Podcast Series: Innovations in Education

Explore the full series of eSchool News podcasts hosted by Kevin Hogan—created to keep you on the cutting edge of innovations in education.

10 steps for bringing connectivity home

This fall, Cypress-Fairbanks (TX) Independent School District is particularly excited about welcoming back 150 of our underserved elementary, middle, and high school students after they’ve enjoyed their first full summer of district-sponsored Wi-Fi. This group of students is the first to benefit from iConnect, a new program that extends our district’s enterprise network infrastructure with safe and secure learning systems into eligible communities.

For our pilot, we delivered remote wireless connectivity and computing devices to families at the Nayeli House Tanner Road Mobile Home Park in our Houston metro district. What’s more, we’ll soon be expanding iConnect to communities served by four more schools within our footprint. Here are the steps we recommend for getting a similar initiative done in your district.

Step 1: Reframe your mission to meet access needs at home
Although we passed a significant technology bond in 2014 that enables providing students with computing devices at school, which included a total overhaul of our network infrastructure, by 2015 we realized a significant percentage of our students had no internet access at home. This meant we were falling short of our district’s mission—to maximize every student’s potential by providing opportunity for all—because so many of our students lacked the connectivity vital for after-hours learning and collaboration. Taking this perspective, we launched a three-year effort to close the opportunity gap by finding a way to bring access to their homes.…Read More

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5 things districts are doing to close the homework gap

Despite a brighter spotlight on digital equity, gaps still remain, including the troubling and persistent homework gap–but a newly-relaunched digital equity toolkit aims to highlight the important work districts across the nation are taking to address equity differences.

The 2014 E-rate modernization helped a majority of schools meet the FCC’s short-term connectivity goal of 100 Mbps per 1,000 students, according to CoSN’s relaunched Digital Equity Initiative toolkit. But because classroom use of technology and digital resources is growing, a gap has continued to grow between students who have internet access at home and those who do not.

Because it tends to impact low-income and rural students harder than others, the homework gap can intensify other income or access issues these students and their families face. And even if a family has internet access, students don’t necessarily have access to a device–or the right device–with a large enough screen or enough data to complete homework.…Read More

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3 steps we’re taking to ensure true digital equity

Across the nation, school districts are investing in one-to-one computing programs and supplying digital devices for their students to use as learning tools. While these tools can be very empowering, giving each child a device isn’t enough to close the digital opportunity gap that exists between students of varying economic means.

This issue is near to our hearts in the Manor Independent School District in Texas. We’re a very diverse community, with a significant population of economically disadvantaged students. About 73 percent of our nearly 9,000 students qualify for free or reduced-price lunches, and 36 percent are bilingual or speak English as a second language. We want to make sure all of our students, even those from the poorest homes, can contribute to our digital future.

Over the last few years, we’ve built a very strong technology infrastructure to prepare our district for a digital transformation. We have a fiber network connecting our 13 schools. We have a one-to-one initiative in our high schools, and we’re looking to extend that opportunity to our middle and elementary schools as well.…Read More

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Can your internet service provider help close the digital divide?

Darriale Bradley and her family spent many nights in the parking lot of fast food restaurants, but not because of the food. It was for the wi-fi. For Darriale, sitting in the parking lot was the only way she could do her online homework since she didn’t have a home internet connection. No child should have to go to such lengths just to do homework, and every child should have easy and affordable access to the Internet and the opportunity that access brings. Yet, sadly, Darriale is far from alone.

The digital divide is a reality for three out of four American families, meaning approximately eight million individuals under the age of 18 are living without internet access. According to Pew Research, 79 percent of surveyed middle and high school teachers report allowing students to access homework online with 76 percent allowing students to submit assignments online. However, only 18 percent of teachers reported the majority of students have access to the digital tools they need at home, which left those students without access to broadband at a significant disadvantage.

So, where does this leave these students and their families? In short, without an Internet connection you are both economically and educationally marginalized. Luckily, this can be solved and we, at EveryoneOn, with the help of partners, are working to help families connect to the digital world.…Read More

3 Google Fiber programs that could help ease the digital divide

Google’s affordable broadband service is already impacting some communities and schools

The latest Digital Equity report from the Consortium of School Networking paints a picture of an educational environment where schools are at least on the right path to providing access to high-speed wi-fi within their walls (though there is still plenty of work to be done). An equally pressing problem is the fact that the number of pupils with fast connectivity dwindles as they move away from their K-12 hubs—and the divide deepens even further when issues like socioeconomic status, income, and race are taken into account.

According to The Pew Research Center, 82.5 percent of American households with school-age children currently have broadband access at home. This is approximately 9 percentage points higher than the broadband adoption rates across all households, CoSN reports, but there are still 5 million households with school-age children which lack broadband in the home.

“Students in these households experience what is being labeled the ‘homework gap,’” reported CoSN, pointing out that more than 75 percent of school district technology leaders have no strategy for addressing off-campus access.…Read More

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FCC approves $9 broadband subsidy for low-income households

Expansion of the Lifeline program will affect more than 13 million Americans

A recently-approved expansion of an FCC program will grant millions of low-income households a discount on internet access in an effort to help close what is becoming known as the digital divide — the lack of reliable high-speed internet access for lower income families.

FCC commissioners voted on the proposed expansion 3 to 2 along party lines, as expected. Eligible households (those at or below 135 percent of the federal poverty level) will now be able to apply the $9.25 subsidy to broadband, wireless, or a bundled voice and internet package. Previously, the program, called Lifeline, was only applicable to phone service.

According to the FCC, nearly all households with annual incomes of more than $150,000 currently have high-speed internet; by contrast, nearly half of those with incomes less than $25,000 claim the same.…Read More

Digital divide, lack of certified librarians ‘a national crisis’

Educators, librarians discuss how schools and libraries can respond to the ‘second wave of the digital divide’

librarians-AASLWashington, D.C. — Barbara Stripling, president of the American Library Association, said students, teachers, and librarians are facing “a silent dilemma.”

Imagine, she said, you’re one of two students sitting next to each other in the same classroom, receiving the same assignment. The homework requires some online research. One student, who has had a computer as long as she can remember, goes home that night and gets to work.

You, the other student, are from a lower-income family and have never had access to a computer. You eventually are able to sneak in an hour or two at the public library, but as you stare at the empty web browser, you don’t even know where to begin.…Read More

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How school leaders can erase the digital divide

The digital divide–and closing that divide–is now more relevant than ever, as students need digital skills to compete in today’s society.

digital-divideThe digital divide is mentioned almost daily in ed-tech discussions: It prevents all students from receiving a technology-rich education that can help them compete on a global scale, it means that some students receive benefits that others do not, and it frustrates school leaders as they try to ensure an equitable and robust education for all students.

But what does the term “digital divide” mean, exactly? According to many experts, the definition has changed to involve more than who has internet access and who does not. And closing the digital divide will require collaboration among many industries.

(Next page: Different efforts to close the digital divide)…Read More

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Rise of the next digital divide: Women and the web

Experts believe 600 million new female internet users can be added within the next 3 years.

A first-of-its-kind report gathered data from thousands of women in developing countries to shed light on the lack of women on the web. On average, 25 percent fewer women than men are online today; yet, if action is taken now, 600 million women could have access to the internet in the next three years.

“Women and the Web: Bridging the internet gap and creating new global opportunities in low and middle-income countries,” commissioned by Intel Corp. in consultation with the U.S. State Department’s Office of Global Women’s issues, UN Women, and World Pulse, aims to answer questions such as “What is the size of the internet gender gap?” and “What prevents women from accessing the internet?”

“200 million fewer women than men are online today,” said Shelly Esque, president of Intel Foundation and vice president of corporate affairs for Intel. “In many regions, the internet gender gap reflects and amplifies existing inequalities between the sexes.”…Read More

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