When Students Can’t Compute — Campus Technology

• When Students Can’t Compute — Campus Technology

  Computer basics for the community college student or they will flounder and fail. Provide community college students with laptops, hotspots, and training from fellow students.

  tags: education learning mooc online education distance education students technology

  • such students are outnumbered by those who are older, working, and often have families of their own.

  • college courses migrate toward a variety of tech-enabled models–blended, flipped, online, and MOOC–students who lack basic computer skills pose significant challenges for instructors and institutions alike.

  • the biggest problem facing community colleges may be one of straightforward access

  • But just because students, particularly low-income learners, have a device doesn’t mean they have appropriate access to educational resources.

  • The Pew study showed that only 78 percent of community college students had broadband at home and could connect wirelessly.

  • However, only 37 percent of adults without high school diplomas and 57 percent of high school grads have broadband connections at home, compared with 89 percent of college grads.

  • Pew’s definition of broadband as any connection with 4 Mpbs for downloads and 1 Mbps for uploads is "absurd," adding that such low speeds are ill suited to a "first-class interactive education."

  • "I really saw the difference between the students who had good computers and those who just had word-processing computers,"

  • They simply didn’t have computers. They didn’t have internet access at home. They come from homes that don’t have that kind of luxury."

  • Chandler-Gilbert Community College (AZ), for example, has equipped about 30 percent of its 170 classrooms with computers for student use.

  • Maintenance and provisioning are the responsibility of the school, not the student.

  • Cheal says, but notes that this expense is just the tip of the iceberg. It’s the monthly broadband fees that are the crushing expense–assuming, of course, that broadband is even available.

  • in spite of its metro setting, the District of Columbia has "large pockets" of housing without easy or affordable access to high-speed internet.

  • The SmartSpots couldn’t keep up with the streaming demands of the school’s new curriculum platform, which involves more video and interactivity–and more bandwidth.

  • For now, students will either have to provide their own internet access or utilize the school’s computer labs or library.

  • But access is just one of the barriers to making online learning available to all. Whatever Prensky may have said back in 2001, some students are still not sufficiently proficient to succeed in today’s digital learning environment.

  • Without intervention, a lack of basic technical know-how could have prevented the student from completing her program of studies, even though she had the necessary equipment.

  • The average student at UDC-CC’s center is 36 and lives in areas of high unemployment or underemployment. Many students have their GEDs or high school diplomas, but they’re not necessarily at a high school level for reading or math.

  • To get a job, though, students also need to know computer basics. That’s certainly the message from businesses looking to hire graduates of the center’s certificate and degree programs

  • Unfortunately, many CWS students need to start from a point of almost no understanding.

  • Infusing elements of computer literacy throughout the curriculum definitely helps, but it’s not a complete solution.

  • Because the students had so little computer experience, however, the instructors couldn’t complete the training in time and the students failed.

  • the center decided to craft its own solution based on a Moodle platform provided by a third party.

  • "We learned that in 27 hours you can get someone to the point where they can do fine in an online adult basic education environment."

  • the school has also learned that what tech newbies learn in a computer lab does not always transfer to home use.

  • . For a segment of Americans, the digital walls of Coursera, Udacity, and edX look as daunting as the ivy-covered towers ever did, and it’s going to take a concerted educational effort–and better broadband access–to bring them down.

  • "It’s going to continue to be surprising that our students don’t have these skills,"

  • "Digital literacy, digital divide, inequality–all those terms come and go, and funding mechanisms for them come and go,

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