June 2008 — News
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Digital Divide? What Digital Divide?
All of the students in the study belonged to families with income of $25,000 or less and were part of an after school program for improving access to college for low-income youth (Admission Possible). Participants fell into the age range of 16 to 18, and all attended urban high schools in the Midwest. The research was conducted over a roughly six-month period this year.
According to the researchers, while some students did not associate their social networking activities with education, those who used social networking sites at least three to five times per day were more likely to connect their activities with learning.
It should be noted, however, that U Minnesota's Greenhow told us she does not believe the students' school districts grade them on their technology skills. (Minnesota received an overall grade of C in Education Week's State Technology Report Card 2007, including a D in the category of "capacity to use technology.") And the actual impact of social networking and Internet usage on measured learning outcomes was not included in the study.
In future studies, outcomes, in addition to perceptions, will be included in Greenhow's research. "We do plan to examine the impact of social networking on learning outcomes but have not defined yet exactly what the targeted areas will be," Greenhow explained. "Grades may be one aspect. Also correlations between [social networking] use and other retention indicators."
For some interesting (and somewhat disturbing) results measuring outcomes among underprivileged students with access to technology, see our report on a separate study from University of Chicago and Columbia University: Are Underprivileged Students Better Off Without Computers?
We also asked her whether the fact that the students are in a program aimed at improving access to college might have a bearing on the data from the study. She said the data were applicable to the broader low-income community. The students' ACT scores at the beginning of the program were not extraordinary in any way (averaging in the bottom 10th percentile of all ACT test takers). Furthermore, their families' median income was lower by $5,000 than the subjects of a 2005 study by Pew, whose results had shown much lower adoption, access, and usage of technology by students of low-income ($30,000 or less) families. "So I do not believe the technology conditions surrounding our students in Minnesota are particularly privileged ones," she told us.
Implications for Education
According to Greenhow, the information collected shows that teachers have an opportunity to step in and support the 21st century skills that the students are developing on their own--especially since few involved in the study indicated that they were aware of the "academic and professional networking opportunities" social networking sites afford.
