With the exception of two focus groups of students selected to provide insights into the experiences of non- or light-Internet users, we spoke to students with a range of Internet skills and experiences\u2014from novices to frequent users to unabashed experts.\u00a0 While all the students in our groups use the Internet at school, often to conduct online research under teacher direction, most also use the Internet in other locations for significantly more time: at home, at a friend\u2019s house, at a relative\u2019s house, and, at the library or community center.<\/p>\n\n
Many of the students in our sample were casual users of the Internet.\u00a0 These students may have an email account or two and may frequent their favorite Web sites while online, but their comments sometimes indicated only a basic understanding and familiarity with the many potential uses of the Internet.\u00a0 That is not to say that the Internet was unimportant to them, just that they might be as likely to do school work offline as online.<\/p>\n\n
The students who were most striking to us, however, were those who were the most Internet savvy.\u00a0 Many of these students have been online for five or six years already; they are technologically literate; and they maintain multiple email addresses and instant messaging (IM) identities.\u00a0 While online, they frequently are multitasking:\u00a0 conducting research for a paper, printing an online study guide for a book they are reading, downloading music, instant messaging simultaneously with dozens of friends, emailing other friends, and preparing a PowerPoint presentation for class the next day. While they may not be online hours every day, these students rely heavily on the Internet for school and their social lives.\u00a0 The teen survey conducted by the Pew Internet & American Life suggests that perhaps 30% to 40% of teenagers fall into this Internet-savvy category. They represent a large and growing cohort of technologically-elite students.[10. numoffset=”10″ The Pew Internet & American Life Project (June 2001). Teenage Life Online; op. cit.]<\/p>\n\n
In fact, if you ask these students, as we did, what would happen to them if someone waved a magic wand and took their Internet access away, many would tell you\u2014in all seriousness\u2014that they would just die.<\/p>\n\n
What seems clear is that the experience of schooling recounted by many of the most Internet-savvy students in our group is fundamentally different from their parents.\u00a0 It is fundamentally different from their older siblings. Sometimes, it is fundamentally different even from their own classmates.\u00a0 Internet-savvy students believe that their use of the Internet helps them complete their schoolwork more quickly; prevents them from getting stymied by academic material they don\u2019t understand; lets them cite the most up-to-date material in their papers and projects; and, allows them to be better at juggling their school assignments and extracurricular activities.\u00a0 In essence, they told us they are better able to navigate their way through school and spend more time learning in depth about the things that are most important to them personally.<\/p>\n\n
According to these students, some of their teachers try to take advantage of the extra \u201csomething\u201d they seem to posses by asking them to share their skills and knowledge with their classmates. Other teachers try to limit these students and their Internet use in an attempt to reduce the very real differences between them and their less tech-savvy peers. Still other teachers are at a loss as to how to accommodate them or do not even recognize that their students have an increasingly new set of needs and expectations for learning that are based on using the Internet.<\/p>\n\n
These students said over and over that their schools and teachers have not yet recognized\u2014much less responded to\u2014the fundamental shift occurring in the students they serve and in the learning communities they are charged with fostering.\u00a0 And, when teachers and schools do react, often it is in ways that make it more difficult for students who have become accustomed to using the Internet to communicate and access information.<\/p>\n\n
In the sections that follow, we describe how Internet-savvy students think about the Internet, how they use it for school, and how they often experience barriers (real and perceived) to greater school-related use of the Internet.\u00a0 The paper concludes with several policy considerations that have been raised by the students themselves about how to exploit the Internet at school and in other learning situations.<\/p>\n\n
Internet-savvy students provided us with a rich portrait of how they use the Internet for school\u2014describing literally dozens of online learning activities.\u00a0 Virtually all use the Internet to do research to help them write papers or complete class work or homework assignments.\u00a0 Most students also correspond with other online classmates about school projects and upcoming tests and quizzes.\u00a0 They frequent Web sites pointed out to them by teachers\u2014some of which have even been set up specifically for a particular school or class.\u00a0 They communicate with online teachers or tutors. They participate in online study groups.\u00a0 They even take online classes and develop Web sites or online educational experiences for use by others.<\/p>\n\n
The ways in which Internet-savvy students speak about the Internet in relation to their schooling is closely related to the daily tasks and activities in their young lives.\u00a0 In other words, the Internet\u2019s value for students is determined by the tasks they need to complete, the things they enjoy, and the things they want to learn both in and out of school.<\/p>\n\n
There is no single way to describe how these students use the Internet for school.\u00a0 Rather, students make reference to five different metaphors for how they think about and use the Internet for school:<\/p>\n\n
These metaphors of how students think about the Internet are not mutually exclusive. They operate in a parallel fashion in their minds.\u00a0 The most Internet-savvy students\u2014particularly those that are the most industrious at multitasking\u2014are able to shift effortlessly and unconsciously among any or all of them during any one online session.<\/p>\n\n
It is this way\u2014really, these ways<\/i>\u2014of thinking about the Internet for school that separates these Internet-savvy students from their teachers, school administrators, and parents\u2014all those who seem to students to be struggling to figure out how to introduce the Internet into the educational ecosystem.<\/p>\n\n <\/a> Metaphor 1: The Internet as Virtual Textbook and Reference Library<\/b><\/p>\n\n Internet-savvy students told us that the online world offers many advantages over the alternatives\u2014school-issued textbooks and their school and community libraries.\u00a0 They said the Internet is much easier and more convenient to access than their school and community libraries.\u00a0 It is as close as the nearest Internet connection\u2014which is often in their homes\u2014and does not require a ride in a car or bus to get to.\u00a0 It is open late into the evenings, over the weekends, and over holidays.\u00a0 It is very important to them that online material is up-to-date (though of sometime dubious quality), always available to everyone (as distinct from a library book that might be checked out by a classmate), and is available on a vast array of interesting topics.<\/p>\n\n Students told us that school and community libraries have limited selections of multimedia, while online sites routinely offer downloadable graphic images, photographs, animations, video, and sound.\u00a0 School and community libraries require students to wait in line to check out books or other materials and pay to use a copier machine to duplicate important material for projects and reports.\u00a0 Material online, however, can be printed directly from the Internet onto a local printer.\u00a0 Reproducing material in reports and projects without the Internet requires students to re-type it or\u2014literally\u2014cut-and-paste it into a document with scissors and tape.\u00a0 Online material can be virtually cut-and-pasted directly into digital reports, presentations, and papers.\u00a0 And, students said, visiting the virtual library can be done while wearing pajamas, eating a snack, listening to music, chatting with friends (via instant messaging or email), and making sure your little brother or sister isn\u2019t getting into trouble while Mom or Dad is out running errands.<\/p>\n\n While many students rely on the Internet as a virtual textbook and reference library, it can also be a cause for frustration and anxiety.\u00a0 Perhaps the single greatest irritation facing students is their use of search engines that point them to online information that is not trustworthy or understandable to them.\u00a0 Students said that it is often hard to find information online that is specifically related to the topic they are exploring and comprehensible at their age and grade level.<\/p>\n\n When asked how they find material online, the students in our group said they turn first to commercial search engines on the Web, such as to: www.google.com<\/a>, www.yahoo.com<\/a>, and www.askJeeves.com<\/a> (or its companion site, www.ask.com<\/a>).\u00a0 With varying degrees of sophistication, they probe long lists of links that often contain many irrelevant sites.\u00a0 For some of the less Internet-savvy students, using these search engines quickly and efficiently can be a significant challenge.<\/p>\n\n Another frustration students encountered was that not all of the sources they would like to use are available online and some of those that students would like to use require a payment or subscription fee to be viewed, downloaded, or printed.\u00a0 Students also expressed concerns about frequent interruptions by online advertisements, many of which have distinctly adult overtones to them.\u00a0 The persistence of these distractions (especially their \u201cpush\u201d aspects as evidenced in multiple pop-up windows and pop-up windows that resist closing) stymies students, discourages them from using the Internet, and ties up their Internet connections and computers.<\/p>\n\n Finally, a number of these students feel that the Internet lacked sites written in languages other than English. They said they would like greater language diversity online.\u00a0 They want such sites so that they can communicate in a language they are studying or in their primary or secondary language.<\/p>\n\n Metaphor 2: The Internet as Virtual Tutor and Study Shortcut<\/b><\/p>\n\n While finding good tutorials online is sometimes a challenge for students, many reported that when they hit pay dirt, it often meant the difference between understanding a topic or not. For these students, the Internet provides ways of presenting material that differs from how it is presented in school, and this makes the material more understandable to them.\u00a0 In fact, students related that it was often the key to getting better grades in school.<\/p>\n\n Some students also participate in online chats and discussions with teachers (both their own and other teachers) to get assistance with their schoolwork.\u00a0 Particularly helpful for some students are tutoring Web sites that allowed them to submit questions and communicate, online, with a teacher about their specific work.<\/p>\n\n Still, students\u2019 reliance on such sites at times has a downside. Virtually all those in our focus groups reported that they or other students they know sometimes use these online study and tutoring sites as shortcuts to completing schoolwork or for completing assignments.<\/p>\n\n Indeed, as a virtual tutor, the \u201cInternet\u201d cannot and does not judge when it is providing appropriate extra help to a struggling student and when it is being used as an improper shortcut to answers. Sometimes, the same online material can be used both ways. To take but two examples, Web sites such as www.sparknotes.com<\/a> and www.pinkmonkey.com<\/a> offer free online summaries and analyses of books often assigned in school.\u00a0 Students report that these study aides are high quality and can be very helpful in disentangling complicated texts.\u00a0 Many indicate that reading book notes available to them on these sites was vital to their understanding of what they were reading and to participating in class.\u00a0 Others indicated\u2014sometimes sheepishly and sometimes not\u2014that it allows them to get away without reading the book.\u00a0 In fact, most of our Internet-savvy students admit to knowing students who plagiarize Internet resources or use other online tools to cheat outright.<\/p>\n\n Given a choice, students said they would like more opportunities to communicate with their teachers outside of class via email and instant messaging for extra help.\u00a0 In lieu of that opportunity, they turn to other resources external to their school on the Web.<\/p>\n\n <\/a> Metaphor 3: The Internet as Virtual Study Group<\/b><\/p>\n\n Internet-savvy students also told us they use the Internet as a way to collaborate on schoolwork with their classmates.\u00a0 Employing email and instant messaging technologies, students say they create, join, leave, rejoin what might be called \u201cvirtual study groups\u201d at will.\u00a0 Sometimes these study groups are synchronous \u2013 that is, students collaborate in real-time together.\u00a0 At other times, the collaborations are asynchronous: They occur with some time delay between communications to account for, say, dinner with parents or the time spent watching a television show.<\/p>\n\n Another reason students exploit virtual study groups is the ease with which they can share the information.\u00a0 Students say that it is common for them to use study groups to trade references to Web site links and sharing papers and presentations on which they are working\u2013especially since one student can find a good resource and instantly share it with each of his or her friends.\u00a0 Many students report they like online study groups better than face-to-face ones because face-to-face study groups can be difficult to arrange and difficult to drop in and out of.\u00a0 An interruption or diversion does not necessarily disrupt a virtual study group.\u00a0 Virtual study groups allow students more control over their time and a way to more easily share materials as they simultaneously undertake both online and offline tasks.<\/p>\n\n <\/a> Metaphor 4: The Internet as Virtual Guidance Counselor<\/b><\/p>\n\n Students also look to the Internet as an important source for advice on career and postsecondary options.\u00a0 Students say this virtual guidance counselor helps them select which college to attend, prepare for college admissions examinations, and complete college applications.\u00a0 Indeed, a Pew Internet & American Life survey in January showed that 11 million Americans who chose a school or college for themselves or a child in the past two years say their use of the Internet played a crucial or important role in that decision.[11. numoffset=”11″ The Pew Internet & American Life report (May 2002). Use of the Internet at Major Life Moments. https:\/\/alpha.pewresearch.org\/pewresearch-org\/internet\/Reports\/2002\/Use-of-the-Internet-at-Major-Life-Moments.aspx<\/a>]<\/p>\n\n Some students view job search sites, such as www.monster.com<\/a> or www.hotjobs.com<\/a>, as a way to learn more about what is required of workers in various industries and what sort of salaries they might expect. This information, they noted, is typically not readily available from school guidance counselors or parents, so the Internet fills a very important informational role for them.\u00a0 Others seek out specialized sites with pertinent career information.<\/p>\n\n Importantly, many students told us they rely heavily on the Internet because they do not have much in the way of tutoring and counseling resources offline or do not feel comfortable in using them. In addition, they said the Internet provides a number of other advantages for them: As a resource, it is always available. It has \u201cpatient\u201d character. It allows them to be anonymous, if they choose. It is non-judgmental. And, perhaps most important, it allows them to do many things at the same time.<\/p>\n\n \u00a0<\/p>\n\n \u00a0<\/p>\n\n <\/a> Metaphor 5: The Internet as Virtual Locker, Backpack, and Notebook<\/b><\/p>\n\n A major part of school consists of managing information, materials, and paperwork.\u00a0 Students report they used the Internet to not only gather important materials and documents, but also to transport them back and forth to school, to work, to their friends\u2019 homes, and to all of the other places they frequent.<\/p>\n\n Many students told us they maintain records of emails and links to important Web sites, including sites for their school assignments, course syllabi, required readings, grades, attendance records, school schedules, and school course catalogs.<\/p>\n\n Some students reported having school-allotted network space in which they could store their files.\u00a0 Most students do not have this level of access via their schools, however, and would like it.\u00a0 Indeed, when they could depend on access, students told us that using the Internet as virtual locker, backpack, and notebook saves them time and makes their lives more convenient.<\/p>\n\n Conventional wisdom suggests that schools should be the focal point for educational Internet use.\u00a0 After all, Internet access in schools and classrooms has dramatically increased in recent years due in large part to high-profile public policy initiatives at the federal, state, and local levels.\u00a0 Policy makers and administrators have focused resources on improving the professional development of teachers to integrate technology into their classrooms and whole new categories of school personnel\u2014state, district, and school instructional technology coordinators\u2014have emerged to assist with technology planning and implementation.<\/p>\n\n Yet, the vast majority of students from whom we collected data say their use of the Internet at school is altogether another matter.\u00a0 While students do indeed rely on the Internet to complete their schoolwork and manage their day-to-day educational activities, they say their Internet use occurs mostly outside of the school day, outside of the school building, outside of the direction of their teachers.<\/p>\n\n The primary reasons for this digital disconnect between how students use the Internet for school and how schools have them use the Internet are tied to the ways that schools and teachers are oriented towards the Internet, their inability in many instances to integrate online tools into schooling, and the real and perceived barriers students face as they seek Internet access.<\/p>\n\n School Administrators Set the Tone for Student Internet Use <\/b><\/p>\n\n Internet-savvy students make clear that school leaders\u2014more so than individual teachers\u2014set the tone for Internet use in their classes.\u00a0 The differences across schools from which our students were drawn are striking.\u00a0 Schools have different levels of access to the Internet, different requirements for student technology literacy skills (i.e., some schools required students to take a course that taught them basic computer and Internet skills, others had no such requirement), and different restrictions on student Internet access.<\/p>\n\n Some of the more Internet-savvy schools offer a range of classes that require the use of the Internet\u2014on such topics as Web site design or e-commerce\u2014or allow students to take wholly online courses.\u00a0 Other schools maintain school Web sites that contain up-to-date information about the school, its schedule and events.\u00a0 Some schools encourage teachers to provide their email addresses to students and their parents.\u00a0 And, some Internet-savvy schools even provide students with remote access over the Internet to password-protected personalized network folders and files\u2014online access to virtual school lockers, if you will.\u00a0 In contrast, some of the less Internet-savvy schools our students described offer fewer opportunities for students and teachers to go online during the school day, are more likely to have teachers with weak technology skills, and are generally less inventive in their Internet use.<\/p>\n\n While in school, it is teachers who manage the use of the Internet by students.\u00a0 They choose whether to make assignments that require the use of the Internet by their students, allow the use of the Internet (often as a supplement to other sources and tools), or even forbid its use.<\/p>\n\n The decision to make an assignment involving use of the Internet is influenced by many factors: the ease of in-school access to the Internet, the school\u2019s orientation toward the use of the Internet, a teacher\u2019s Internet skills and knowledge, and a teacher\u2019s sense of whether students have home access to the Internet or not.<\/p>\n\n Students also told us that the types of assignments that teachers make and how often they make them is a function of the subject matter they teach.\u00a0 The students told us that teachers of social studies\/history, science, and English classes are the most likely to assign them work that requires the use of the Internet.\u00a0 Math teachers were reported to be the least likely to use the Internet in their classrooms.<\/p>\n\n Some Internet-Based Assignments Are Engaging, Many Are Not<\/b><\/p>\n\n The way that students use the Internet for school is largely driven by the kinds of activities and assignments that teachers create.\u00a0 Thus, we asked students to tell us about the kinds of Internet-based activities and assignments they receive from their teachers. We asked students to cite examples of \u201cgood\u201d Internet-based assignments given to them by their teachers that engaged and excited them about the topic they were learning.\u00a0 We also asked students to tell us about \u201cbad\u201d Internet-based assignments that seemed either unconnected to what they were learning, or misused the Internet, or were a \u201cwaste of time\u201d or boring.\u00a0 While students in all of our focus groups were able to relate examples of both exciting and poor instructional uses of the Internet, they said that the not-so-engaging uses were the more typical of their teachers\u2019 assignments.<\/p>\n\n Despite the apparent prevalence of poor or rote uses of the Internet, students did speak at length about activities and assignments their teachers had developed that sparked their interest for learning, that exposed them to information and images of actual people and places, and otherwise helped students connect their day-to-day lives to their schoolwork.<\/p>\n\n In our conversations with students about the quality and nature of their Internet-based assignments, they repeatedly told us that they wanted to be assigned more\u2014and more engaging\u2014Internet activities that were relevant to their lives.\u00a0 Indeed, many asserted that this would significantly improve their attitude toward school and learning.<\/a><\/p>\n\n Real and Perceived Barriers to Student Internet Use at and for School<\/b><\/p>\n\n The Internet is used differently by students depending on whether the use occurs inside or school or outside it. One reason for this disparity, of course, is time use.\u00a0 Within a typical six-hour school day, students routinely move from place to place and from teacher to teacher, from math class to lunch to gym to English class, etc.\u00a0 There is simply not much time within the school day for students to be sitting at Internet-connected computers.\u00a0 Skipping lunch to be able to access the Internet for 10 or 15 minutes during the school day was seen as an acceptable trade-off for some students who felt like they needed that little extra in-school access.\u00a0 That situation contrasts sharply with the online experiences of Internet-savvy students once they leave school. Some of the heaviest Internet-using students are online several hours a day\u2014from when they come home from school until dinner and sometimes after dinner as well.\u00a0 Students are simply much more in control of their time out of school than inside it.<\/p>\n\n In addition to time, the most substantial barrier to using the Internet at school is a lack of easy access to it. In many cases, this limited access has to do with a lack of enough Internet-connected computers\u2014that are also in working condition\u2014in schools and classrooms.<\/p>\n\n However, even in schools with considerable numbers of Internet-connected computers, students described the lack of access as more of a function of restrictions placed on their use.\u00a0 Within a school, access to the Internet is largely controlled by teachers\u2014teachers whom students describe as being motivated primarily by fear of what might happen if students use the Internet inappropriately.\u00a0 Of course, this is perhaps justified by the fact that students reported that some of them do use the Internet inappropriately at times to view adult-oriented sites, to shop while in school, to pirate and download music, etc.<\/p>\n\n\n
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<\/a>Our online students told us they view the Internet as a way to find material on subjects they want to pursue in more depth. It is also a source for information about subjects they find difficult to comprehend in school.\u00a0 Many find the information and study aids on the Internet genuinely useful in completing their day-to-day assignments.\u00a0 Others also noted that using the Internet is a way to complete their schoolwork as quickly and painlessly as possible, with minimal effort and minimal engagement.<\/h4>\n\n
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Digital Disconnect: How Students Use the Internet During School<\/h3>\n\n
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