Digital Media and Technology Use Before and After COVID-19 Remote Learning

• In Event: Poster Session 13
  In Poster Session: PS 13 Topic - Solicited Content: COVID-19 Related

Abstract

With widespread school closures following the COVID-19 pandemic, families and educators pivoted to provide learning experiences at home. Many U.S. schools and teachers were not equipped or trained to teach remotely, and many families lacked the capacity, time, and resources to support their children’s learning at home. Moreover, many children lacked access to home broadband Internet and/or devices. Indeed, over a third of households with children ages 6–17 do not have broadband Internet (Pew Research, 2015) and one in four teens from low-income households do not have a computer at home (Anderson & Perrin, 2018).

In February–March 2020, prior to school closures, we fielded a nationally representative survey (N=1,207) to teachers to understand gaps in digital media and technology use and how to better support teachers in using digital media in their classrooms. We fielded a second survey (N=707) in June 2020 to capture changes in access and use following the widespread transition to remote learning.

Expectedly, the number of teachers using K–12 digital media technologies increased during remote learning, as 13% of teachers reported that they began using digital media only after COVID-19-related school closures.

While a majority of teachers (79%) in the first wave reported that their students had access to a computing device in their classroom, only half reported having access to Wi-Fi in their classroom. In the second wave, most teachers (88%) reported their students were able to complete schoolwork at home utilizing a computing device, but nearly half were doing so with a device issued by the school/school district. Access to high-speed Internet/WiFi posed issues at home, as only 6 in 10 teachers reported that the majority of their students have access to high-speed Internet/WiFi through home broadband. Thirty percent reported their students access high-speed Internet/WiFi through either a school issued hotspot (15%) or via a cell phone (14%), and 1 in 10 teachers believe the majority of their students do not have any access to high-speed Internet/WiFi. While these data indicate that students were completing their work during the months immediately following the COVID-19 outbreak, we do not yet know about the sustainability of hardware and Internet infrastructure for continued remote learning during the 2020-2021 school year and the implications on development for students from less-connected households.

Of additional concern was a decrease in confidence reported by teachers in using digital media in their teaching (66% highly confident in Wave 2 compared to 77% in Wave 1). Some teachers may be relatively new to using digital media in their teaching, so it follows that confidence levels would diminish somewhat. However, 85% of teachers reported receiving professional development and the average number of hours teachers reported increased from Wave 1 (12 hours) to Wave 2 (17 hours), yet confidence decreased. We hypothesize that many teachers who used digital media in their classrooms before COVID-19 did so to supplement their instruction and even the most tech-savvy teachers were not prepared for technology-centric instruction.

Authors

• Micaela Keating, WGBH Educational Foundation
  Presenting Author

• Elizabeth Kazakoff Myers, WGBH
  Non-Presenting Author

• April Wang, WGBH-TV
  Non-Presenting Author