1

Impact of Literacy – Digital Divide Literacy Issues

Joshua Schulman

For a long time, literacy had a somewhat shallow definition in the classroom. If a

student was able to read a book, that student was literate. Obviously it does a disservice to

our forerunners to say that the process of learning how to read that book was anything but

complex, but, all­in­all, for any student who read the book and passed the class, that

student achieved literacy.

Now, it is not so simple. Students who might communicate with sophisticated

language on Twitter may have extreme difficulty composing a paragraph; students who

cannot understand a hashtag might be brilliant readers of satire or irony. There is no longer

any clear­cut definition of literacy. In fact, literacy is now understood to have multiple, if not

infinite, iterations. And with the growing acceptance of differentiated and individualized

education, there are just as many students as there are literacies.

Definition and Description

With the growth of technological fluency as one significant form of literacy, there is

also the growth of awareness of a ‘digital divide’. Diane Ravitch defined it in 2007 as “The

gap between those who have access to computers and those who do not.” (Ravitch, 2007)

Ravitch was defining a very real issue, one where students in disadvantaged communities

faced additional inequity because of their limited access to computers: “The term implies

that the advance of new technologies creates additional inequity between the haves and

have­nots.” Perhaps in the classes of the have­nots there were a few working PCs or

2

near­obsolete Macs; perhaps, at home, there was nothing at all. This clearly put students

from technologically and economically deficient communities at a disadvantage when

compared with their wealthier counterparts.

More recent research, however, shows that this particular aspect of the divide may

be closing. “Low­income and children of color, those often cited as the underserved side of

the digital divide, are wiring other pathways into the digital world. ‘Ten years ago it was

thought [disadvantaged kids] were digitally unengaged,’ says S. Craig Watkins, author of

The Young and the Digital. ‘Now we know the opposite is true: They're even more engaged

than their advantaged peers.’” (McCollum, 2011) This engagement comes from the

ubiquity of cell phones and other mobile devices, which has permeated typically

disadvantaged communities. Students from economically diverse communities are not just

using their devices to play games and chat; they are being used for homework and

research, especially when seen in communities with a “high percentage of low­income

homes without computers or Internet service.” (McCollum, 2011)

Problem solved? Hardly. There are still issues with the quality of the work being

done on mobile devices. A study on undergraduate satisfaction with mobile learning done

by Chun Mao (2014) found that “undergraduate students are not satisfied with the mobile

learning resources and the video content in mobile learning.” However, on a more positive

note, it continued: “the overall satisfaction of mobile learning among undergraduate

students is considered high...most of the students incline to use mobile learning in future.”

(Mao, 2014) The ubiquity of digital technology does not mean its use is being taught in the

classroom. In fact, there is a pressing irony in that the real world is dominated by

3

technology, permeating every aspect of our lives, as well as our students’ lives; classrooms

limp behind, desperately trying to keep up with this advance of technology but always

remaining somewhat out of touch. In a world where students will be negotiating salaries,

paying bills, making decisions, researching papers, voting, meeting husbands and wives,

staying in touch with distant relatives, finding recipes, composing music, reading news,

planning trips, learning, and reading books online, classrooms are still groping around in

the dark for some pedagogical guidance to support kids in a digital world.

Students, therefore, need school librarians who can empower teachers to teach

students how to use digital media constructively. Another digital divide is growing, and it

exists between students who are digital natives, and teachers and administrators who fear

and misunderstand technology. The school librarian is in a prime position to move a

school’s faculty towards digital literacy. He or she should be at the forefront of professional

development regarding technology and digital literacy ­ both receiving professional development,

and providing it to fellow faculty members. This is vitally important, since technology advances

quickly and there are always new devices and apps which could revolutionize any individual

teacher’s classroom. As good as a student might be at getting Twitter followers or playing

Temple Run, literacy will stagnate unless it can be channeled in an educationally productive

4

direction.

Challenges and Opportunities

Although there are many reasons why schools lag so far behind their students, there

are three issues in particular which contribute to this situation:

1) Teachers who do not embrace technology are increasingly seen by their students as

irrelevant.

5

Our students’ generation is brutal court of popular opinion within which technologies

are judged and sentenced to success or death. There is no regime which imposes on our

students apps and extensions deemed popular or useful; our students decide for

themselves. They are immersed in technology, and we are not.

The lack of technology in education puts the classroom itself in danger of becoming

obsolete. Students themselves are highly aware of this: “...as more students have positive

affect for technology, the demand for technology in the classroom will increase, and

students’ perceptions of how technology is used in the classroom will have increasing

repercussions for their perceptions of teachers.” (Dornisch, 2013) As mentioned before,

the digital divide among students is gradually closing. If teachers do not close the divide

between themselves and their students, they will not be seen as relevant. “As more

students develop higher positive affect [for technology], they will likely expect teachers to

use technology much more often and for more innovative teaching than they have

previously.” (Dornisch, 2013) If the real world is one of technology, how could a classroom

which excludes technology be said to prepare its students for college and career

readiness? Students are extremely perceptive, and they see this clearly. Dornisch’s

research comes to a conclusion of which every technologically­averse teacher should be

aware:

The results of the current study suggest that the higher students’ positive affect for technology, the more likely they are to use their perceptions of teachers’ comfort with technology in their overall evaluations of their teachers...As children become increasingly familiar with technologies in their early years, however, more students are likely to have strong affect for technology, which may mean that students will evaluate their teachers more poorly if they perceive that their teachers are not comfortable with the technologies they use. (Dornisch, 2013)

6

It is hard to imagine that a classroom in which students question their teacher’s

competence based on their comfort with technology is one in which quality learning

happens. Librarians are in a great place to aid teachers in this regard ­ they can help

integrate technology into these teachers’ lessons, and push the teachers themselves

toward the levels of technological literacy which their students will increasingly demand.

2) Administrators are afraid to allow students to use their own mobile devices, thereby

perpetuating the digital divide.

There are many discussions now about the viability of “Bring Your Own Device”

(BYOD) policies. However, this movement to allow students to use their own mobile

technology in the classroom is in its infancy, and it faces resistance by administrators,

7

teachers, and parents who see mobile devices as distractions, rather than bridges over the

digital divide. Unfortunately, this perception of the device helps perpetuate their reputation

as a distraction, and administrators who feel this way are preventing their classrooms from

being the vehicles by which these perceptions change.

These devices actually are a new form of text which students interact with constantly

. “It has been evident for many years that the proliferation of digital technologies has

resulted in an expanding range of textual forms. Many young people ­ and people who are

not so young ­ use electronic devices that are capable of producing a multiplicity of texts

that are different from traditional print texts.” (Henderson, 2011) Teachers who do not

acknowledge the significance and importance of these devices are at risk of stigmatizing

an entire form of literacy, and, in turn, stigmatizing those students who are most

comfortable with this form of literacy. And if teachers follow this dangerous line, students

themselves may neglect their positive, constructive potential. It will then become that much

harder to embrace technology and develop pedagogy which allows students to become

critical thinkers and critical readers.

8

3) Schools filter the internet, preventing students from learning how to be critical readers

of digital information.

This is probably the most difficult roadblock to bridging the digital divide. The

Internet is a scary place. There is an endless amount of misinformation, inappropriate

material, pornography, and distraction. It seems obvious schools to filter this out, ideally

leaving only what is appropriate for a classroom setting. In fact it is not just obvious, but law:

the Children’s Internet Protection Act of 2000 requires schools and libraries to put Internet

filters in place. (Children’s Internet Protection Act, 2000)

There is absolutely a place for Internet filters in schools. But there is a real downside

to them: by filtering the internet we prevent our students from becoming filters themselves,

able to criticize poor information and critically reject material that is manipulative,

misleading or inappropriate. How can our students develop these skills if they are not given

the opportunity to see what bad information looks like? They will, at a point in their lives,

9

enter a world in which filters do not exist. If we do not prepare them, they will be at a

disadvantage.

It is also naive to assume that our students do not currently have unfiltered access to

the Internet on their phones or mobile devices. “Don't let assumptions such as school­wide

filters go unchallenged as if the students can't circumvent them easily just by hopping on

their data plan.” (Abram, 2014) Filters themselves are ineffective, as long as students have

their own unfettered access via mobile devices.

Impact and Implications

These three issues have serious implications for education, especially for the

librarian. The most pressing one is relevance. If the point of public education is to prepare

our children for college and beyond, and the point of a school library is to facilitate real

knowledge, we are doing students a disservice by pretending the Internet doesn’t exist, or

that it isn’t the wild, untamed place it actually is. If the Internet will be something so central in

their academic and professional lives, the digital divide will not manifest itself in an

absence of technology, but in the inability of disadvantaged users to judge credibility.

Stephen Abrams’ article “Preparing our schools for the BYOD world” contains a

wealth of good information on how to educate students as to the proper use of their

devices. He describes a fourth­grade class taught by his wife, in a school without wi­fi.

The class knows she has access to websites, Wikipedia, and more on her phone, so they insist on exploring their lessons collaboratively. She works the edges of a locked­down school. Even in primary school, the kids have phones, access, gaming devices, and more. The challenge isn't locking them down but disciplining knowledge about appropriate use and timing.

10

Deciding to ignore this by pretending that it's locked down doesn't endow these kids with the skills they need to learn. (Abrams, 2014)

Librarians can learn from this. A device­free library is antiquated and out of touch. Children

might not take it seriously if it ignores the most common portal for access, especially in

disadvantaged communities: the cell phone. I would also add that ignoring the academic

potential of mobile technology, or worse, actively condemning it, stigmatizes phones as

useless for academic or professional pursuits, and renders them solely as gaming and

communications devices. This kind of library might end up perpetuating a digital divide just

as badly as one where certain students have no devices at all.

Librarians are positioned to help bridge the divide between students and their

teachers. They need to be involved with curriculum mapping and unit planning, so that they

can accommodate teachers by suggesting ways of incorporating technology into their

lessons. They should provide space and access to students who may need a place to use

a device in order to complete an assignment, whether that device is the school’s or their

own. And the goal should not be just to use technology in the classrooms ­ librarians should

always have in mind the goal of increasing literacy, so that the content of the lesson

includes the use of the technology itself. It is not enough to give a student an app and call it

a day ­ the use of that app should elucidate some kind of higher order thinking which

increases understanding of the app itself and its relevance.

Librarians should also take advantage of their students’ natural inclinations towards

games. “...in environments where all children have a digital device, they have thousands of

games at their fingertips. Rather than compete with these technologies, libraries should

support game­based learning by providing spaces that allow for play, collaboration, and

11

kinesthetic learning experiences.” (Lagarde & Johnson, 2014) Video and board games

are a natural tool to help tactile learners, and librarians can catalogue games which they

can link to curriculum just as they can catalogue books.

Librarians should also work with administration to determine a policy of use. As it is

naive to assume that kids do not have access to unfiltered Internet, it is also naive to

assume that they will not be distracted when allowed to use their phones in class. This

policy should clearly explain what the expectations for the students are in the classroom,

consequences for deviating from those expectations, and what the pedagogical

justification is for allowing something that many parents, administrators and teachers might

not fully understand.

Eventually, the digital natives will be the teachers. But we should not wait for that era

to begin enhancing literacy across all spectrums.

A Librarian’s Story

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times. But mostly the worst of times. The

end of the marking period was coming, which meant every student writing a paper at the

last minute was ready to bring the school’s wi­fi to a crawl. Soon the library would be

flooded with anxious students.

They started trickling in at 9:04 AM. They’re either off this period or cutting, Mr.

Schulman thought. Several of them needed help finding books; thankfully there were a pair

of intrepid library assistants at hand to direct his patrons to the proper shelves. Another

student was diligently Googling “Why did World War Two happen?” and cutting and pasting

12

text from answers.yahoo.com. Mr. Schulman patiently directed her to Gale and returned to

his desk.

The pace of students in need of help accelerated. Mr. Schulman was mostly

occupied with a small group who needed a reintroduction to Proquest, while his assistants

spread throughout the room. When he was satisfied that this group could work on their own,

he wandered over to a boy working quietly on a PC.

Mr. Schulman had not seen this child in the library so far this year. “What can I help

you with?” He asked.

The student, a ninth grader whose name was Nemo, was opened to a blank page in

Microsoft Word. “I have to write a story showing setting, conflict, rising action, climax, and

denouement. But I have no idea how to start it.”

“Well, what is it going to be about?” Mr. Schulman asked.

“I’m trying to choose between a dinosaur and a real estate lawyer.”

“Those aren’t stories.” Mr. Schulman said. “They’re characters.”

“I know.” Nemo replied. “See how bad I am at this?”

“You need to just nail down a conflict. That’s the best way to start. You’re probably

better off writing about the dinosaur. It’s a bit more compelling.”

“If you say so.”

Mr. Schulman pointed to the computer screen. “Why don’t you start by listing the

beats of the story. What happens at each stage?”

13

“Well, first of all, the dinosaur is a T. Rex. The biggest, baddest T. Rex of them all.

But the problem is that he’s a vegetarian. So all the other T. Rexes are out gobbling up

stegasaurs and triceratops and brontosaurs…”

“Brontosaurs aren’t really dinosaurs.”

“Whatever. This is fiction. So they’re all having a big Bronto BBQ, when Tony…”

“Tony?”

“Tony T. Rex. He’s kind of working the wall, trying to hide the fact that his plate is full

of side dishes of extinct plant matter rather than dino flesh. It’s delicious but obviously no

one else will understand. So he’s pretty sad about the whole thing…”

Nemo continued to tell a thrilling story about Tony’s escape from the BBQ to a valley

where he fell in love with Betty Bronto, an herbivore with a heart of gold. They survived the

mutual disapproval of their families and settled down in a little place in Gondwanaland, and

they lived happily ever after, at least until a comet landed on earth and wiped out all

non­avian life.

“That was great!” Mr. Schulman said. “Though the end is kind of a downer. Why

don’t you write down what you just told me?”

“It’s not easy. It’s like I freeze up whenever I get close to a keyboard. Telling the story

is nothing, my sister and I pretend to have radio shows at home all the time. We record

ourselves telling the dumbest stories.”

“I have an idea.” Mr. Schulman said. “Do you have a cell phone?”

“Are you going to take it from me? If I take this out it’s my third violation, I lose it for a

month.”

14

“Don’t worry, I’m not going to write this up. Do you have EverNote?”

Mr. Schulman showed Nemo how this particular app could be used not only to

convert speech to text, but could also be shared across the cloud so the resulting document

could be accessed from any device.

When the app was downloaded, Nemo told the story again. This time, the

characters were bolder, the situations were tenser, the love story was more romantic, the

climactic battle against Tony’s stepfather was more climactic, and the resolution was

sweeter. The meteor narrowly missed the Earth, and mammalia never reigned supreme in

the absence of the tyrant lizards.

EverNote recorded his story word for word. The text was there, in front of him, on his

phone.

“Wow! So how do I get this to the computer?”

“Just sign in to EverNote on the computer and copy and paste into your word

processor. Or, if you want, you can do it on your phone and email it to your teacher.”

The assignment was done. Nemo, who was much better communicating orally,

managed to fulfill the requirements of the lesson with a tool in his own mobile device which

accommodated his particular learning style.

Later that day, when everything slowed down, Mr. Schulman emailed Nemo’s

teacher. He explained how Nemo’s phone acted as a powerful tool to help broaden his own

literacy, by treating his verbal prowess as just significant a method of delivery as manual

writing. His grade, his self confidence, and his enjoyment all grew significantly.

Score another win for the library!

15

References

Abram, S. (2014). Preparing Our Schools for the BYOD World. Internet@Schools, 21(2),

10­11,4. Retrieved September 14, 2014, from ProQuest Central.

Children's Internet Protection Act, § 254­1B (2000).

Dornisch, M. (2013). The Digital Divide in Classrooms: Teacher Technology Comfort and

Evaluations. Computers in the Schools, 30(3), 210­228. doi:

10.1080/07380569.2012.734432

Henderson, R. (2011, August). Classroom pedagogies, digital literacies and the

home­school digital divide. International Journal of Pedagogies & Learning, 6(2),

152­161. Retrieved September 14, 2014, from ProQuest Central.

Lagarde, J., & Johnson, D. (2014, June). Why Do I Still Need a Library When I Have One in

My Pocket? The Teacher Librarian's Role in 1:1/BYOD Learning Environments.

Teacher Librarian, 41(5), 40­44. Retrieved September 14, 2014, from ProQuest

Central.

Mao, C. (2014). Research on Undergraduate Students' Usage Satisfaction of Mobile

Learning. Creative Education, 5, 614­618.

http://dx.doi.org.libezproxy2.syr.edu/10.4236/ce.2014.58072

Mccollum, S. (2011, October). Getting Past the 'Digital Divide'. The Education Digest,

77(2), 52­55. Retrieved September 14, 2014, from ProQuest Central.

Ravitch, D. (2007). Edspeak: A glossary of education terms, phrases, buzzwords, and

jargon. Alexandria, VA: Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development.

16