Another article that really piqued my interest was Technology-enriched classrooms: Effects on students of low socioeconomic status because I work at a low socioeconomic high school campus. I know that we are in the minority when it comes to type of school populations that are 1:1. The one sentence that caught my eye was “Computer technology, when integrated into the classroom for significant periods of time, may also have more significant effects among students classified as low socioeconomic status” (Page, 2002). I have attended and participated in numerous conferences and the majority of 1:1 campuses across the country are private schools where funds are more readily available for the technology and stakeholders involved are more willing to contribute funds towards technology. Those public schools that are 1:1 are also more likely to be affluent schools. In our particular school district our high school is the only campus that has a high population of low socioeconomic students. I enjoyed reading the findings in this article; especially that classroom technology encouraged more classroom collaboration, more creative projects, higher student confidence and more accurate student communications. They also discovered that Internet usage had significant effects on the achievement of Hispanic students and produced significant attitudinal benefits in students of low socioeconomic status, in comparison to their more affluent peers (Toriskie, 1999). Our high school campus has more Hispanics than any other ethnicity. Even though this article was written with elementary students involved in the case study, I feel that most of this applies to secondary students, as well.
When people approach me and say that they don’t like technology used in the classroom and when I ask them “why” they respond with “research says it’s not effective”. I always follow up with “there is also research that shows that it does have positive effects on students.” Therefore, reading The impact of education technology on student achievement: What the most current research has to say was interesting to me because it backs up the fact that technology usage in the classroom improves student achievement. In fact, students who used computer-based instruction scored at the 64th percentile on tests of achievement compared to students without computers who scored in the 50th percentile. Their findings also showed that students learn more in less time when they receive computer-based instruction and that students like their classes more and develop more positive attitudes when their classes include computer-based instruction.
When people approach me and say that they don’t like technology used in the classroom and when I ask them “why” they respond with “research says it’s not effective”. I always follow up with “there is also research that shows that it does have positive effects on students.” Therefore, reading The impact of education technology on student achievement: What the most current research has to say was interesting to me because it backs up the fact that technology usage in the classroom improves student achievement. In fact, students who used computer-based instruction scored at the 64th percentile on tests of achievement compared to students without computers who scored in the 50th percentile. Their findings also showed that students learn more in less time when they receive computer-based instruction and that students like their classes more and develop more positive attitudes when their classes include computer-based instruction.
References:
Page, M. S. (2002). Technology-enriched classrooms: Effects on students of low socioeconomic status. Journal of Research on Technology in Education, 34(4), 389–409.
Schacter, J. (1999). The impact of education technology on student achievement: What the most current research has to say. Santa Monica, CA: Milken Exchange on Education Technology. Retrieved from http://www.mff.org/pubs/ME161.pdf.
Toriskie, J. M. (1999). The effects of Internet usage on student achievement and student attitudes (fourth-grade, social studies). Unpublished doctoral dissertation, Loyola University of Chicago.
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