salaries provided evidence that recruitment and retention of teachers are correlated consistently with income; low salaries were associated with low-quality teachers (Termin, 2003).