Will Free Benefit the Rich? How Free and Open Education Might Widen Digital Divides
I listened in to this Berkman Center event yesterday, Jan 17th. The presenter examined 255 public K-12 educational wikis from pbwiki’s from 2008 to 2011 and analyzed the data evaluated with a tool that he created to examine wikis that contained content that lead to the development of 21st century skills in K-12 students and whether these wikis were from high income or low income schools.
Take aways from the study he presented include:
- Material that is shared in OER’s is more likely to be used in higher income schools. Data driven design will be driven by interests, reactions, needs of higher income folks.
- Ed tech raises demands – raises the bar on schools and teachers
- Rising Tide raises all boats – After a lag where tech is adopted in higher income schools it will eventually trickle down to lower income schools – social programs that have been successful benefit everyone rather than just one group. The first job of OER is to address the needs of the people who are likely to vote for them. A correlation is equity is a result of investing in systems that benefit all students.
- Open ed resources are not harming lowering income schools
The event was recorded and the archive is available here: http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/events/luncheon/2012/01/reich
1 comment so far
- 1-19-2012
Lately when I think of schools using free or low-cost web tools like moodle and pbwiki, I keep thinking about Facebook. Its use has skyrocketed among a younger tier of students. I’m not sure how widespread it isin low-income school districts, but that will likely depend on how much access young people have to computers and smart phones. It will more likely deter students from their learning and academics, rather than support it–unless the use of wikis and collaborative discussions can divert attention and give kids some of that “connected” feeling they long for with their peers.