Pew Technology Research
A recent survey by the Pew Internet & American Life Project sheds new light on US middle school and high school teachers findings that digital technologies have become central to their teaching and profession.
At the same time, the Internet, cellphones, and social media bring new challenges to educators, and they report striking differences in access to digital technologies between lower and higher income students and districts.
Impact of the Internet & Digital Tools
These teachers say the following about the overall impact on their teaching and their classroom work:
- 92% of these teachers say the internet has a “major impact” on their ability to access content, resources, and materials for their teaching
- 69% say the internet has a “major impact” on their ability to share ideas with other teachers
- 67% say the internet has a “major impact” on their ability to interact with parents and 57% say it has had such an impact on enabling their interaction with students.
Lowest Income Students Face More Challenges
The survey finds that digital tools are widely used in classrooms and assignments, and a majority of these teachers are satisfied with the support and resources they receive from their school in this area.
However, it also indicates that teachers of the lowest income students face more challenges in bringing these tools to their classrooms:
- Mobile technology has become central to the learning process, with 73% of AP and NWP teachers saying that they and/or their students use their cell phones in the classroom or to complete assignments
- More than four in ten teachers report the use of e-readers (45%) and tablet computers (43%) in their classrooms or to complete assignments
- 62% say their school does a “good job” supporting teachers’ efforts to bring digital tools into the learning process, and 68% say their school provides formal training in this area
- Teachers of low income students, however, are much less likely than teachers of the highest income students to use tablet computers (37% v. 56%) or e-readers (41% v. 55%) in their classrooms and assignments
- Similarly, just over half (52%) of teachers of upper and upper-middle income students say their students use cell phones to look up information in class, compared with 35% of teachers of the lowest income students
- Just 15% of AP and NWP teachers whose students are from upper income households say their school is “behind the curve” in effectively using digital tools in the learning process; 39% who teach students from low income households describe their school as “behind the curve”
- 70% of teachers of the highest income students say their school does a “good job” providing the resources needed to bring digital tools into the classroom; the same is true of 50% of teachers working in low income areas
- Teachers of the lowest income students are more than twice as likely as teachers of the highest income students (56% v. 21%) to say that students’ lack of access to digital technologies is a “major challenge” to incorporating more digital tools into their teaching