Digital Divide

The Impact of Digital Divide on Mathematics Education

ETEC 533 Professor Susan Gerofsky June 17th , 2007 Stacy Lee

I am currently teaching two classes of Principles of Mathematics 11 and the nature of this subject requires heavy dependency on either a TI-83 or a TI-84 graphing calculator. Interestingly, two classes I have are different in whether they have graphing calculators or not. In my first math 11 class, block B, approximately half the class (18 out of 30) do not own their graphing calculator whereas in my second class, block D, everyone except for two students has their own calculators. Luckily, our school is capable of providing a class set of TI- 83 for students who cannot purchase their own and my first block has been taking a full advantage of school’s calculators. Graphing calculators are not inexpensive objects for certain parents to afford, so it is somewhat understanding why certain students cannot buy their own. What is remarkable, however, is the observation I have made throughout the semester in both classes. The first block students were generally okay at first with the use of school’s calculator but as time went, the level of frustration among students became more apparent mostly due to their inability to complete their homework at home, as many of the questions require the use of a graphing calculator. An alternative solution that I suggested to those students who did not have a graphing calculator was to use the on-line graphing calculator at home, but quite a few students did not have computer access at home and also instructions on the on-line calculator were not clear for the students. As the semester progressed, I noticed a definite difference in the two classes’ performance levels. Both classes started out similarly considering their math 10 pre-requisites (students do not enter Prinicples of Math 11 without a C+ or higher in Principles 10), and both had similar averages on the first unit test. However, as we moved deeper into the curriculum, and using the graphing calculator more and more, my second block’s average started declining and at the end of the semester, the difference between the two class averages is approximately 10%. It is not just the performance or average difference, however, that concerns me. Another point that I

noticed was students with no graphing calculator seemed to have lost their motivation to proceed further in mathematics, not registering for math 12 or calculus in the following year. When I asked a few students about such choices, the most common reason was the frustration issue that they had experienced without a TI-83 at home in math 11 and this seemed to result in anxiety about possible incompetence with further technology-driven course curriculum in math 12 and calculus. It was apparent that those students saw the lack of access to technology as a potential barrier in their math education, hence they did not even want to try further. Access to technology was an issue that I only recently recognized after interviewing a colleague. He mentioned it, and as soon as I was aware of the issue I started to see it in my own classes. I decided to do more research on access to technology for students, and in this paper I would like to analyze the state of digital divide that our education system is faced with and see if there are solutions available for future generation. In 2000 Henry Joy Becker, Professor of Education at the University of California, Irvine,completed a study “to examine how demographic factors relate to opportunities to use computers, and how computer use is affected by conditions in schools and at home” (p. 45). Becker’s background research shows that while schools are becoming better equipped with computers, this is not translating into improved access for students, as the computers are not being integrated into the regular classroom (2000). Furthering this problem is that “the most frequent and creative uses of computers are found in computer classes and other specialized classes, rather than in core academic classes such as english, science, math, and social studies” (Becker, 2000, p. 47). He also states that “schools with the most students from low-income families are about two years behind schools with students primarily from average-income families, and another one to two years behind schools with students mostly from high-income families” (2000, p. 47). Becker used two comprehensive surveys as his source of data: (a)

Teaching, Learning, and Computing: 1998-A National Survey of Schools and Teachers, and (b) the U.S. Census Bureau’s Current Population Survey of U.S. Households 1997 and 1998. Clearly, “Children must have access to an adequate quantity and quality of computers in their classrooms and homes, and knowledgeable adults or older peers must be available to help children learn to use the variety of software applications” (Becker, 2000, p. 66). Even access at home, which may be spent surfing the internet, chatting, or gaming is valuable as students learn to negotiate operating systems and other skills that those without home computers will miss out on. Unfortunately, there are several hurdles left to jump here. While academic courses may have access to a few computers, they are not enough to provide the experiences that students require, and if they do have enough computers the teacher is often not comfortable teaching with them (Becker, 2000). There is still a huge difference in the number of home computers for low-income families versus high-income families, and compounding this is the fact that low-income families typically live in low-income neighborhoods. Hence, the possibility that a neighbor may have a computer that a child could use is limited. A possible solution to this would be for employers tooffer computer purchasing programs, where employees could purchase a computer with a small monthly fee. Another issue is that high-socioeconomic status (SES) schools will often have more up to date technology compared to that of low-SES schools. Even if a school is well equipped, computers are often in areas that are not accessible to students, such as a teacher or principal’s offices or in large labs that a teacher would have to book well ahead to have access to. Unfortunately, even when students are getting access to computers at school, they are often used solely for word processing tasks. A possible answer to this problem could be for academic classes to complete research reports with the internet or for core classes to use software applications (like geometer’s sketchpad) for their designed educational purposes. The downside

is though, this would require teachers to learn how to teach using these types of applications, and the teachers would have to value the potential to educate students that these applications posses (Becker, 2000). This is an interesting paper, because I would expect research from the year 2000, based on data from 1997 and 1998, to be somewhat out of date, with an ever changing issue like the “digital divide,” but from my experience it is not. These same issues that Becker introduces resonate in my own school. I teach an academic course and rarely get the opportunity to take my class to a lab (maybe once or twice a year) to play with a math program like geometer’s sketchpad. There are not enough computers in the school for a math class to get access to one. So while access at schools may still be limited, I know that most of my students have home access, as I communicate regularly with parents and students through email. Vehovar, Sicherl, Husing and Dolnicar (2006) defined the digital divide as “differences between individuals, households, companies, or regions related to the access to and usage of ICT [information and communication technology] and Valadez and Duran (2007) pointed out that the “digital divide is not so much that certain groups have less access to the internet; it is that they have a different kind of access” (Valadez and Duran, 2007, p. 32). Valadez and Duran’s article conducted a study where the goal was to “provide a more accurate framework for analyzing the technology gap between high and low resource schools” (p. 38). Their initial assumption was that teachers tend to incorporate more technology oriented assignments if they have ready access to the resources. They conducted the study by asking six southern California schools – five low resource schools and one that was characterized as a high resource school. Their main questions were: (1) how does access to C & I [computers and internet] differ in high and low resource schools? (2) how does access influence the work that teachers do, including how they teach and what they

teach (3)What type of support, funding, and administrative support exist in high and lowresource schools (4) What are the social consequences, including development of social networks, that develop from the use of C & I (Valdez and Duran, 2007)? Evidence from their study supported the divide between different resource levels of the schools. Valdez and Duran found that the “teachers were more likely to engage in C & I practices that encouraged creative and critical thinking in their students” and hence they are “more likely to involve students in higher order learning processes such as problem solving and data analysis” (2007, p. 38). This result seems rather trivial to me. Of course teachers who have access to the technology are more likely to use the technology with the students than teachers without the technology. Those without have no access so they cannot use the technology with the students. The real question is why is it that they are only “more likely”to use the technology rather than definitely use the technology, when they have no access issues? It is as Becker pointed out, that even if the technology is available, teachers need to be taught how to use it effectively in their classrooms, and these same teachers have to believe the technology will be able to educate students better than traditional methods. Another paper I considered was where Owen and Waxman (1995) questioned if there is a divide in access and use of technology in different regions of the society. They surveyed 3825 8th-grade mathematics teachers from urban, suburban and rural schools by asking questions regarding students’ access to technology and its use in math education. The summary of their result shows that “there are important differences by type of school community on the access and use of technology”(Owen and Waxman, 1995, p.89). They found that urban and rural community students used computers in school approximately the same amount (Owen and Waxman, 1995). What is also intriguing about this study is the difference in the school settings on how computers were used. The study reports that “rural and suburban teachers were more likely to report that

their students used computers for enrichment, while urban teachers were more likely to report their computers being used for mainly remediation” (1995, p. 89). Overall, the study showed that computers and calculators were used very sparingly in 8th grade math classes across the board, regardless of access. Similar to Becker’s article, this researchagain shows that even if access is not an issue, technology is not being used in the academic (in this case math) classroom. And even when it is, the value of the experience is limited to enrichment or remedial studies. I wonder if the enrichment activities are done by all students, or are simply computers set up in the classroom that students can use if they finish all their homework. As for the remedial work, I am sure that it is similar to the “Pathfinder”program at my school, where students simply print off assignments and tests from the computer, and then hand them in to the teacher when finished. Or the online program where computers are used to download assignments and notes, and to submit these assignments. In these two situations no valuable learning is done with the computer; it is just a means of transmitting the data needed. Furthermore, in this study several students had calculators but were not permitted to use them in class. So while this article was published in 1995 and technology access in education has improved significantly for the past ten to fifteen years, I wonder if the uses in core classes have changed much at all. In my experience they have not and much of the blame falls at the feet of educators who are not willing to encorporate technology into their classes. Thurs far, the focus has been on socio-economic factors behind the digital divide, but are there any other factors that cause the digital divide? Enoch and Soker (2007) studied the effects of social-cultural factors such as age and gender on university students’ web-oriented learning environment. Enoch and Soker examined this issue at the Open University of Israel where it is “a society undergoing rapid social, economic as well as technological changes” (Enoch and Soker,

2007, p. 101). The data was collected through questionnaires that had to do with WBI (WebBased Instructions). They found that WBI appears to favor the younger generation while the mature students who “were intended to be an important target group for WBI are more reluctant to use the new media” (p. 107). In terms of gender gap, the result they found contradicted their initial expectation; they found that even though the use of WBI technologies for both genders has been continuously increasing, still males’ use of technology is greater than that of females (2007). The technology gender gap is a whole separate issue that many other journals can discuss more in depth but as a brief summary, I have noticed the technology divide in my classroom as well. In terms of using graphing calculators, I found males have better visualization and control over TI-83 and they often can figure out the protocols independently from the teacher, whereas the girls constantly need help to properly use the graphing calculator and they show greater frustration whenever things are not working out.Perhaps this is because of males being more used to using technology outside of the classroom. Further to this, our school runs a virtual school program (on-line education) and the success rate between males and females is not even close. The males far out perform females in this type of course. There appears to be a separate digital divide between females and males, separate from socio-economic status. So is there a solution to the digital divide? Does it even matter that there is little technology access in core classes? There is no doubt that implementation of technology is becoming more and more popular in our society, but there is no issue here if technology is not beneficial to education. Kozma, McGhee, Quellmalz, and Zalles conducted a study of a pilot program called “The World Links” where the hope was to reduce the digital divide between developing countries and other nations with rich digital facilities. The key components of the World Links program were: (1) internet connectivity (2) proper teacher training (3) partnerships

with public and private organizations (4) telecommunication (5) monitoring and evaluation support (Kozma et al. 2004). From the study, they found that “when technological infrastructure is developed in conjunction with appropriate teacher training, significant educational change can be achieved in developing countries” (p. 378). They indicated potential barriers in implementing the “World Links” program but such problems were most often non-technological problems; for example, the lack of time for computer activities since they still had to cover required curriculum and prepare students for the examination (Kozma et al, 2004). This article shows that technology access is beneficialto education when using software designed to educate students. Unfortunately, a common barrier is in place with all the other studies, in that teacher training is required. This requires more than just giving teachers opportunities to learn to use the technology in constructive ways, an attitude change must occur for many teachers, so that they learn to accept technology as a means of educating. The problem is no longer just the access issue alone, but one of societal change to see the potential benefits of this new tool. So that now a digital divide does not mean physical access to technology, the technology is there in many cases, it is more a willingness (or a mental access) to the technology. The social impact of digital divide is going to be significant in the long run if the gap between “have”’s and “not-have”’s do not get bridged. I still do not have a satisfying solution to the initial concern I raised in the introduction. Many researches show that students in this generation certainly learn more effectively and efficiently when technology is involved and if that is the case, education system should do its best so that the school environment is ready to reduce the digital divide in terms of physical access to technology, adequate teacher training, and preparation of resources available to promote further technology in the learning environment.

References Becker, H. J. (2000). Who’s Wired and Who’s Not: Children’s Access to and Use of Computer Technology. The Future Children, 10 (2), 44 – 75 Dragulanesgu, N.-G. (2002). Social Impact of the “Digital Divide” in a Central-Eastern European Country. Intl. Inform. & Libr. Rev., 34, 139 - 151 Enoch, Y., & Soker, Z. (2006). Age, gender, ethnicity and the digital divide: university students’ use of web-based instruction. Open Learning, 21 (2), 99 – 110. Kozma, R., McGhee, R., Quellmalz, E., & Zalles, D. (2004). Closing the digital divide: evaluation of the World Links program. International Journal of Educational Development, 24, 361 – 381. Norris, C., Sullivan, T., Poirot, J., & Soloway, E. (2003). No Access, No use, No Impact: Snapshot Surveys of Educational Technology In K – 12. Journal of Research on Technology in Education, 35 (1), 15 – 27. Owens, E. W., & Waxman, H. C. (1995). Differences among urban, suburban, and rural schools

on technology access and use in eighth-grade mathematics classrooms. J. Educational Technology Systems, 24 (1), 83 – 92. Valadez, J. R. & Duran, R. (2007). Redefining the Digital Divide: Beyond Access to Computers and the Internet. The High School Journal, Feb/Mar, 31 – 44. Vehovar, V., Sicherl, P., Husing, T., & Dolnicar, V. (2006). Methodological Challenges of Digital Divide Measurements. The Information Society, 22, 279 – 290.