Technology and Access in the Junior High Classroom

As I was configuring an online forum response for this week's English 7 homework, I spent a decent amount of time worrying over the format and accessibility of the assignment, the text, and the prompt.  And suddenly I realized a startling truth: my students may not even have internet access or a working computer in their own home.  As a child of the internet age, I often take the luxury of computer access for granted.  I grew up the daughter of a computer science wizard.  We always had two or three computers around the house, and if any of them were ever misbehaving, Dad would fix them within minutes of getting home from work.  I never even realized the privilege and blessing of regular computer access until early this week.

As a student teacher at La Colina Junior High, technology has been on my mind since the first week of school.  Our Apple TV refuses to function, our class computer is decrepit, and all other classroom technology seems to be nostalgic souvenirs from the dark ages of overhead projectors, transparencies, and the Gutenberg Printing Press. But I never fathomed the concept that a decent portion of our students wouldn't have basic internet or even computer access in their own homes.  We struggled with our projector and computer, in order to walk students through the process of posting on the forum.  And we asked students, almost as an afterthought, to raise their hands if internet access would be an issue for them.  Slowly, about thirty percent of our class raised reluctant hands in response.  And this seemed to be a fairly repeated event for all of our English 7 periods.  A significant portion of our students did not have a working computer in their home--in fact, they did not even have internet access on any device after school hours.  Even when they did have access, it was often limited in some way.  As a young student from my first period informed me: "I can't get on because my sister is always on...no, I can't really tell her to get off, she says what she is doing is important too".  Other families ask my cooperating teacher to print her weekly updates and send them home with their student because they have no way to access the electronic newsletter otherwise.  Clearly parents are also not able to check grades or stay updated on their students educational journey.  

Our library has a fairly large computer lab with between 15 and 20 computers available to students thirty minutes before school begins, thirty minutes during lunch, and thirty minutes after sixth period.  They are able to do both academic work and recreational activities on the computers, and academic printing is free to students.  While this is extremely helpful, it doesn't fully solve the issues of internet and computer access. If I were to ask my students to write a lengthy essay or response of some sort,  even several session of 30 minutes disjointedly spread throughout the day would not be enough.  Students from non-computer households would continually at a disadvantage academically if their only exposure to technological aid was within these brief windows.  

Through this week's discoveries concerning the technology available in my classroom, I have realized that many typical experiences in the classroom are transformed greatly through lack of access to computers and technology.  Students are also generally less comfortable with technology that I had previously assumed.  The implications are clear: think twice when assigning projects that require technology.  While technology can be a brilliant tool for learning, when a portion of students in a class are cut off from access to the tools, the activity can create a clear divide between those who have, and those who have not.  We must do what we can to maintain class equity, even if this means assignments must be given manually, or special considerations given to students without a computer in their home.