Online Testing May Widen Achievement Gap

Proponents say computer-based standardized tests are more secure than traditional paper-and-pencil testing, can be scored faster, and allow questions to be designed more innovatively. They also see online testing as good preparation for students facing a job market that more and more emphasizes tech capabilities.

However, some educators say that moving to computerized testing is actually increasing an achievement gap they’ve worked for years to shrink.

Pew Research Center analysis of U.S. Census Bureau data in 2015 found that about five million households with school-aged children didn’t have a high-speed Internet connection at home; many of those were low-income black or Hispanic households.

A March 2017 Pew post indicated that the divide persists, with nearly half of households with an annual income below $30,000 not having broadband service or a desktop or laptop computer at home. Researchers report that the majority of teachers in poor districts claim their students aren’t prepared to take online tests. Some schools have so few computers that each student only gets access once a week.

“Putting the test online just sets the city kids three steps back,” Jessica Shiller, associate professor of education at Towson University, Towson, MD, told The Washington Post. “It’s more a measure of income than skill.”

Instructors are put in the unenviable position of having to teach both class content and computer use to prepare their students for high-stakes tests such as the Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers (PARCC) tests, which cover English and mathematics for grades 3-11.

Prevent a Virtual Divide Before It Happens

As new technologies enter the learning landscape, educators need to ensure their introduction doesn’t create a “digital divide 2.0,” wrote Emory Craig, director of e-learning and instructional technologies, College of New Rochelle, New Rochelle, NY, in a piece for EdTech: Focus on Higher Education.

Virtual (VR) and augmented reality (AR) are already beginning to offer virtual labs and field trips, interactive storytelling, and immersive world-building experiences. However, the cost of some VR headsets and the computers capable of supporting them can be quite high.

Lower-cost systems so far tend to confirm the truism that you get what you pay for. While Google Cardboard offers an easy-to-use, affordable option, its visual experience is poorer and interactivity is limited by the lack of a hand controller.

Newer, standalone VR headsets that don’t require a smartphone or external computer may prove to be workable solutions. Facebook, which has a stated goal of getting a billion people using virtual reality, plans to release at least two standalone devices this year through Oculus VR. Google and the Taiwanese company HTC Corp. both have standalone VR headsets in the pipeline as well.

Craig suggested that dedicated spaces or events, available to everyone on a campus, will broaden access to VR and AR experiences. “In the near future, we may see VR headset carts, checkout stations, and even lease/purchase initiatives in some academic programs,” he said, adding that institutions could also host events to allow students and faculty to experiment with rented or demo devices.

Strategies to Bridge the K-3 ‘Device Gap’

Just over two-thirds of K-3 teachers reported that on at least one occasion they’d refrained from assigning homework because they didn’t think all their students had access to the technology or digital media needed to complete the work. That percentage was even higher for schools serving a greater number of low-income students.

In the same online survey of educators and parents, conducted last year by the Silicon Valley Community Foundation’s Center for Early Learning, 40% of parents said that challenges with home technology access hampered their children’s ability to stay on pace with their peers.

Based on the survey and in-person conversations with parents, the foundation suggested five strategies for how instructors can help bridge the school/home “device gap”:

1. Inform parents about how their children are using technology and which digital media are being used in the classroom.

2. Recommend specific programs and apps students can use at home to complement what’s being used at school. Since poor Internet service and data limits are among the most common technology hurdles at home, consider programs that don’t require Wi-Fi or cell service to run after being downloaded.

3. Host a parent-teacher learning exchange in your school or across your district to explain how appropriate content is chosen. While teachers aren’t expected to have every answer on devices and apps, the survey and discussions indicated parents do view them as trusted partners for advice on technology use.

4. Rather than focusing solely on scary messages about the potential harmful effects of device use on young children, take a balanced approach that promotes how to “learn and live well” in a world where technology and connectedness are ever more ubiquitous.

5. Connect parents to their local library as a source for increasing their access to technology and further mentoring on appropriate use for young children.

Attracting New Students with E-Sports

Video gaming is no longer just a favorite pastime for college students, it’s become a varsity sport because it drives enrollment, creates campus enthusiasm, is co-ed, and doesn’t cost much to launch.

“It’s on the cutting edge, if not already a little bit beyond that, of new opportunities to compete,” said Dave Gantt, vice president for athletics at the University of Providence, Great Falls, MN. “All of our admissions counselors are armed with the knowledge that we have this sport, and it has been something of interest at every one of their stops.”

E-sports have grown from a single team to more than 60 schools competing, with hundreds more looking into offering it. Gant’s institution is retrofitting its mailroom and bookstore in the student union for e-sport gamers, who will begin play in the fall.

Colleges are creating e-sports arenas in old computer labs and other rooms that were going unused. The competitions are often streamed live and have students providing play-by-play commentary, just like an NCAA football or basketball game.

The e-sports program at University of California, Irvine, is funded by university research into the learning applications of gaming. UC Irvine also offers summer camps for female gamers and underrepresented young people, and recently helped to launch a regional high school league.

“The research out there shows that women and men can compete equally, given equal access,” said Mark Deppe, acting director of e-sports at UC Irvine. “But online cultures can be toxic—there can be in-game harassment and bullying—and we think we can be an influence against that.”

A Digital Divide in Risk Awareness

Last week, the watchdog group Common Sense Media and the Center for Humane Technology—a nonprofit formed by several former Facebook and Google employees—launched a multiyear “Truth about Tech” campaign to increase awareness of the addictive nature of smartphones and other electronic devices and of social media.

Beginning with ads targeting 55,000 public schools in the U.S., the campaign aims to engage educators, parents, kids, legislators, health officials, and tech manufacturers on the dangers of constant connection. The aim is not simply to warn but also to encourage changes in behavior and in how devices are designed and marketed.

Tristan Harris, co-founder of the Center for Humane Technology and a former design ethicist at Google, told CBS News, “The truth about what’s happening on the other side of the screen is that this is happening by design. There’s a whole bunch of techniques that are deliberately used to keep the auto-play watching on YouTube to keep you watching the next video, or streaks on Snapchat to keep kids hooked, to feel like they have to keep this streak going.”

The potential for harm is even greater for minority and disadvantaged children, who, according to multiple research studies, spend much more time in front of screens. In addition, a 2012 Pew Research Center survey found that lower-income parents are less informed about the risks of too much screen time than their higher-earning counterparts.

Naomi Schaefer Riley, author of Be the Parent, Please: Stop Banning Seesaws and Start Banning Snapchat, writing in The New York Times, said, “The real digital divide is not between children who have access to the Internet and those who don’t. It’s between children whose parents know that they have to restrict screen time and those whose parents have been sold a bill of goods by schools and politicians that more screens are a key to success.”

Public Ed Asset Used for Private Gain

At a time when the Census Bureau reports a quarter of U.S. households are without Internet access, critics contend that a federal program to shrink that gap is broken, with much of its revenues enriching nonprofits and commercial operators while many low-income and rural students are left still bereft of needed access.

The Educational Broadband Service (EBS) grants school districts and educational nonprofits free licenses allowing them to use a portion of spectrum—the range of frequencies that carry radio and the mobile Internet—to offer instructional services using low-power broadband and high-speed Internet access.

EBS traces its origins to a post-Sputnik push in the 1960s to modernize American education, with the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) allotting a section of spectrum to encourage teaching by television. Since then, the government has given away thousands of licenses. When spectrum use officially shifted from TV to the Internet in 2004, the value of those licenses suddenly shot through the roof.

One observer told The Hechinger Report that “licensees got blindsided by a bunch of money,” with commercial operators offering cash payments running from tens of thousands of dollars up to millions to lease spectrum in a major metropolitan area. Many license-holders chose to lease up to 95% of their spectrum instead of using it for public purposes. It’s estimated that about 90% of the approximately 2,400 EBS licenses have been at least partially leased, many of them for 30 years.

The majority of EBS licensees have just one or two licenses, but over the years a handful of nonprofits have accumulated a national network of 50 or more spectrum licenses.

“Think about the amount of pure lease payments they receive for this public asset that they don’t own, which they’ve been given to steward,” said Zach Leverenz, founder of EveryoneOn, a nonprofit whose aim is to eliminate the digital divide.

While a fraction of those big nonprofits’ revenue from leased spectrum does support providing students, seniors, and other groups with broadband access, reviews of tax disclosures show that in at least one case, about three-quarters of those revenues were instead directed into savings and investments.

Leverenz has called for greater accountability and transparency for the program, but the FCC has demurred from making any changes, stating that the best course is to continue relying on “the good-faith efforts of EBS licensees.” 

To Ban or Not to Ban Computers

Studies have shown that students using computers in the classroom tend to do poorly on tests when compared to peers who take notes by hand. Research conducted at West Point found the same results, but did it in a way that could make a more compelling argument for banning the devices from classrooms altogether.

In a study of 726 sophomore cadets in 50 offerings of a course in introductory economics, researchers were able to assign students at random to versions of the course that either banned all devices, allowed unrestricted use, or gave permission to have a tablet computer face-up on the student’s desk. All students then took the same exam at the end of the semester.

This large-scale randomized control trial (RCT) method of study made it possible for researchers to compare the same measures of learning for all students. While the results clearly suggest that banning computers in the classroom makes sense, it might not make great policy, according to Tania Lombrozo, professor of psychology, University of California, Berkeley.

“The findings to date suggest that banning computers from classrooms may be the most sensible policy to adopt,” she wrote in a column for National Public Radio. “But there’s a more general policy that’s also worth keeping in mind: the policy of constant experimentation and improvement. We can’t always approximate an ideal RCT, but we can stifle opportunities for progress by applying a policy uniformly, without variation. We can only inch our way beyond the status quo by trying out different options, subjecting them to rigorous comparison, and repeating as needed. That means entertaining a new suite of potential policies, not just discarding the superseded.”

Study Identifies Website Flaws

Colleges and universities want their websites to attract prospective students, but too often fail to make a good impression, according to a new report from the higher-education web development firm KDG.

“Our research revealed five mistakes that colleges often make on their website,” Kyle David, CEO of KDG, said in an article for eCampus News. “These mistakes may seem trivial, but they are the primary reasons many students often choose an inferior college that just happens to have a better website.”

The first problem for many college websites is that most incoming freshmen use social media regularly and have become accustomed to reading short chunks of information. Long forms that must be filled out are another issue that prompt prospective students to leave a website.

Institutional sites should guard against cluttered home pages that force students to click several times just to find out about a single aspect of the college. Fake imagery of college life and clichés can also send students looking elsewhere.

“A poorly organized site loses visitors and applicants, and you can ill afford to lose either,” said Rick Martin, a writer for the KDG blog. “Your biology department may be on the verge of curing cancer, but if your website wastes students’ time, you will fail to attract the bright minds that you need to keep your college strong.”

There's a Disconnect on Digital Literacy

A February survey of students and faculty members said that neither group thinks much of the other’s digital literacy. The 2016 State of Digital Media in Higher Education Report made the case that learning outcomes would improve if institutions did a better job of providing information and access to digital resources, according to a report in eCampus News.

One of the main findings from the report was 45% of the responding students consider themselves highly digitally literate, while only 14% of the faculty agreed with them. Conversely, 49% of the faculty said they were highly digitally literate, but just 24% of the students agreed.

More than 90% of faculty members and 76% of the students said that multimedia-enhanced lectures were more engaging, but both groups gave low marks to university-provided resources to digital media. Just 20% of faculty and 32% of students said they accessed course-related digital media through university resources.

“Schools are making huge investments in infrastructure, yet they’re cutting at the efficacy of their own institutions by not providing content for students to use in their new digital center or on the cloud,” said TJ Leonard, CEO of VideoBlocks, the digital-resource provider that conducted the online survey. “Schools should be doing everything possible to prepare students for the 21st-century economy, and it’s hard to imagine that without access to digital media. They have to make resources available and give students consistent access to them in the classroom, the library, and off campus to get the full value out of digital media.”

Policies Needed to Curb Digital Distractions

Plenty of studies have shown that digital devices cause distraction in the classroom. However, other reports indicate that while students understand their devices are distracting, they don’t want them banned.

That led Joshua Kim, director of digital learning initiatives at the Dartmouth Center for the Advancement of Learning at Dartmouth College, to propose three principles of digital usage in his blog for Inside Higher Education. His proposals are aimed at finding ways to effectively use the technology distraction.

To start, Kim suggested that instructors determine and enforce classroom technology policies.

“The authority of the educator in the classroom must be understood and agreed upon by all parties,” he wrote. “This does not mean that the educator can abuse that authority, as that will be the quickest way to break trust with the learners. Being able to direct the students about when technology is used—even if the answer is that technology is never used—is necessary and appropriate.”

Use of student devices must also be intentional. Technology allows students to create things in real-time and is much closer to the way students will use technology in the workforce.

“Use class time to have students or groups do research, create quick presentations, and lead classroom discussions,” Kim wrote. “An amazing amount of actual work can be accomplished during class time—especially if the professor can walk around and coach.”

Finally, class time should be devoted to discussion to help students understand why the policies are in place and to think about the way they use their devices in their lives.

“Your students will be much more likely to accept (if not embrace) you classroom technology choice if you talk about the reasons behind those choices,” he wrote.

Americans Spend a Lot of Time Online

A new study from the Pew Research Center found that Americans head online quite often. In fact, 73% of respondents said they use the Internet “almost constantly,” while just 7% reported using it less often than “several times a week.”

Younger generations lead the Internet charge. More than 90% of teens said they go online daily, while 36% of those ages 18-29 claimed they were in the “almost constantly” category. Time on the Internet dropped as the age groups got older.

More than 85% of the respondents who owned either a smartphone or a tablet, or both, said they used the Internet daily. Even 65% of those who didn’t have a smartphone or tablet reported logging in on a daily basis, according to a report in Pymnts.com.

Twenty-nine percent of college graduates reported being on the Internet more, compared to just 14% of those with a high school diploma or less. In addition, those earning $75,000 a year (28%) went online more than those earning $30,000 or less (14%).

Beware of Technology Addiction

Technology has become a driving force for most people, but, just like anything else, too much of a good thing can be too much. Technology can become addictive, and that can starts as early as infancy.

Kids now grow up in a world where they play with toys that link them to the Internet and television shows that encourage live tweeting. The increase in screen time boosts the chance that children may suffer from low self-esteem and relationship problems, which follow them through their teenage years and into adulthood, according to a report in InformationWeek.

Social awkwardness can be the least of the concerns for adults who develop symptoms from excessive digital dependence. They also suffer from insomnia, short-term memory and hearing loss, eye irritation, and spinal damage.

“There are plenty of ways to minimize your risk of digital overload,” wrote Kelly Sheridan. “Start by monitoring your smartphone use. An hour before bed, leave you phone in the kitchen to charge instead of putting it on your bedside table overnight. If you have a desk job, set a timer every 20 minutes so you know when to stand and stretch you legs. Alter the volume limit on your iPod, which lets you adjust the maximum level of sound emitted from the earbuds. And finally, walk past the couch when you get home, put on a pair of sneakers, and go for a stroll. Your body will thank you for it.”

Smartphones Are Still Too Delicate

Most young people, and college students in particular, are tethered to their smartphones.  They use them to make purchases, check social media, and even study from time to time. Professors write odes to their distraction.

There is one problem with this picture: Damage or lose the device and you’ve lost contact with the world.

“I can’t begin to explain how isolated I felt,” Jeff Kagan, a columnist for E-Commerce Times, wrote after dropping his iPhone. “You would never understand unless you had a problem with your smartphone yourself. It’s very uncomfortable.”

It’s up to device manufacturers to address the issue, according to Kagan. He would like to see smartphones that are shock- and water-resistant. There also need to be ways to track them if they are lost, and an easy way to shut them off if they are stolen.

“Bottom line—smartphones and apps are the future,” he wrote. “ We can use them as a remote control for our lives. However, if we are actually to trust these devices with our important information, they have to live up to the challenge. Today, they don’t.” 

Device-Agnostic Tools Needed for BYOD

College students are bringing many different types of electronic devices with them to campus. Colleges and universities are grappling with how to accommodate all those gadgets.

The many devices on the market means educators have to create lessons that work on all of them, whether students are toting a laptop, smartphone, tablet, or all three. The age of the device even comes into play, because operating systems change so frequently.

“These devices all have different quirks,” Gauri Reyes, CEO of Triple Point Advisors, said in an article in eCampus News, “and that makes it hard to predict which ones will ultimately be brought into the classrooms, who will be using which ones, and who needs to know what about the devices and the capabilities.”

Device-agnostic applications are being built to provide a solution. The tools are compatible with most operating systems, helping instructors and students work together without wasting class time or IT resources.

“Start by taking the most popular devices that are out there and making sure your applications, lesson plans, videos, or other content work on those devices,” Reyes advised. “Just make the assumption that whatever you’re developing or using has to work on iOS, Android, or another platform, and then create an environment where your students can learn, engage, collaborate, and communicate effectively.”

Old-Fashioned Note-Taking Works

One solution for increasing student success has little to do with interactive content and electronic course materials. It’s as simple as taking better notes.

Carol E. Holstead, associate professor of journalism, University of Kansas, Lawrence, decided she had had enough of students mesmerized by their laptop computer screens instead of listening to her lectures, so she banned the devices from her classroom. She did continue using PowerPoint presentations to outline her lecture and provide examples, but also instructed her students they needed to be more selective in writing down important points.

“It turned out my theory was right and now is supported by research,” Holstead wrote in an article for The Chronicle of Higher Education. “A study published last year in Psychological Science showed that students who write out notes longhand remember conceptual information better than those who take notes on a computer.”

The problem for students who used laptops is they become so intent on capturing every word of a lecture they don’t always listen to what is being said. Students who used paper and pen to take notes were more selective because they couldn’t write fast enough, allowing them to retain more information and understand it better, according to the research.

Holstead ended her first semester without laptops by having students fill out a questionnaire. Nearly 52% of the 95 responding students said they paid more attention without a computer in front of them. More importantly, test scores went up in her classes.

“Their answers reinforced the note-taking study,” Holstead said. “The students who tried to transcribe my lectures, even without a laptop, hated taking notes longhand. The students who figured out how to take selective notes liked it.”

Individualized Courses Isn't College

There have been predictions that technology will drag down textbook publishing, just as it did the music industry. Now, some experts suggest that the same consumer demand for single tunes will impact higher education as a whole.

“This last decade of the music industry presages the coming decade of education,” wrote Martin Smith, chief revenue officer of Noodle, a company that creates interactive tools designed to help students with online research, in an essay for Quartz. “Choice is expanding at every level, from pre-K to graduate school. The individual course, rather than the degree, is becoming the unit of content. And universities, the record labels of education, are facing increased pressure to unbundle their services.”

While Smith may have a point, it doesn’t mean he is right. Music lovers may have had little trouble turning away from $20 compact discs in favor buying a song for 99 cents or paying a monthly fee for a music-streaming service, but students deciding on college are not the same sort of consumer.

“The consumer choice is for the bundler—the brand, the label, university—and not the individual course content,” Derek Newton, senior communications director at the Network for Teaching Entrepreneurship, wrote in an article for The Atlantic. “Consumers buy Stanford or Princeton in a way no one ever bought EMI or Universal.”

To Newton, turning the college experience into individual courses may provide plenty of great content, but also much less to study.

“In the current system, it may not be efficient to maintain fine-arts programs, but most people think it’s important to have them,” he wrote. “It has long been part of colleges’ mission to expose students to new ideas and disciplines. On campus, even business students, for example, are typically required to study literature and other topics in the humanities. Some may call that inefficient; others call it essential.”

World Wide Web Turns 25

At 25, the World Wide Web has become an integral part of life. A recent Pew Research study found 87% of adults in the United States use the Internet, 90% admit the Internet has been good for them, and 76% believe it’s been good for society.

In another Pew study, technology experts said that by 2039 access to the Internet will be like flipping a switch for electricity and an Internet of Things will allow artificial intelligence-enhanced, cloud-based information storage and sharing via smartphones, wearable technology, and smart appliances.

Most of the innovation will come about as digital natives grow older. Those individuals are currently in school or on campus.

“The first generation that grew up on the web is hitting maturity,” Jeff Jaffe, CEO of the World Wide Web Consortium, told Computerworld. “Everything that’s happened until recently was with people who weren’t web natives by birth using technology and using it to improve life. I can only imagine when you have digital natives hitting maturity the level of innovation will be even greater.”

Where Broadband's Slim, MOOCs Are Moot

In all the hubbub over whether MOOCs (massive open online courses) are the way of future higher education, much of the discussion has focused on things such as monetizing courses, verifying the identity of exam-takers, whether to offer degree credits, and low completion rates.

But, as Andrew Barbour, executive editor of Campus Technology, points out in a viewpoint piece, there’s another major aspect being overlooked: insufficient or nonexistent broadband Internet access. Millions of people live in remote areas or urban pockets where broadband connections are iffy at best.

These are the people who—by virtue of their geographic distance, work schedule, or family situation—cannot get themselves to a college or university campus in person. They’re the ones who might benefit most from online education, including MOOCs.

Yet, as Barbour notes, MOOCs typically use a lot of video and other broadband-dependent content. Students without broadband are effectively shut out of MOOCs, and often other courses with online components as well.

“And it threatens to leave large swaths of the country isolated, uneducated, and unemployed, because broadband is the 21st-century equivalent of the interstates and the railroads rolled into one,” he says.

Young Americans Are Using Technology to Read

A recent study from the Pew Research Center found that Americans under the age of 30 are probably doing more of their reading on their smartphone or personal computer than on an e-book reader. The findings, part of the center’s Internet & American Life Project, showed that 41% of Americans under the age of 30 read e-books on a cellphone and 55% read on their computer, compared to 23% using e-readers such as a Kindle or Nook or 16% reading off a tablet.

The report found that 47% of young Americans read e-content from books, magazines, or newspapers. It also reported that 52% of survey respondents have not borrowed e-books at a library because they didn't know they could.

At the same time, the study showed young Americans still use the library for reading. Sixty percent of respondents aged 16-29 use their local library, with 75% reading a print book, 19% using an e-book, and 11% taking out an audiobook.

“Although their library usage patterns may often be influenced by the requirements of school assignments, their interest in the possibilities of mobile technology may also point the way toward opportunities of further engagement with libraries later in life,” the report concluded.

Surveys Show Digital Migration on the Rise

The latest information released from the Book Industry Study Group’s Student Attitudes Toward Content in Higher Education survey shows that students’ textbook rentals and online purchases are up, while the college store share of course material sales slipped.

The study reported that 11% of students in the survey were renting textbooks, a three-point rise from 2011. The number purchasing new textbooks slipped from 59% to 55%. At the same time, the Amazon share rose from 25% to 31%.

In addition, almost 48% of students said integrated learning systems help more with studying, compared to 45% using printed textbooks and 37% using e-textbooks.

“Our research shows that students are looking for greater value from their textbook-purchasing dollar,” said Angela Bole, deputy executive director of BISG. “How they define ‘value’ is rapidly evolving as they’re exposed to new services and products.”

CourseSmart also released information on students’ reliance on technology. The company’s survey showed that of the more than 500 college students responding, 98% use their electronic device for school and 67% can’t go for more than an hour without using digital technology.

The CourseSmart survey found that students are more likely to bring a laptop to class than a printed book by a 51% to 39% margin. It also showed that 58% of the students in the survey have taken an online course, 79% have submitted assignments online, and 71% have taken a test or quiz online.

“The survey underscores the undeniable influence technology has on today’s college experience,” said Sean Devine, CEO of CourseSmart. “As technology continues to evolve and digital devices become integral to the evolution of higher education, it’s encouraging to see the positive impact on learning outcomes as students utilize advanced devices and digital course materials to streamline and improve their learning environment.”

The OnCampus Research study, Student Watch 2012: Student Attitudes and Perceptions found that just 17% of students surveyed currently own an e-reading device and that 62% of those who own the gadget bought it for leisure reading, compared to just 39% using it for school. Additionally, just seven percent of the students who currently do not own an e-reader have plans to buy one in the near future.