Digital Learning Apartheid
by Charlie Guy, M.Ed.Silent Epidemic
According to a recent report for the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, there exists today ...
... a high school dropout epidemic in America. Each year, almost one third of all public high school students' and nearly one half of all blacks, Hispanics, and Native Americans fail to graduate from public high school with their class. Many of these students abandon school with less than two years to complete their high school education. Given the clear detrimental economic and personal costs to them, why do young people drop out of high school in such large numbers?1
Yet at the same time, many well-meaning educators, politicians, and citizens are today basking in self-congratulations for having successfully eliminated the at-school digital divide2 as a contributing factor to this Silent Epidemic. Meanwhile millions of our country's economically and socially disadvantaged learners are still suffering a Digital Learning Apartheid. For them, digital isolation at-home only expands the gaps in digital learning participation and academic achievement between them and the have learners.
Have-not Learners
Although the more accepted term in education for this class of learners is at-risk students, I have chosen to use the term have-not learners. First, it better clarifies the cause and amplifies the severity of their situation. Traditionally as applied in education, the term at-risk refers to the risk of learners dropping out of school due to their families’ low social economic status (SES). Second, substituting the term learners for students broadens the scope to also include former high school dropouts who wish to use re-education or workforce development programs to gain more meaningful employment.
The danger is that school personnel and others will focus primarily or solely on the personal variables and characteristics, viewing the at-risk student as deficient because he/she does not fit the system rather than viewing the situation from a broader, more systemic perspective (i.e., the system as deficient because it does not meet the educational needs of all of its students). Another pitfall is the use of the term at-risk without specifying in what respect the student is at risk. 3
While I do not wish to lay blame on the responsible parties for the blight of these learners, I do feel, however, the term have-not learners more clearly dramatizes the truth of what they face not only in their school settings, as so dramatically pointed out by Jonathan Kozol in his The Shame of the Nation, The Restoration of Apartheid Schooling in America, but also at-home.
The History
Historically, the early concerns and discussions of the digital divide assumed that the most important issue was to provide access for all learners via infrastructural improvements to our country's public schools. This concern led to the creation of the Federal E-Rate program that invested public funds into the initial wiring of our country's schools to provide Internet access. This approach assumed that increased learner academic achievement would occur merely as the result of providing all learners, regardless of their families' financial situations, with equal at-school access to digital learning resources. The approach assumed that the World Wide Web is simply an inert data bank, devoid of dynamic interchange.
What was neither anticipated nor addressed then, nor is being focused upon now, is the disparate at-home access to the Internet of our have-not learners from the country's poorest families. When they leave school at the end of the day, they suffer from a disproportionate degree of at-home Internet isolation and the lack of access to their schools’ online digital learning resources.
The Truth
According to a September 2006 report released by the U.S. Department of Education, there is an at-home digital learning participation gap between have and have-not learners:
I. Families Annual Incomes Gaps
| Type of Learner | Families Annual Incomes | At-home Computer Use | At-home Digital Learning Participation Gap |
| have-not learners | Under $20,000 | 37% | 51% |
| $20,000-$34,999 | 55% | 33% | |
| have learners | $75,000 or more | 88% | NA |
II. Racial/Ethnic Gaps
| Type of Learner | At-home Computer Use | At-home Digital Learning Participation Gap | |
| American Indian | 43% | 35% | |
| Blacks | 46% | 32% | |
| Hispanics | 48% | 30% | |
| Asian | 74% | NA | |
| Whites | 78% | NA |
III. Parent Educational Attainment Gaps
| Type of Learner | At-home Computer Use | At-home Digital Learning Participation Gap | |
| Less than High School Credential | 35% | 47%* | |
| High School Credential | 55% | 27% | |
| Some College | 72% | 10% | |
| Bachelor's Degree | 82% | NA | |
| Graduate Education | 88% | NA |
*As compared against a graduate education.
IV. Household Language Gaps
| Type of Learner | At-home Computer Use | At-home Digital Learning Participation Gap | |
| Spanish Only | 32% | 37% | |
| Not Spanish Only | 69% | NA |
V. Poverty Status
| Type of Learner | At-home Computer Use | At-home Digital Learning Participation Gap | |
| In Poverty | 39% | 37% | |
| Not In Poverty | 76% | NA |
Source: Page 15, Table 3 of the Computer and Internet Use by Students in 2003, Statistical Analysis Report, Released in 2006 by the National Center for Education Statistics, Institute of Education Sciences, U.S. Department of Education. 1990 K Street NW, Washington, DC. 20006 http://nces.ed.gov/pubsearch/pubsinfo.asp?pubid=2006065
As the data demonstrates, when learners from more financially stable families (the have learners) return to their homes, they can extend their digital learning experiences by continuing to utilize the various research, communication, and collaboration skills learned at-school by continuing to explore the Internet. For motivated learners, this convenient at-home Internet access provides an increased opportunity to improve their at-school academic achievement.
On the other hand, when many of the financially disadvantaged have-not learners return from school to home, they enter a world of total digital isolation. The At-Home Digital Learning Participation Gap numbers in the tables clearly demonstrates the lack of opportunity (the size of the gap) for these have-not learners to spend additional time participating in digital learning, communication, and collaborative activities.
There are now also compelling indicators of the potential pedagogical value of the learners’ use of their personal communication and collaborative skills learned in their at-home informal learning environments (the social media of blogs, eMail, Podcasting, wikis, IM, chat, social networking, etc). The have learners, for the most part, have developed these communication and collaborative learning skills in an Internet-enabled at-home environment using either their own or their families' computers and their personal cell phones. The have-not learners, on the other hand, have primarily only the communication capabilities provided by their own personal or their families’ cell phones.
The personal use of cell phones is, however, a similarity between these two classes of students. Cell phone penetration rates among high-income and low-income households are roughly equal. A 2005 report released by GfK Technology (formerly NOP World Technology) highlights cell phone penetration rates in the
73% of 18 year olds own cell phones, a 15% increase from 2002.
According to Henry Jenkins, PhD, co-director of the Comparative Media Studies Program at MIT Media Center, the problem shifts from concerns about technical [Internet] access to concerns about participation in the key social and cultural experiences that are defining the emerging [learners' ] relationship to these technologies. [The Internet's] power comes through participation within its social networks.4
George Siemens amplifies the importance of the learners' use of their social media in learning:
Instruction is currently largely housed in courses and other artificial constructs of information organization and presentation. Leaving this theory behind and moving towards a networked model requires that we place less emphasis on our tasks of presenting information, and more emphasis on building the learner's ability to navigate the information (i.e. connectivism).
Blogs, wikis, and other open, collaborative platforms are reshaping learning as a two-way process. Instead of presenting content/information/knowledge in a linear sequential manner, learners can be provided with a rich array of tools and information sources to use in creating their own learning pathways. The instructor or institution can still ensure that critical learning elements are achieved by focusing instead on the creation of the knowledge ecology. The links and connections are formed by the learners themselves.5
The Hope
If the country's Digital Educational Apartheid is to be eliminated in order for our country's have-not learners to have an opportunity for equal access to safe digital math learning resources and full participation in networked educational collaborative platforms, then as a country, we must develop and test innovative systemic solutions that address:
An educated and informed citizenry is essential in maintaining a free and democratic society. With the current barriers to equal opportunity, at-school and at-home, the future of our democracy is at risk.
Footnotes
1The Silent Epidemic: Perspectives of High School Dropouts, (PDF here) A report by Civic Enterprises in association with Peter D. Hart Research Associates for the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation By: John M. Bridgeland, John J. DiIulio, Jr., & Karen Burke Morison, March 2006.
2Digtal divide is the gap between individuals able to benefit from technology and those who are not.
3Source: http://www.sedl.org/rural/atrisk/concept.html
4Digital Divide Network Discussion: MySpace and Deleting Online Predators Act (DOPA), May 30th, 2006, Author: Henry Jenkins, PhD, co-director of the Comparative Media Studies Program at MIT Media Center
5Connectivism: Learning as Network-Creation, August 10, 2005, Author: George Siemens
6eContent:
7The following general definition developed by Charlie Guy is intended to introduce the general nature of Personal Learning Environments (PLEs):
A Personal Learning Environment is a safe and externally managed digital place for a learner to access, aggregate, configure, and manipulate digital learning resources for an ongoing and lifetime learning experience.
About the Author
Charlie Guy's unique vision of educational technology is based not only upon his traditional and e-commerce experiences in private-sector business, but also upon his professional educational training and teaching roles coupled with his volunteer work in economic development in Tampa's inner-city. Charlie served as the first chairman of the Corporation to Develop Communities of Tampa (CDC),
This compilation of experiences fuels his passion for educational change and affords him the patience to complete his vision. He founded and serves as the executive director for the BrightZone Institute, Inc., a Florida-based non-profit organization for educational technology research and development. BrightZone is developing a consortium of private-sector firms in the fields of education, technology, and telecommunications to work in conjunction with its selected university and other concerned non-profit organization partners, to eliminate our country's Digital Educational Apartheidsm. The mission of BrightZone is to enable our country's poorest English-speaking and Spanish-speaking middle and secondary school have-not learners to experience equal access to at-home safe digital math learning resources and to fully participate in networked educational collaborative platforms.
Copyright © BrightZone Institute, Inc. 2006. All rights reserved.