A Teacher’s Thoughts

Having done this twice now I will call it an annual survey. I did not elaborate on last year’s questions. Students were asked if they used a small variety of tools. With the beginning of the school year, I did not have time to revise the survey. Last year I wanted to get a handle on how connected my students were. This year is much the same. The simple informal, formative assessment of watching kids log on to the network and navigate is very telling. But as we are all creatures of habit, I have found that the picture can be a little more complex. Last year’s results can be seen here. So here are the results:

Overall 93% of my students are reporting home internet access this year. This result is up slightly from last year. Like last year I did not ask about broadband vs. dialup, which is still an issue in our area. Some students reported not always having home internet access. The percentage of students with cellphones and ipod/mp3 players came in at 73%, which is about the same as last year. Students with their own email accounts was up about 10% from last year at 86%. Lastly the number of students using a popular social networking site, either Myspace or Facebook was 41%. That is down from last year at about 55%.
Implications
At 93% of students with access at home and knowing that the remaining students have free nearby access at one of the public libraries, I feel comfortable requiring some online work from home. In addition there is some available time during the day to help those students who need access. Reliance on email is still not an option since too many students do not have an account. Of course there are other means of communicating assignments and needed documents.

Cellphones still are too far from ubiquitous to be really useful. Last year when we did the ROV simulation that fact was made apparent when we had difficulty getting enough phones together for our groups. Middle school students of course don’t have independent streams of income from part-time jobs as many high school students do so whether or not a student has a phone is probably entirely dependent on his/her parents.

The most interesting aspect of the 41% of students with a social networking account is that at the time of the survey, the percent of students old enough to meet the terms of service was less than 41%. I wonder how many parents really know what their kids are up to online. I expect for most it is very little. I am always reassured when I talk to students and find that their parents are on their friend list. Parents, if your child is on MySpace, Facebook, or other social site then you should be too.

The question now is what to add to the survey. I would like to know more about my student’s online activities. I do know a fair amount just from talking to the kids, for example online gaming and MySpace stories make it to school regularly. But what else do they do? What would you ask? Any suggestions?