HP Innovation Journal Issue 15: Summer 2020 | Page 50

Acceleration of Change
Education
WATCH THE WAY
WE WORK NOW, A
NEW VIDEO
SERIES, ON THE
GARAGE BY HP.
More than 56 million children and their teachers in
the United States abruptly switched to remote education
this spring due to the global pandemic. Now
educators like Keena have an opportunity to be more
thoughtful about what online education could be and
should be. She plans to offer similar online assignments
when school resumes in the fall—in whatever form it
might take.
Teachers are working hard to create new types of lessons,
school districts are investing in more technology,
and industry partners are stepping in to help fill some of
the gaps. While online education runs the risk of leaving
some students behind due to a lack of technology
and connectivity, it also has the potential to engage all
students in new ways, including offline solutions and
individualized learning opportunities.
Bridging the digital divide
Keena felt better prepared than many of her fellow
teachers to switch to remote learning because she had
already created a largely paperless classroom. And Lone
Star, which is an HP Spotlight School, provides each of
its 840 middle schoolers with access to their own device
during the school year.
But that’s not the case for all students. While the
number of one-to-one schools where every student has
access to a device is steadily growing, only around 75%
of all K–12 schools in the United States have enough laptops
or tablets for every student. Many also lack access
to a computer at home, or have to share a single device
with their family. Schools also provide connectivity that
might be lost in the shift to remote learning—more than
9 million children lack internet access at home, according
to the National Center for Education Statistics.
Dr. Karen Srba, an education professor at Saint
Francis University in Pennsylvania, says the technology
gap is particularly acute in rural areas. She works
closely with K–12 teachers who have many students
that are unable to participate in online learning due
to living in remote locations without broadband.
Some students can only get online on their phone, and
others might have to drive several miles to get a Wi-Fi
signal to download emails and assignments. “Teachers
have had to find ways of delivering course materials
house-to-house to be able to get these students access
to their coursework,” she says.
Students aren’t the only ones struggling with functioning
in a virtual classroom. Srba adds that many
teachers had not had training in how to teach remotely
prior to the pandemic and struggled with creating
meaningful learning experiences at the same time they
were managing virtual classrooms for the first time. To
help address this gap in Pennsylvania, Saint Francis has
been offering two free online courses with strategies for
teachers on how to move online quickly.
Teachers are looking at scenarios such as how to
teach two or more groups of students if classes are
split up, and hybrid learning models. Another issue the
training addresses is how teachers can support parents
who are having to take the lead in learning at home. A
concrete suggestion is the use of an interactive syllabus,
for instance on Google Classroom or even just a simple
Microsoft Word document, that allows parents to find
all the information they need in one place.
Learning from students
Technology is a tool that is relied upon to deliver remote
learning, but it’s not a solution in and of itself, says
S. Craig Watkins, a professor at the University of Texas
at Austin who is an expert on young people’s engagement
with media and technology. “There’s a tendency
to think that the mere presence of technology is an indicator
that advanced learning is happening,” he says.
Watkins says that educators can become more
effective by paying attention to how students use technology
on their own. Watkins’s research has shown
that students are extremely interested in learning
how to do things and solve problems, regardless of
whether they are at home or at school. He also notes
that remote learning doesn’t have to require consistent
access to broadband.
Martinez enjoys doing interactive video lessons, but
some of her classmates prefer reading articles. “Not
everybody’s the same, and we all get to choose what
works best for us,” she says.
“One of the things we’ve noticed in this forced experiment
with remote learning is that for many students
and families, there are still technical barriers in terms
of access,” says Watkins. “That’s a noteworthy challenge.
But this is an opportunity to figure out how we
can better leverage technology to support deep and
meaningful learning.”
He says that schools have often failed to take advantage
of students’ desire to create and exercise some
degree of autonomy over their own learning. “If we can
figure out a way to leverage that, I think the learning
opportunities could be really interesting,” he says.
Bringing together high tech and low tech
Some potential solutions leverage technology to deliver
content to students on paper. In some rural school districts,
buses that deliver free meals are also dropping off
INNOVATION/ SUMMER 2020
48