I took my lunch in order to listen to Justin Reich speak at the Berkman Center. He is the author of an upcoming study that examines how the proliferation of open and free educational resources online could affect the educational divide in terms of income equality. Specifically, he looked at wiki creation and use across a variety of schools at different socioeconomic levels. These wikis were then scored against a standardized metric in order to determine their value.
What he determined was not terribly surprising. Schools with a higher socioeconomic demographics made better use of the wiki technology and more directly targeted that use to student achievement and development. Does this mean these free resources are a problem? Absolutely not, and Reich went on in-depth discussing how the data itself raises more questions than answers both in terms of data collection and analysis. One area of particular note was the need for intra-school research where technology use is evaluated in various economic strata within the same school.
What it does indicate is that we can’t simply expect free resources to suddenly be the panacea to a much deeper problem. It also indicates the need, as Reich mentioned, for targeted and developed educational strategies as opposed to a “dump and hope” method. Without a structure to encourage and develop the skills to utilize material presented, those who might benefit the most will simply continue to be left behind.
Child of the ‘net as I am, I was hoping his presentation would already be available from the Berkman Center. Unfortunately, physics and the duties of interns don’t follow the same schedule. That said, there are several incredible talks already available from their archive [ http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/interactive ]. I strongly suggest watching Justin’s talk when it becomes available.
Justin’s blog can be found here: [ http://edtechresearcher.org/ ]. It includes his Wiki Quality Instrument tools used for evaluating educational wikis.
