This article looks into the lives of teens as well as grade school children who do not have access to the internet at home, but however have school work that relies on the internet for completion and submission. Some of the solutions children themselves have come up with is to sit on the sidewalk next to a school and connect to the wifi outside of the school, go over to friends' houses who have wifi, take longer bus rides home upwards of three hours just to complete homework using the bus's wifi, and also to stay at the school until late in the evening to complete their work. While schools and students are working to make this situation better for those who do not have internet at home, it has not been enough to help them in the long run.
As a teacher said, "we must use the internet in the classroom and school work to prepare the students for what they will face in the future." With this being said however, something must be done in order to make it easier for students to complete their work without having to do so much extra work. The increasing divide we are seeing is being deemed the "homework gap." In order to try and combat this the Lifeline Plan has been drafted which would subsidize broadband services for low income families. However, a similar program was established in 1985 and some believe this plan was drastically wasted and abused. Therefore, this plan has received a lot of criticism and has not yet been decided on.
However the fact still remains, these children need access to the internet in order to complete their education and as it currently stands they are not able to receive the help they need. Do you think the Lifeline Plan is a good idea if it is established with more monitoring of internet activity? Or do you think this problem should be dealt with another way through potentially transporting children to libraries and other public places that have free internet services for a certain amount of time and then returned home upon completion?
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/02/23/technology/fcc-internet-access-school.html?hp&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&clickSource=story-heading&module=second-column-region®ion=top-news&WT.nav=top-news&_r=0
I think that the Lifeline Plan is a good idea. It will likely be costly, but is completely unfair to force students to stay hours longer just so that they can complete their homework. The Lifeline Plan will be costly, and those with internet access already will call it a waste, but in the end it will be beneficial to students without internet access.
ReplyDeleteI think that there is definitely an advantage gap in one's ability to have access to wifi when it comes to schoolwork. I think that the Lifeline Plan is a good idea as well, as it levels the playing field among all the students, not leaving some with a disadvantage. The hard part will be to monitor it and make sure that the plan is not being abused by some. Regardless, one should not be penalized if their family situation does not allow them to have access to the internet.
ReplyDeleteI agree with the points bought up by Van Dyke and Chris, the Lifeline Plan would be costly but effective and it would help facilitate a system that can give younger kids a solid chance of achieving success in the future, which is good because building better minds helps the overall productivity of the economy.
ReplyDeleteYeah I agree it would be a good move for the Lifeline Plan, but maybe the alternative could be a possibility too. Lifeline plan may be fairly expensive, and it could private support to the children somewhat immediately. It's unfortunate how technological changes, increased taxes and a lot of other issues are especially difficult for those in a lower socioeconomic status.
ReplyDeleteI think that this Lifeline plan would be a great idea if they could figure out a way to do it cheaply. The article mentions how something like this was proposed in the 80's but it was abused. I would like to see where how it was abused. Maybe this new plan would restrict access to certain parts of the internet. Therefore, these services would allow cheaper internet access for strictly educational purposes. Overall I think it is very important for everyone to use the internet and it will only become a bigger part of daily life in the future. This program will not show success in the short run, but in the long run, when these children grow up they will have skill sets that allow them to be more productive in the workforce.
ReplyDelete