So, I got an e-mail from ISTE.  Don Knezek himself.  He asked if I’d call him directly (on his cell phone!) to discuss my concerns about a fee being attached to attendance at the Digital Equity Summit.  So, I did.

He told me that a lot of consideration went into the decision to attach a fee.  Last year, apparently, there was no fee and about 1/3 of the 200 or so registrants failed to show up.  Corporate sponsors who had footed the bill were annoyed/frustrated; at least one backed out entirely this year as a result.  [Incidentally,  Don noted that this problem did not arise in 2006; there was no fee then, but just about everyone who registered attended.]  Don also said that they want the summit to be a first-class event and don’t want to cut back in any way.  Hence, they decided to impose a fee that they thought wasn’t too overwhelming.

My thoughts?  Well, first of all, it was tremendously gracious and classy of Don to reach out to me.  My e-mail did not go to him directly, yet he felt it important enough to contact me personally.  Secondly, it’s possible I have registered for an important, day-long event in the past only to not show up.  But, I can’t remember one.  So, I guess I didn’t imagine this as a possible reason for imposing a fee.  Third, despite all that, I’m still squarely on the side of no fee (and Don told me that I’m not alone in that camp).  If it comes down to me or, more importantly, schools paying $50 or corporate entities being annoyed at empty seats, I’d tell the corporate entities to chill out (I’d be more diplomatic than that).  And, if not paying $50 means I’ll get no coffee and a lesser lunch, that’d be OK by me.  I wouldn’t be going to a digital equity summit to enjoy the experience; I’d be going because there’s really important work to be done.

In the end, I’m really glad I sent the e-mail and I’m grateful that Don Knezek contacted me directly.  Now, though, do I pay the $50 and whatever it’ll cost to change my flight to attend the Summit?  Hmmmm…

Tags: digital equity, NECC

Here’s the e-mail I sent to ISTE today. I haven’t heard back yet (save for the automated out-of-office reply). What do you think?

Greetings XXXXX,
First of all, thanks for all that you do with ISTE and especially the Digital Equity Summit. I have great interest, empirically and personally, in issues of digital equity in education. I’ve written about the issue, including here: http://epaa.asu.edu/epaa/v15n3/

I will be attending NECC this year, for the first time. I only learned of the Digital Equity Summit today as I was searching the program. I’d be quite interested in attending (I’d have to change my return flight, of course, but that’s not your problem). However, I’m wondering why there’s an extra $50 charge for this event. The costs of attending NECC are fairly prohibitive to begin with, and it strikes me as ironic, then, that there would be an extra charge to attend an important event about how we can better serve those in most need (especially, financially). Furthermore, if the corporate sponsors that are profiting from the education enterprise truly wanted to show concern and true sponsorship, they would cover the cost for participants.

I certainly do not want to come off as angry or combative; I’m partly asking for some explanations or clarification on what appears, to me at least, to be an unfortunate and disconcerting situation.

Thanks in advance for any explanations or clarification you can offer. Perhaps I’ll see you at NECC?

Best,
JB

Tags: digital equity, NECC

A convergence of two events yesterday brought me to this post today. First, I read Paul Blogush’s post about an apparent lack of racial diversity within the conversations/networks related to School/Classroom 2.0. Second, of course, was Barack Obama’s historic evening.

I’ve written quite a bit about digital equity in education, including a blog post a while back (on MLK Day 2008). Today, I look at some recent statistics on computer uses in schools disaggregated by race. [NOTE: these data are generated with the NAEP Data Explorer. Thus, these are nationally representative data].

Looking first at computer use for math, by race, in 2007, at 4th grade:

and then at 8th grade:

What do we see? Well, two things: First, computer use for math is more frequent in 4th grade than 8th grade (BTW, that’s a consistent finding across lots of ed. tech. research; what’s up with the secondary school teachers?). Second, at both grade levels, white students are more likely than African-American students to “never or hardly ever” use computers for math (and, yes, statheads, those differences are “statistically significant”). So, I can’t say that African-American students use computers for math more than white students, but I can say they are less likely to “never or hardly ever” use computers for math in school.

It is fair, then, to ask what the students are doing on the computers for math. Is it just “drill and kill” kinds of stuff? Well, take a look at the following figure which shows the data on student use of computers to play math games (4th grade):

African-American students are more likely than any other group of students to be using computers for math games. That finding, IMHO, is good and important. Why important? Because if we want kids to be using computers to facilitate/advance learning, for African-American children, that needs to happen in the schools because there continues to be a significant digital divide in the homes. Consider the following:

Approximately 97% of white 8th grade students reported having access to a computer at home, compared to 84% of African-American students (and 83% of Latina/o students). Also, as per the table in the earlier blog post, African-Americans and people in rural areas are significantly less likely to have broadband Internet access.

So, the story (as I wrote in my earlier post) is that “the institution of public schooling is doing its part to level the digital playing field. The problem is that the significant inequities that exist within homes present a huge barrier to using technology to extend the learning day and to bridge a home-school connection.”

Thus, if we’re going to have serious conversations about School/Classroom 2.0, we need to be cognizant of issues of digital equity. Furthermore, we need a national policy agenda (Senators Obama and McCain, are you reading/listening?) that emphasizes eliminating the digital divide. Personally, I am going to be paying close attention at NECC to see if others are, in fact, mindful of these issues.

Tags: computer use, digital equity

The study I report on today was one for which I had high hopes.  The topic, digital equity, is near and dear to me as it was the focus of my dissertation and one of my first major academic publications.  However, after reading the article, Digital Equity: New Findings from the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study, by Sharon Judge, Kathleen Puckett and Burcu Cabuk, I had many critiques.  Mostly, I felt like the authors had certain expectations and wanted to write about a digital divide; however, the data did not ultimately support their hypotheses.  Yet, they highlighted very small conclusions and “buried the lead.”  So, with all due respect to the authors, I’m going to use this article to point out some of my critiques and to surface the lead story, which is that, when properly “measured,”  and despite what most people think, students in high poverty schools have equal or greater access to computers in schools than their wealthier counterparts; schools are leveling the playing field that is unbalanced only beyond the bricks-and-mortar school buildings.

My first critique of the article is that the authors make statements of the following sort:

The problem here is that the last sentence invalidates the first two.  That is, if there are no statistically significant differences, it is simply wrong to suggest that one group is higher or lower than the other.  This is a basic rule of inferential statistics.  Where one group appears higher or lower, without statistical significance, those perceived differences may very well be due to chance, especially where the sample size is as large as the one used in this study.

My second major critique is that the authors highlight their conclusion that “…children attending higher poverty schools had significantly fewer computers and software programs available.” They even include this in their abstract. While that conclusion may be accurate based on some dichotomous dependent variable (e.g. are there any computers in your school?), it is not true when considering other better measures. For instance, how could the authors bury these findings?:

• Students in high poverty schools were significantly more likely (23% vs. 18%) to attend a school with a student:computer ratio of 4:1 or better.
• First-grade children attending higher poverty schools had more adequate computer labs than children attending lower poverty schools (t = 1.97, p < .05)…In addition, higher poverty schools employed significantly more full-time computer specialists compared to lower poverty schools (t = 5.76, p < .001).

Those seem like pretty important conclusions, no?

Or, consider this statement, which resonates most with me and, concerns me most:  “In first grade, higher poverty schools used computers for instructional purpose significantly more for read/write/spell, whereas lower poverty schools used computers significantly more for fun.” In first grade? Really?

You see, these authors highlighted one very minimal finding and failed to emphasize that what they found was that schools have done a good job of leveling the digital playing field that is only (and substantially) unbalanced beyond the bricks-and-mortar school buildings. In fact, in many cases, lower income students have greater access to computers in schools than their wealthier counterparts. The research and policy questions that must be asked now relate more to the last finding I highlighted. That is, the REAL digital divide in education may be the one that exists with respect to use; not amounts of use, but types of use. Do low-income students and/or students of color have equal opportunities to learn with more current, more relevant digital applications? That’s the research and policy question I want explored.

Tags: digital equity, education, equity, research, technology