Pew Internet & American Life Project: The Digital Disconnect

The Digital Disconnect: The widening gap between Internet-savvy students and their schools

8/14/2002 | Report | Doug Levin, Sousan Arafeh, Amanda Lenhart, Lee Rainie

Using the Internet is the norm for today’s youth. Due in large part to high profile and sometime controversial education technology public policy initiatives, it is conventional wisdom that much of this use occurs in schools. The American Institutes for Research was commissioned by the Pew Internet & American Life Project to conduct a qualitative study of the attitudes and behaviors of Internet-using public middle and high school students drawn from across the country. The study is based primarily on information gathered from 14 gender-balanced, racially diverse focus groups of 136 students, drawn from 36 different schools.

Internet-savvy students rely on the Internet to help them do their schoolwork. They describe dozens of different education-related uses of the Internet. Virtually all use the Internet to do research to help them write papers or complete class work or homework assignments. The students employ five different metaphors to explain how they use the Internet for school: The Internet as virtual textbook and reference library, as virtual tutor and study shortcut, as virtual study group, as virtual guidance counselor, and the Internet as virtual locker, backpack, and notebook.

Many schools and teachers have not yet recognized—much less responded to—the new ways students communicate and access information over the Internet. Students report that there is a substantial disconnect between how they use the Internet for school and how they use the Internet during the school day and under teacher direction. For the most part, students’ educational use of the Internet occurs outside of the school day, outside of the school building, outside the direction of their teachers. While there are a variety of pressures, concerns, and outright challenges in providing Internet access to teachers and students at school, students perceive this disconnect to be the result of school administrators setting the tone for use at school, the wide variation in teacher policies regarding Internet use in and for class and poor and uninspiring quality of Internet-based assignments. Students say they face several roadblocks when it comes to using the Internet at schools. In many cases, these roadblocks discourage them from using the Internet as much, or as creatively, as they would like. They note that quality of access, heavy-handed filtering and the inequalities in home access among students constitute major barriers to Internet use in and for school.

Of course, student use of the Internet for school does not occur in a vacuum. Students’ experiences, and those of their states, districts, schools, teachers, and parents, strongly affect how the Internet is adopted in schools. Nonetheless, large numbers of students say they are changing because of their out-of-school use of the Internet—and their reliance on it. Internet-savvy students are coming to school with different expectations, different skills, and access to different resources.

Stated Educational Technology Director's Association

Toolkit for 2003 - Tons of information about technology leadership.

About the National Leadership Institute (NLI)
On December 6-10, 2003, SETDA hosted the second annual National Leadership Institute (NLI). The NLI was developed in conjunction with the U.S. Department of Education. Participation at the NLI included more than 105 state leaders from 46 states and the District of Columbia. There were also 10 staff members from the U.S. Department of Education, more than 25 resource specialists and directors from six of the Regional Technology in Education Consortia (R*TEC).

The NLI was an intensive hands-on workshop structured to produce deliverables that will aid state technology leaders in effectively implementing the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001. A planning committee comprised of SETDA members developed the work group topics and the Institute's agenda to ensure relevant and significant areas of focus.

Each Institute participant selected one of the following work groups.

Group One: Building Partnerships & Leveraging Resources
Group Two: Technology Leadership Skills for 21st Century Challenges
Group Three: Data Collection/Data Driven Decision-Making
Group Four: Professional Development Models/On-Line Learning
Group Five: Virtual Schools/Distance Learning

The outcomes of the five work groups are included in the 2003 SETDA National Leadership Institute Toolkit: States Helping States Implement No Child Left Behind. While the Toolkit was developed for use by state leaders, SETDA does encourage sharing the tools broadly so that all educators and administrators can utilize the Toolkit to assist them in improving learning for all students through the use of technology. Additional copies of the Toolkit can be downloaded at www.setda.org.

Presentation about Teenage use of Internet and the Implications for Education and the Future

http://www.pewinternet.org/ppt/2003%208.14.03%20--%20Singapore%20Youth.Net%20Conference.ppt#258,1,Teenage Life Online: The Rise of the Networked Generation Lee Rainie – Director Youth.Net Conference - Singapore August 12, 2003

Route 21 - Interactive Guide to 21st Century Skills

Partnership for 21st Century Literacy Skills

This site is chock-full of information about 21st century literacy skills, tools for determining your organization's level of 21st century literacy skills, and help to implement and integrate technology and 21st century literacy skills in to curriculum (including subject maps with benchmarks for 4th - 12th grade).

Enjoy!

http://www.21stcenturyskills.org/

Creating a Mission Statement

Leader to Leader Institute - Formerly the Drucker Foundation - http://www.leadertoleader.org/leaderbooks/sat/mission.html

Building a mission statement. This web site also has a lot of information about leadership in the non-profit sector. Powerful resources!

La

Copyright Information for Students

"Intellectual Propery Primer" from Court TV, student forum of high school students on teh complex legal and moral questions raised by downloading music, games and movies on the Internet.

Other links:

Copyright Kids: http://www.copyrightkids.org
iSafe: http://www.i-safe.org
Power to Learn: Internet Smarts: http://www.powertolearn.com/internet_smarts