Andy Carvin writes about the Digital Divide in this way:

Because so many people are online today, Internet access is taken to be a given, whether by government, businesses, schools, etc. If you need to access to some kind of government service, you’re expected to go online. Students are assumed to have access when completing homework and other assignments. Job applicants are assumed to have access and the requisite tech skills to back it up. When you meet someone who isn’t online, the first assumption is that it must be by there choice, rather than the possibility that they can’t afford it or lack the skills to use it effectively.

Meanwhile, as I’ve been arguing for a very long time now, the digital divide isn’t just about measuring who has access to the Internet and who doesn’t. It’s about who has access and the skills necessary to use these tools to improve quality of life for their families and communities. Included in this is the ability for people to become more civically engaged and have more of a voice within local and national decisionmaking. None of you need to hear me repeat the same lecture on how social media tools like blogging and YouTube are giving individual the power to participate in civic discourse in ways that were not previously possible. (Remember, Time Magazine gave us all that Person of the Year award.) Thankfully, research from groups like the Pew Internet Project is beginning to suggest that user-generated content is becoming more democratized. But the conventional wisdom would still suggest that Web 2.0 is largely a place for more affluent, better educated and generally white people.

We need to do a better job of bringing social media tools and skills to people that’ll have been disenfranchised, just as we work on strategies to bridge the divide in the more traditional sense.

The purpose of Technology Applications:TEKS is patently to eliminate the Digital Divide. However, since the Texas State Legislature has failed to mandate assessment–and fund it–the Texas Education Agency is left without any real ability to address assessment issues in Texas. This lack of direction leaves school districts with an expectation that 8th graders will be assessed for technology literacy OR district technology funding will be curtailed.

School districts since May, 2008 have sought out various assessment tools. However, based on the experience of several districts, including this one below, the data now reveals that the assessment districts pay for YIELDS BETTER RESULTS, while the free vendor assessments yield terrible results.

These results could have significant consequences for school districts. If 8th graders aren’t learning anything in school about technology, especially in low socio-economic areas, why are we continuing to pay for tech in Texas? If 8th graders are scoring well at currently funded levels, then should we continue to invest (the “We’ve arrived!” Syndrome).

Here’s what one Texas school district shared after completing the Learning.com AND the Infosource Learning 8th Grade Technology Literacy Assessments; it’s been anonymized to protect the identity of the school district:

We are now required by NCLB Title 2 Part D to document our 8th graders technology proficiencies.

TEA in the past has documented this for us through our Star Chart submissions but this does not give an accurate picture.

TEA has given flexibility to districts to “document” student technology proficiencies through a variety of formats: take a Grade 6-8 Tech Apps class and earn a grade, integrate the Grades 6-8 Tech Apps into all the core and enrichment subjects via lesson plans, or have students create a portfolio demonstrating the Grades 6-8 Tech Apps used in the core and enrichment subjects.

Perhaps the most common way school districts are measuring these proficiencies is through an online assessment. While some districts have used an assessment created by district technology staff, other districts have used other online sources such as Infosource (vendor created and free) and Learning.com (vendor created and fee based).

TEA did a pilot using Learning.com this past year and has posted the results in their latest update to the Long Range Plan for Technology. The results indicated somewhere around 65% of the 1500 students in multiple districts representing large and small and urban and rural met their standard. TEA determined a 70% pass rate would be the standard for passing.

This past fall we measured our ninth graders for their technology proficiencies (this was required in May of last year and it was too late to get this done before the end of the school year). We found that 63% of our students met the technology standard with little variation from the four middle schools (61%, 63%, 66%, 67%). We also learned from Learning.com the following: that it only takes 50% of the items to get a 70% pass rate based on their scoring formula and that this assessment focuses more on the capability of the student to do an application (say spreadsheet) than to actually do an application (Spreadsheet). This would be more theory driven as opposed to practice driven.

This spring we measured our eighth graders for their technology proficiencies using both Learning.com and Infosource. Here are the results for about 1600 eighth grade students:

Infosource had 25% of the students meeting the standard at 70% but if we used their recommended standard of 80% it would be 7% of the students meeting the standard. This assessment is more theory driven.

Learning.com had 68% of the students meeting the standard at 70%. This assessment is more practice driven.

Students in [this Texas school district] do not use much technology in sixth and seventh grades. They take a keyboarding class in eight grade.

Below is my response to this information…what is your’s?

As preliminary survey results (http://bit.ly/fJfTy) collected some time ago hinted, Learning.com’s assessment paints a more positive picture of TechApps proficiency among 8th graders than InfoSource Learning’s SimpleAssessment tool. School districts, like mine, would have to pay $18,000 to purchase Learning.com’s assessment. We simply lacked the funding to do that at the END of May.

Two points come to mind:

1) There is a clearly a digital divide issue here–districts that can afford Learning.com will get better results to report to TEA. That means, put simply, wealthier districts will give the perception that their technology integration efforts ARE effective.

Districts that fail to pay for a quality assessment, well, they have to a) Use free assessments like Simple Assessment.com that may paint their Districts in a negative light for technology integration; b) Develop an in-house assessment that will adequately measure TechApps WITHOUT having had the time to develop a valid, reliable assessment, which is unlike traditional Curriculum and Instruction folks.

2) The assessments currently in use–whether it’s Learning.com, SimpleAssessment or some other, including district assessments–are NOT valid assessments of Technology Applications:TEKS. The Texas Education Agency (TEA) should be required–by the Legislature–to provide a certification process for vendors and districts to ensure we’re not comparing apples to oranges to plums to mustard seeds when discussing TA:TEKS in schools.

Next year, Texas districts could choose to pursue an in-house assessment–using Moodle–of 8th grade technology literacy. These districts could be comforted by the fact that it will be no more valid than any other assessment currently in use in Texas or certified by the Texas Education Agency (none I know of).

Finally, I really appreciate the sharing of information and data. We now need to have discussions about assessing TechApps and I would love for those districts who are assessing and have been diligent in assessing 8th grade technology literacy to share what they’ve been doing, not only from an assessment perspective but an assessment management point of view. While these assessments are not any more valid than what is available from a vendor the experiences you share are important.

Thank you and I hope more districts speak up to share their perspectives! If I am incorrect or my reasoning is flawed, please do not hesitate to point it out.

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