Day 15: Who should get the computers

So I had a reply to my post that I didn't moderate until today because I was so busy yesterday. The commenter makes a good point, and I can see how it was taken out of context. The recommendations of the author wasn't that the only people who should get priority on the computers be those who will eventually grow up to be computer programmers, but instead that educational policy should instead dictate that students who are at risk get more access to the computers in the schools because they are the ones that would benefit most.

The author goes on to say that those with learning disabilities who might benefit from seeing the material in another way or would need to hear the information in order to process it and those who are low achievers - that the drastic gains in these students' achievement is worth not giving universal access to all of the rest of the normal/high achieving students.

I have another friend who is a teacher for the gifted who might argue that her special needs students would also need access to technology in order to better challenge them. I'm not entirely sure where the line should be drawn, as it's an issue of educational policy.

Understand that the reason I embark on this study is not to prove that technology in education is bad, or that the educators out there are idiots; my intent really is to focus on whether or not having the opportunity to play with the technology is giving people the necessary day-to-day business skills that we take for granted. If it is true, this means that we run the risk of increasing the educational gap between those who can afford this tool (the middle class on upward) and those who can't.

In a global society that is increasingly comprised of haves and have-nots, we begin to see that public policy must shift in order to improve the economic health of any given country.

I'm in the process of doing more literature review, and the information I've read so far is thought-provoking. I'll share more once I get more information to process. The survey seems to have slowed down a bit, with just over 330 results. I am fully satisfied with the number of results so far. Thanks to all who have responded!

The survey will remain open for another week, just in case anyone still wants to take it. :)

Day 13: 300!

We hit 300 posts last night with the survey. I am quite happy with the results, and hope that more come pouring in over the next week or so that we have left. I've been doing my literature review, which talks about equity, but came upon this quote in one book full of case studies on technology use in education in America:

"Recommendation #1: Focus computer use on students who will benefit most; don’t dilute the value of computers by insisting that all students have equal access."

That's kind of an interesting tactic to take about it, but he does explain it quite a bit. Something to think about... opinions?

Day 11: And we hit the magic number 200

I guess no one caught that my last day was actually misnumbered - it was supposed to be Day 9, but I miscounted. So here I am on Day 11. I've been watching the numbers creep up all day as people I sent Emails to sent Emails to their friends and family. As of about five minutes ago, we hit the magic number of 200, which was my minimum. However, don't despair - I am planning to keep it open until the 22nd, because you can never have enough data. I would be absolutely ecstatic if we hit 500 responses from around the world, and I would be swimming in data the last week before my paper is due (and my presentation is up and running).

There's something eminently satisfying about having the numbers go up and up and up (especially since at the time my bugs were going down and down and down), so I thought I would go ahead and reveal the results of one of the surveys:

Where did you first learn how to use the phone?

Some friends who took the survey (from a mailing list I'm on) started asking themselves this question. I shared with them the numbers I had so far, and a couple of people said they had learned how to use the phones themselves. As I recall, the conversation went something vaguely like this: "I just pushed lots of buttons until I got someone and said, 'Hello?'" The wonders of a small child... I'm hiding all my phones from my future children until they know their letters and numbers.

So this is where we are with that question:

I do not know how to use the phone	1% (2)
I figured it out on my own/read instructions on my own	45% (86)
I was taught how to use it in a class	0% (0)
Someone else (not in a class) taught me how to use it	25.7% (49)
I don't remember	24.1% (46)
Other:	4.2% (8)

Day 8: The wonders of Internet social networking

So I IMed everyone that was online and sent Emails to a number of different mailing lists I'm on. I'm very excited, because in the last 3 hours, we've managed to garner 46 responses. So far, we have respondents who went to school in:

England - 1
Canada - 3
Germany - 1
New Zealand - 1
Australia - 6 (woot!)
Korea - 1
Hong Kong - 1
Taiwan - 1

United States:
California - 18
Colorado - 1
Florida - 1
Kentucky - 1
Louisiana - 1
Washington - 1
Ohio - 2
Maryland - 1
North Carolina - 1
Texas - 2.5
New York - 1.5
Georgia - 1

So you can see, we're pretty California centric. But it also shows a little about the variety of people who are being pointed in this direction. I'm excited, and will be sending out more Emails to more friends and acquaintaces as time goes on.

Day 8: Slow week

Well, I spent most of the week working on other stuff and working on my literature review. All of the books are now in my room, ready to be read. I've cracked open a grand total of one so far, but it's been interesting reading.

Most importantly, I got back some feedback from my professor (but didn't get any afterward), and after a little bit of editing, here it is:

http://www.surveymonkey.com/s.asp?u=165762519174

Just in general, if you're reading this, you've already taken the survey. But if you haven't taken the survey, please do! The quality of my results really depends on those who respond.

Day 4: Books, books, and more books

I just had a blizzard of events these past two days, and almost none of them were related to the research project. Except, of course, for Saturday afternoon, where I spent a solid three hours tracking down books at the university library. Twenty books later (half of which are still in my car, of course), I am slightly closer to finishing my literature review. For example, the books that have made it into my house (and out of the trunk):

• Pflaum, W. The Technology Fix: The Promise and Reality of Computers in Our Schools
  
• Goyder, J. Technology + Society: A Canadian Perspective
  
• Pogrow, S. Education in the Computer Age
  
• Perelman, M. Class Warfare in the Information Age
  
• Loader, B. Cyberspace Divide: Equality, Agency and Policy in the Information Society
  
• Haywood, T. Info-Rich, Info-Poor: Access and Exchange in the Global Information Society
  
• Nickerson, R. and Zodhiates, P. Technology in Education: Looking Toward 2020
  
• Muffoletto, R., Knupfer, N. Computers in Education: Social, Political, and Historical Perspectives
  
• Kennewell, S. Meeting the Standards in Using ICT for Secondary Teaching
  

Just to think, there is more scintillating reading waiting for me in the car!

My hope is that I will finish my literature review by the time my boyfriend flies in to visit for the weekend (22 Sep).

Well, a girl can always hope.

Day 1: Just got paid/Friday night

The idea for this blog came, as all my great ideas happen, in the shower. I was brainstorming about how great it would be if people could actually see my analysis and the summary of the research I was doing, and what better way to do that than in a blog? The only thing that would be better, I decided, is if they could track the progress of the survey - how many respondents and from how many countries - over the course of a couple of weeks. Well, that naturally degenerated into a number of different musings as to whether or not people would read it, how I was going to disseminate the survey, and all that rot.

So let me back up a little bit here. It's Day 1 of my research project - at least, of my official research project for this course I'm taking. I'm working on my masters degree, and if everything goes right, I'll be graduating with my Masters in Education (fat lot of good that's going to do me, working in high tech) next spring. I'm taking it distance learning, which means that a significant amount of my work is to be done... (that's right) on my own, online.

This semester, the as-of-yet-unnamed university in Southern California (doesn't matter that I tell you that, because I'm taking it distance learning, remember) was nice enough to schedule my two classes (6 units) serially instead of in parallel. For those of you who aren't familiar with the terminology, it means that I finish one course before I start the next one. That's a lovely thing in and of itself, because it means that I theoretically won't have to do homework for the first one by the time the second one starts. That killed me the last time I attempted something like this.

The corollary of it all, however, is that I have to now do a research project for a Research and Statistics class in (now) just under four weeks. I was offered opportunities to work with other people on it, but given my schedule and my own desire to work on a quantitative project instead of a qualitative one (numbers-based survey vs. an essay-based survey), I decided to strike it out on my own.

Actually, Inspiration struck first - and I do mean that in a capital I sense. During the drive home from my class (we meet about twice a semester for the classes, and the rest is done online), I was mulling over one conversation I had with my professor just as he was leaving. It was about technology and its applications in high school. However, it suddenly struck me that my technology education was, for the most part, ad hoc until I hit university. I was privileged by rank and relative wealth to many of my compatriots, most of which couldn't match my 85 wpm typing skills and my ability to take apart a computer at will.

On a side note, please remember that not all the screws come out of the back of a computer. If you take them all out, you might have done damage to your power supply. (Take that from someone who learned it the hard way.)

So this was the basis of my research project. Where has technology education fit into the lives of each generation? That being said, I'm searching for people of many different generations - those currently in school, those recently graduated, those who blush to remember how long ago their university years were, and those who view it through the eyes of their children (and beyond) - to answer an anonymous survey about what technology one needs in the workplace (and has needed) in order to help me better understand the trends in education.

Don't worry, this study will be partnered with many weekends in a neighboring university's education library. I'm not trying to slack off, really.

I called my professor this morning to remind him that he hadn't managed to approve my topic. After a brief conversation, I got my topic approved. So this is why today, Friday, September 1, is Day 1, and why I spent my Friday night (after a payday) at home, working on homework, talking to my boyfriend on the phone and muttering randomly about variables and such.

Oh well, at least I got most of it done.