Yesterday, I went to Riverside High School in Milwaukee. While there, I found out about how few rooms there actually had smartboards. This is very problematic because while technology is important, people don't actually have those. By withholding these technologies that give an important step, we are hindering the power that teachers have to enhance their students lives. But on the flip side, certain schools do have only 30% attendance rate. Are these children really deserving of a high quality education when they don't show up? I'm honestly quite torn because it IS difficult to choose between the few highly dedicated in low income students when you can offer the same things to schools that are more interested? Should we change school from region based to skill based in order to allow those who work harder to get a higher education, or would this only cause those who are struggling with a chance to improve to fall lower and lower in the ranks?
There's a lot of questions we have to ask ourselves as educators and it's very difficult. There are no easy answers for encouraging those to succeed This is why politicians probably come in and try to gain ground and administrate different plans. Politicians make their power based on promises, and education is one of the few areas were we can't seem to instantly improve. So instead we get charlatans who go in and change things without understanding the current system (If you're wondering I have a love/hate relationship with Scott Walker) While sometimes things can improve, politicians tend to be far too away from the grown floor to make reasonable decisions about education.
Allow me to string this mess of a post together... Using tech in the classroom is a very new and experimental thing. Why don't we experiment in lower quality schools in order to see their effects? I can understand that having a consistent control group is important, and low attendance schools can't offer it, but is is possible that technology can be used to better relate, and therefore make lower attendance schools increase attendance? I've been trying to find reports of it, but none talk about much other than the fact of inequality and it's existence. Pedagogy is a science, and we need to approach it as such. You can't just use one type of education to further the course of technology (much like how Med Schools only used to use male bodies).
The highest technological advances come along for two reasons: necessity (polio vaccination) and competition (Coca-Cola). While I realize that it's a bit silly to compare a disease to a soda, it's important to note that we have such a vast selection of high-quality tasting soft drinks because they are trying to compete with Coca-Cola, each finding their own niche market of success. By offering these same technology to different levels, we may find different uses for the technology not shown before. While I think it is expensive, I thinkthe only the way to improve education quality in lower quality schools is not by administering from afar, rather literally getting in there and trying to find ways to improve.
Unfortunately, I think you answered your own question as to why technology isn't a bigger part of the curriculum in lower income schools: the cost is too high. As we have seen in our own state, voters are not willing to pay higher taxes in order increase funding to schools, so they have to rely on property taxes from their area.
ReplyDeleteI think you both touch on some very hot button issues in this post and the comment. Yes, technology is expensive, but there are many schools (including low income schools) that have the expensive hardware and still do not use it. I have been in many schools where I see carts of tablets sitting unused or being used only for "free time"
ReplyDeleteSo it is becoming less and less and issue of access to hardware known as the "digital divide" and more and more an issue of access to opportunities for real engagement with digital technologies, a topic Jenkins describes well as the "participation gap"