Latino Immigrants and the Digital Divide

Reframing How Educators Approach
Latino Immigrants and Technology Use

A recent discussion from the Joan Ganz Cooney Center focused on the challenges of technology integration and use in Latino immigrant families.   It is not surprising that lower income families have less access to technology and home broadband.  When families have to choose between a cell phone and a broadband bill, it seems logical that the cell phone would almost always win out.  With that said, though, it is notable that Latino immigrant families are especially vulnerable when it comes to having access.  This lack of access has serious implications as schools across the country move to digital curriculum and learning management systems that require home access for a student's success.

Additionally, many Latino immigrant parents lack experience with technology and don't necessarily have a "culture of technology" in the household.  Immigrant Latino parents have less technology experience than other groups.  Only 40% feel confident in using the internet and 45% have been online for five years or less.  Amidst these statistics, though, there is emerging a positive trend:  Latino parents are making technology purchases for their children's education at an increasing rate.

Latino immigrant families are prioritizing the purchase of technology as it relates to their children.  Great income disparities hinder the drive for digital equity for students, and some subgroups like Latino immigrants tend to have less experience with technology.  With that said, the trend to try to purchase technology to aid in their children's education is definitely of note.  It has implications for programs and districts who are increasing technology purchases and implementation.  Harnessing the desire of Latino immigrant parents to integrate technology is a key to ensuring student growth and success.  When schools and parents work together to address nuanced issues relating to the digital divide, the chance for student success increases greatly.

Complexity of Problems and Solutions

Nuanced Issues and Approaches

Millions of students cannot do their homework as they don't have access to home broadband internet.  A few years back, it seemed that devices were a primary issue.  Devices are still an issue in many districts, but the a shift to 1 to 1 devices in school district is gaining momentum.   Some students might have a computer issued to them but still lack home access.  Some students (especially in rural areas) don't have any possibility of access.  Here is an interesting two interesting statistics that speak to the problem of the homework gap:

• As many as 7 in 10 teachers assign homework that requires access to broadband, but one in three households do not subscribe to broadband service
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• More than half of principals nationwide now cite digital equity as a major challenge in their schools.

The video below is a panel discussion that features Jessica Rosenworcel, a member of the FCC.  The discussion helps outline both the complexity of the problem and the complexity of the solution.  In reality, there are several problems operating all at once which require different solutions.  

Continuing Challenges and Nuances

Devices, Access, and Training

School districts across the United States are integrating more devices into classrooms, although this integration certainly varies from district to district.  The visibility of devices and the expansion of school network capacity is an ongoing process.  Many people, though, are hopeful for the progress that is being made.

The more difficult problem, though, is figuring out how to provide access for students at home.  Currently, 67% of U.S. households have broadband access at home.  More families, might have access via phones, but this isn't the same type of access that is needed to complete collaborative and complex classroom assignments.    Unfortunately, the vast majority of districts do not have any plans to address home access.

In the long run, "while device access does make a difference at the K-12 and university levels, it should not be the main focus. What will ultimately make the real difference is both access to technology and the associated coaching and support from teachers, professors and administrators."   

As educators and districts throughout the country work to solve device and access inequities, these changes will not facilitate significant educational gains unless educators become skilled in coaching students in technology use.  This includes digital literacy, of course, but it also includes the transformative use of technology that goes beyond simple substitution tasks.   This process might take years to fully complete, but the current struggle and thinking around this issue is a step in the right direction.

Digital Access Shift in Progress

Digital Access Shift in Progress

Access trends can be hard to analyze as technology and tech use constantly evolves.  With that said, it is worth noting the shift from broadband access to mobile only access.   The complete reasons are probably fairly nuanced, but an important reason for the shift is economic.  If people can use their phones for most of their daily needs, then paying several hundreds more a year for a home connection might not make sense.  Here is the latest trend as reported by the Pew Foundation:

Of course, this shift in adoption is not distributed equally throughout the population:

This change has many implications for educations.  Although most teachers will find that a large number of their students have broadband, assigning digital work that requires home broadband will greatly impact those without access.  This doesn't mean that teachers should not be assigning digital work.  When done thoughtfully, digital learning can personalize, differentiate, and challenge students all at the same time.  This means work that is creative, collaborative, and exploratory and not a series of electronic worksheets.

They key, then, is to actually find out about the make-up of students in a school and/or district.  Educators across the United States are working to combat the digital divide, but the first step is to find out what type of connections student have and how the type of connectivity relates to the teaching and assignments.

Rich Teenager, Poor Teenager: Uses and Opportunities

Rich Teenager, Poor Teenager:  Uses and Opportunities

When addressing the digital divide in U.S. education, it becomes clear rather quickly that there are many divides.  These include economic, rural/urban, ethnicity, geography, and even skill levels and opportunities.  What is exactly meant by this? 

 

As more students gain access via cellphones, the number of broadband internet subscribers at home is actually declining.  Families that have to choose between cell phone access and broadband access overwhelmingly choose cell phones as they provide an important family communication tool.  

Generally, poor students are much less likely to have home internet access in comparison to peers.  This is really not surprise, but it does have implications for what types of digital skills students are actually learning.  Students who don't come from a home where there is a culture of internet use are more likely to see the internet as a mode for gaming or social media and not as much for research, news, and/or creative production.   The graphic below shows an international computer use survey as it relates to students and their economic status.  

The implications, of course, are important for educators.  The broader culture often makes sweeping generalizations about the proficiency of young people vs. older people with respect to computers.   Proficiencies in digital literacy and critical thinking can vary widely among students in the same classroom.  In the end, educators play a key role in conducting formative assessments with each class as a "digital divide" of skills has emerged based mostly on economic lines.

More discussion on student family wealth and how it relates to computer skills and assumptions can be found at https://goo.gl/Rz9IST

Under Connectedness -- different conceptions affect how students work at home

Under Connectedness and Student Perceptions

As school districts and teachers transition to e-classrooms, many teachers are aware that not all students have the same access at home.  Of course, not having broadband access at home can make life extremely difficult for students -- especially when teachers use LMS platforms like Google Classroom, Canvas, or Schoology (to name a few) to push out homework.

It isn't easy, however, to gauge the connectivity of students as it can be seen as a sensitive socio-economic issue.  If you are in a classroom of 30 and it seems like most others are connected at home, it can be hard for students to come forward to say that they have access issues.  

What can make this more complicated, though, is the fact that there are different types of access as each student has a unique situation.  Last year, for example, I taught 3 students who were having academic troubles and submitting/accessing their work.  When I asked if they had internet access, they all said yes.  As the year continued, I noticed that their academic performance was not necessarily improving.  They generally did fine in class, but any work outside of class was not up to par.

Finally, in one on one discussions I discovered that their definition of being connected at home was having access to a parent's cell phone browser.   Earlier when I had asked if they had home access to the Internet, they honestly said yes.  However, this type of access wasn't really robust enough to engage in some of the online readings/discussions/projects that were a part of the class.

Another student split time between parents and noted that her mother had broadband access while her father did not.  She did her best to get her work done at school and at her mom's house, but when she spent a week with her dad she felt more stressed and behind.

The bottom line is that each school is comprised of different levels of home connectivity, but each classroom has its own dynamics as well.  As educators transition into the digital classroom and all that it has to offer, it is important to explore home connectedness issues up front at the start of the year.  This informs best practice and helps teachers and students adapt to create situations that are best for both teachers and learners.

Flipped Classrooms and the Digital Divide

Flipped Classrooms and the Digital Divide:
Challenges and Remedies

As more technology is infused into schools, more teachers are experimenting with "flipped classrooms" where students do individual work at school (with help from the teacher) and view lectures/assignments at home.  The idea is that students can listen and study at their own pace at home and then get focused help from the teacher at school.  Here are some recent statistics concerning teachers and flipped classrooms:

- In 2012, 48% of teachers flipped at least one lesson, in 2014 it is up to 78%.

- 96% of teachers who have flipped a lesson would recommend that method to others.

- 46% of teachers researched have been teaching for more than 16 years, but are moving towards flipped classrooms.

- 9 out of 10 teachers noticed a positive change in student engagement since flipping their classroom (up 80% from 2012).

- 71% of teachers indicated that grades of their students have improved since implementing a flipped classroom strategy.

- Of the teachers who do not flip their classroom lessons, 89% said that they would be interested in learning more about the pedagogy.

These statistics are certainly compelling and make a strong case for at least partial use of a flipped classroom when appropriate.  However, flipped classrooms assume that students have broadband internet access at home.   Some teachers might respond that their students do have access, but it is important to find out what kind of access this is.  For example, many of my students in the past have stated that they have access at home, but it amounted to using a parent's smartphone to access the internet.   This is simply not a feasible way to access lectures/activities at home that fit into a flipped classroom.     Other educators might mention that their students can go to a public hotspot area to gain access, but once again this isn't always realistic (or fair for that matter).  The point here is that educators need to be deliberate in finding out the exact types of access that students have when they are contemplating flipped classrooms.

If a teacher has several students that don't have broadband access at home, that doesn't mean that a flipped classroom dynamic should be off limits.   Some teachers have experimented with a "modified flipped classroom" where a teacher implements an "in class" version of the flipped classroom in order to meet the needs of individual learners.  Students can still access materials online in class and then ask the teacher specific questions tailored to where they are in the learning process.

Of course, there are work arounds to providing access to those who don't have home access.  These might include keeping the library open before and after school, lending out devices with connectivity, and lending out devices with the lectures/materials installed on them.  These are not perfect solutions and still might be inequitable in some cases, but they are a good start.

The flipped classroom does have great potential for those teachers who embrace the concept and work to perfect it.  Before doing so, though, an honest and thorough evaluation of student home connectivity is essential.