Research on Student Use and Access to Tech

Infographic Love 💛💚❤️ 

I love infographics. To me there's no better way combine words, colors, and pictures to get your point across. It's a careful blend text and image to balance this delivery so it is both informative, appealing, and easy to read.  It's not easy to do. So the Project Tomorrow findings really grabbed my attention because they were both interesting and effective.  

The Homework Gap

This section on the homework gap caught my attention. I am not a huge fan of assigning homework. Gasp! I  know, but as my children go through school I see homework from the parent-side and the teacher side. As a parent, doing homework at night can be tough, especially with students who struggle with content/skills or attention. I have two children; one who struggles with content and one who struggles with attention, and our evenings can be awful depending on the homework load. Instead of enjoying our family time and enjoying their childhood, my children are arguing and crying about homework. As a teacher, I am usually assigning for homework things that didn't get finished in class. There's no real "additional practice" for ELA. There's only, we started this in class, now finish it at home. I've changed my stance and primarily now only assign independent reading for homework. Homework adds stress to the home life, especially for the students who are part of the statistics below. Thirteen percent of students report that they cannot do their homework at all and some other unknown percentage is resourceful enough to seek out alternative places to complete assignments, but this again is taking even more time from their other responsibilities. 

Project Tomorrow: The Homework Gap
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A second point, I'd like to propose is that the same students who are struggling to find access to the internet outside of school are also already, likely struggling with traditional homework. For many students, there are barriers to completing traditional homework--access to materials, a quiet place to work, time, and a supportive adult. These are not always a given, yet if we send them home with a book or a worksheet, we have expectations. And while I understand there's a fundamental difference between not being physically able to connect to the internet and do the assignment, and not having an environment that is conducive for homework, I still think that the problems aren't all that different. Perhaps the literal CAN'T of technology is a good reminder for teachers and administrators that we need to think carefully in general about what we are expecting of students when they are outside our controlled environment. What is the purpose of our homework assignment? Is it necessary? helpful? crucial? Can it be completed without any assistance? Does it matter if students got help? Worked together? Copied or cheated? If as a teacher I can honestly answer those questions and still find value in the homework then it's a good assignment, if not perhaps it's not worth the stress.

Teaching Teachers Tech

As a first year instructional coach, I am learning a lot on the job. It turns out, teachers are not much different from students. Their backgrounds, skills, and comfort levels are all different. Their interests and preferred learning styles are varied, and they too are often too busy with "real life" to tackle homework and additional learning. Now, I already knew most of these things because I was in the same boat myself just last year. But at that time I only had my own interests to grapple with. This year my responsibilities have shifted. I am creating lessons that get both the kids interested in the lesson by engaging them in technology AND get the teacher interested in learning how to incorporate the tech. Two different target groups. While I'm not an administrator, I feel like this statistic below still represents some of the challenges I face in my new position pretty well. 

Project Tomorrow: Professional Learning
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The infographic below on professional development training probably pretty closely matches the teachers in my district. As it shows, time is always the most precious resource. Time to meet and plan; time to reflect and discuss; time to learn and apply. Teachers are lucky if we get time for one of these areas. Four out of the five areas below require series time. Only one area simply asks for additional information. It's great that my district has invested in my role as an in-school coach. I'm really enjoying it and truly think that I can offer a great service to my colleagues, but we still have to find time to meet and discuss what I can offer them and how to best implement it. I'm hoping they'll find enough value in what I bring to carve out the time, but everyone knows how tough that is.  

Teachers' PD Needs
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Personal Reflections As a Parent

I found this week's assignment both fascinating and frustrating. I loved reading all the research, but then found myself searching for additional sources to try to back up or argue against findings. In the community where I live, there has been a lot of discussion recently about limiting children's access to technology. It's primarily aimed at home use of technology and social media rather than school, but there's definitely crossover. 

For instance, this past week our PTC sent a link asking parents to participate in the Wait Til 8th campaign by pledging to wait until 8th grade to buy their children a smart phone. The campaign and our PTC cite interviews with tech company executives discussing how they limit their own children's access to screens.  We've also had community screenings of several documentaries discussing the role that social media plays in promoting anxiety and negative self-image in children. I find it interesting that there's at least some push back to the idea that access to technology is more good than bad. These parents aren't calling for an end to computer use in the classroom and would all probably concede that computer training and comfort is in fact a very important aspect of their child's education, but they are concerned about the negative repercussions of too much screen time. In fact several have petitioned our local high school to ban cell phones and personal devices in the classroom. 

Outside of CommonSense media, there didn't seem to be a lot of research into any problems associated with using technology, especially personal technology, in school. Perhaps, this is because the social media aspect, in theory, isn't/shouldn't be a part of school, but the reality is that if students are using their own devices as these stats say they are, then students are likely on social media more then we realize.

Even teens recognize what they are doing online isn't great.

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While my own kids are asking for a smart phone, we are still at least a year away from having to make that decision. There's so many benefits to using and incorporating tech into our lives, but I'll have to think carefully.