Use+of+Technology+in+Poor+Inner-City+Neighborhoods-+Keaton+Nichols


 * Question**: I would like to know how if at all technology is being used in inner-city school to educate children there. I would like to know this because there is a clear gap in the quality of education in these schools as opposed to ones outside the city. Technology can be used in many ways to explore the vast world of education and can often be the key to a child's success.


 * I wonder:** I want to know if there are deficiencies in the amount of technology these kids are receiving because of their location. Can this be directly related to the drop out rate and low test scores? Are there any programs interested in helping these schools and kids out, at least monetarily?


 * Plan:** I will start by searching for after school programs that help city school kids by giving them opportunities to use technology for learning. I will also interview persons here in Philadelphia who handle this sort of thing to get their perspective on whether or not there are enough after-school programs and if they are effective or not. Also ask them if there are any future plans to implement more programs to keep these kids in school and out of trouble. Then I will do research through Temple's database to see technologies effectiveness on teaching kids. Also I will research exactly how wide the education gap is between city kids and others.


 * Expectations:** I expect to learn what reasons lead to a lower quality of education in city schools. I expect to learn how technology can fix those issues. I expect to learn what is being done about that now, and what is planned for the future.

GREENLIGHTED. You will want to see a high-functioning high school that's making active use of technology. Science Leadership Academy, the school featured in the PBS video we viewed is located at 21st and Arch. See Doug Herman or Diana Laufenberg to arrange a visit. Check out the amazing Camden program called HOPEWORKS. And then reach out to Edison Freire, technology head for the Philadelphia Public Schools for a frank conversation on what's happening --- and what's not happening in city schools.

This article was the summation of a study the author, K.C. Nat Turner, conducted in an inner city school in California that she named Fannon Middle School (not actual name according to article). The program occurred after school and was aimed at teaching kids how to analyze, critique and produce their own media, a concept very different from the traditional learning that usually goes on at the school.

The school itself was in a pretty bad neighborhood. Most of the kids and their families lived below the poverty line. Three-quarters of the school kids received reduced or free lunches and the same amount, according to California State Testing were below average in English and Math skills. Eighty-Seven percent of the school was African American.

She focused on three critical questions: What specific how-to ICT (Information Communication Technology) skills did students develop during the program? How does the acquisition of skills in the MMP (multimodial media production) process further students’ literacies, namely the

ability to interpret and produce texts? And, how does students’ understanding of the utility

of ICT literacies across contexts change?

She says new media literacies build on traditional elements of literacy like phonics, comprehension and writing. Today’s world requires students to “navigate complex semiotic systems and create new knowledge using new technology”. Even though the concept of ICT’s are new, humans have been using them for years to interpret different types of texts. In this new mediated world, things are no different.

 Outside of the typical school environment, kids use ICT’s for different purposes even if they don’t realize it to solve everyday problems. Schools don’t recognize this behavior as learning in most cases, rather recreational activity.

 She mentions that most under-resourced urban public school kids can’t fully comprehend and interpret the texts that are presented to them these days. Most of the kid’s motivation for participating in her group was to get a chance to improve their use of technology for real-life situations.

What she found was that on top of learning basic computer skills, kids in the program further developed their literacies to interpret and articulate their findings and use them across different contexts. The skills they learned helped them do other homework they were given as well. They learned to reflect on their communities and translate their personal experiences through ICT’s and express their findings through new media. A critical point she made was that “media, other than traditional reading and writing can be used to further students’ ability to interpret and produce texts.”

She found that the program benefitted kids even later in school who after interviewing them years later admitted that the skills they learned in the program during middle school greatly helped them still in high school.

__**Research Repsonse 1 - Nov. 15**__

**Sealey-Ruiz, Yolanda and Greene, Perry. (2011). Embracing Urban Youth Culture in the Context of Education. //Urban Review.// 43 (3), 339-357**. - This author is attacking the system in which inner-city schools see their children’s potential for learning. She believes it is not made for kids to succeed. In the article she says, “The adolescent years, the time when one’s effort to secure a sense of self is strongest, is the very time when many Black youth see their efforts muted and rejected by schools and larger society.” She goes on to mention that the achievement gap in education between poor Blacks and their peers is teacher perception which in turn interferes with their ability to properly teach them the skills they need. The see the kids as unable to handle what “normal” children of middle or upper class could. Expectations are much lower. She also says that schools should embrace the urban youth culture by creating a “culturally responsive school climate” that fits the needs of the students, meeting them where they are. This would help meet educational standards.

- Anthony Martin of Philadelphia founded a program called the Urban Youth Racing School whose goal it was to expose African American youth in the city to the motorsports industry. Martin recognizes that there are few African Americans involved in the multi-billion dollar industry that is motorsports today. Over 1,100 students had attended the workshop when this article was written in 2007. All of the students received free tuition to the program thanks to NASCAR, General Motors and Sprint/Nextel. (Each child’s cost was between four and five thousand dollars.) It wasn’t just fun and games for the kids however. Each student took a five week course teaching them important skills in math, reading and computer literacy along with their racing training before they got to drive on the real course (Go-Karts). The course taught them skills in the racing field that could be very lucrative to them later in life. Martin notes that this opportunity would not be available to these urban youth anywhere else.
 * Carrillo, Karen. (2007). Urban Youth Racing School Transforms Lives. //Crisis.// **


 * Goslee, Susan, Conte, Chris. (1998). <span style="color: #333333; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt;">Losing Ground Bit by Bit: Low-Income Communities in the Information Age. **

<span style="color: #333333; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt;">- The authors of this report give five aspects of the lack of technology in poor neighborhoods. The first chapter of the report explains that poorer communities have entered the technology information age far behind the rest of America and it has adverse effects on their neighborhoods. Richard Kreig, who is the Executive Director of the Institute for Metropolitan Affairs in Chicago is quoted in the article saying, “Despite limited empirical study of technology diffusion, it is clear that computerization, telecommunications and mass media are dramatically underrepresented in distressed urban areas.” <span style="color: #333333; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt;">The author supports the notion that individual decisions have little to do with this problem, rather the lack of infrastructure available to support such changes is to blame. These neighborhoods are much less likely to have any type of technology at all. David Birdsell conducted a study in which he found 53 percent of persons with an undergraduate degree or higher could use a computer while only 19 percent of high school graduates could. (This study was done in 1998)

<span style="color: #333333; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt;">The authors go on to explain that the obvious lack of resources is not the only thing to blame. The distribution of the technology is considered an economic domain, not public which means public funding for technology often faces many challenges. They say limiting the access to the technology can have a negative effect of society as a whole.

<span style="color: #333333; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt;">They note that poorer people tend to shy away from technology because it represents an unfamiliar territory for them. They don’t trust that sort of thing in their homes or schools if they don’t know what exactly the piece of technology is or how to use it.

Calvin,Thomas, (2014) Chicago State University Graduate Student

My question to academicians like K.C. Turner, twenty years after his study are inner city youth at a disadvantage when it comes to technology in 2014, Wow! DuSable, High School was the first school in Chicago to be connected to the Internet. Lets face it inner city schools and institutions have access to computers and good ones, to explore the realm of education. However, there appears to still be a digital divide and why! Indeed, allow me to answer my own question, Blame the teachers and spout "Why Johnny Can't Read" or holler as a sixties radial would "its the system man. For sure its all three and more. Lets face it when Johnny has a pair of 300 dollars Nikes on his or her feet. And a basic student computer system costs 250 dollars. <span style="color: #333333; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt;">FINAL PROJECT