Digital technology is a core component of the modern landscape. Not only do tech careers experience a high demand (and provide a comfortable salary) but digital devices are now integral to various components of everyday life.
You are using one right now.
Schools certainly aren’t ignoring this. Walk into your child’s classroom and you’ll find a Prometheus board nailed to one wall and tablets or Chromebooks filed away in a secure door. That’s a great start, but it might not adequately prepare every student for the world they will be walking into.
In this article, we take a look at why digital literacy is important for students, and what schools need to be doing about it.
The Basic Situation
Here’s what it is: For better or worse, today’s youth will need to know how to use technology for everything from getting a good job to placing an order at one of those kiosks they seem to have in every McDonald’s these days.
Devices are everywhere. Schools can’t send a kid out into the world without teaching them how to use them.
Schools do a relatively good job at this, but there are barriers to digital literacy that many districts will relate to. For example:
- Accessibility: Giving every student a personal device is very expensive.
- Prioritization: Teaching kids how to use a MacBook sounds like a great idea until you realize how many students struggle even with grade-level literacy (almost 70%). Schools have a lot of different responsibilities to balance.
- Instruction: The average teacher in the United States is 41 years old. The way they use technology may be very different from the way twelve-year-olds use it.
We will take a closer look at all of these problems in the next few headings.
Accessibility
Around 80% of schools provide their students with personal devices. That number shot up quite a bit in 2020 (by a factor of about 20%) when students needed tablets or computers to attend class.
And obviously, an educational environment that gives 4/5ths of the national student population digital technology is at least on the right track.
Still, this figure tells only part of the story. For one thing, students who have a device to use at school may not necessarily have access to one at home.
About 30% of people can’t access the internet at home. Unfortunately, they are largely comprised of the neediest segment of the population.
Some districts work on this by:
- Providing need-based home access. Not all students are allowed to take home their devices. Just the ones who couldn’t otherwise complete online work.
- Implementing after-school homework clubs. Basically, a designated time when people who need access to technology they can’t get at home can use it on campus after school hours. This system is also imperfect. It doesn’t help students who need to get home right away to take care of younger siblings or work. Still, it does expand accessibility by at least a little bit.
Unfortunately, there is no easy fix to this problem. Most school districts are cash-strapped down to the last dollar. They can’t afford to build their own custom bridge across the digital divide.
Prioritization
It’s also true that teaching kids how to get really good at using a computer often falls low on the pecking order.
Only 30% of public school students read at grade level. Fewer are proficient at math. What’s more, about 25% of students are chronically absent.
When kids can’t read, or even show up to school with any regularity, it’s very hard to put “learning how to use a tablet,” at the top of a to-do list.
Have a solution to those problems? If so, consider running for office.
Skill Gap
This issue becomes less prominent every year. Still, it’s worth pointing out that there is a pretty hefty generational gap between the average teacher and their students. A middle-aged instructor will have spent most of their life in the age of the Internet, but they still probably don’t use or understand digital technology the same way that their students do.
Continuing education requirements help alleviate this problem. Technology is a big talking point in the world of education, and teachers are regularly learning about new ways to implement it in the classroom.
Still, the generational divide—particularly when layered with the other issues we’ve described in this article—can make it that much harder to teach tech in the classroom.
Be the Change You Want to See
Educational problems require educator-backed solutions. Digital literacy is already being prioritized in most schools to the greatest extent that the district can afford it.
This means that, in the short term, improvements will be led by good teachers making the most of the resources they have on hand—whether this be in special education classrooms or across the wider school population.
Enhancing the integration of digital technology means understanding students’ needs and making integration enjoyable.
Many educators develop digital literacy strategies through their own ongoing education efforts, which can take the form of professional training or even graduate degrees.
For example, if you pursue a Master of Education degree, you’ll learn not just about instruction, but also about district-wide strategizing.
Master of Education degrees prepare professionals for careers in curriculum development, assessment creation, benchmark monitoring, program design, and more.These are important skills for helping districts reach a wide range of goals—not only digital literacy.
When it comes to teaching, the solution to most problems is usually to be the change you want to see in your community.
Work as hard as you can with the resources on hand. Advocate, strategize, and improve as often as possible.
Not only is this tried-and-true method enough to overcome the digital divide, but it’s also the same process teachers have been using to solve all of their problems since the dawn of time.
EDTECH 4 BEGINNERS 