The shift from "This isn't your Father's classroom" to 1-1 computing in schools may be a ways off yet, but nevertheless teachers are expecting students to have access of some kind at home.
Should we expect our kids to have internet access now?
The above data was based on a study funded by Microsoft News Corp. and Verizon. Thank Phil for posting it!!!
2 comments:
I have such mixed feelings about expecting kids to have internet service (or even a computer) at home. On one hand, our students have oodles of opportunities to access computers and the internet. We allow laptops to go home, the public libraries have computers and wireless, and kids can even sit on the curb in front of any of the district buildings and pick up the wireless signal. (You can't... accepted IP addresses only!) So there are lots of chances, and I haven't heard much complaining about not being able to do something for lack of a computer.
There are also tons of advantages to being able to access all that the web offers for free, and this skill is especially important to families from low SES. The MARVEL databases, as just one example, provide online access to thousands of magazines, newspapers, and books to every Maine family for free.
On the other hand, taking a laptop home requires purchasing the insurance, which is around $60 every year. Our district is huge, and many kids live 30 minutes by car from the public library and any of the schools. Some even live out of range of high-speed lines. The largest employers in our district are the hospital and the mill, both of which require shiftwork, so parents are often not home afterschool to shuttle kids to the library. Some have no reliable car at all, and obviously we have no public transportation. And as for complaining kids... how likely is it that a teenager is going to tell a teacher they are too poor to buy the insurance or they don't have a car to get to the library?
I often wonder if lack of web acces s is more of a problem than we realize. Teachers take for granted a middle-class lifestyle, because probably everyone we associate with lives one. But all of our kids certainly don't. How do we find the balance between what tehy need to know and what they can realistically do in their homes?
As I travel around the state of Maine, I see the issue of web access becomes serious North of Augusta. There are places where is just ain't happenin'.
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