Online Learning and the Digital Divide in Canada: Analogous to the Tokyo Subway System or the Toronto Subway System?
When I read Selwyn’s (2010) essay entitled Looking Beyond Learning: Notes Towards the Critical Study of Educational Technology, I felt like I had arrived at home. I am an educator who is passionate about trying to address the digital divide, researching and striving to be a part of a force that brings more equity to the distribution of the wealth of skills and content that educational technology has to offer people around the world. Selwyn’s critical exploration of educational technology (ed tech) highlights the imperative of exploring the social-justice issues that surround the use of learning technologies. There is a plethora of research surrounding the effectiveness of ed tech and technological determinism and solutionism (Selwyn, 2010; Watters, 2018). Yet, the very social nature of technology is often an afterthought in what we have come to see as the resounding benefits of ed tech, mere access to technology (i.e., type and capability of device), and evolving platform capitalism (Schmidt, 2017; Selwyn, 2010; Watters, 2018). Selwyn urges us to adopt a critical approach towards educational technology, recognizing that technology and education (i.e., MOOCs such as Coursera) are socially shaped and can be “profoundly political processes and practices that are best described in terms of issues of power, control, conflict and resistance” (Selwyn, 2010, pp. 68-69). Lambert (2018) elucidates social equity issues in ed tech, that frame digital divides, in terms of Open Education Resources and Open Educational Practices through the lenses of: redistributive justice, recognitive justice, and representational justice. Online learning tools, MOOCs being a prevalent one, continue not to reach the people in the world, and our country, who could most benefit from them (Blackadder, 2013; Geist, 2013).
For the Team Project in this course (LRNT 526: Inquiry Into Contemporary Issues in Learning Technologies), my group chose MOOCs as the learning technology that we will explore, with a critical eye on the issue of Barriers to Access. Prior to engaging with the MOOC offered by Coursera, entitled Mind-Control: Managing your Mental Health during COVID-19, I had not participated in a MOOC course. However, I have engaged with numerous online learning programs and activities, as an educator and trainer, and I continue to return to questions about equity and the digital divide or participation gap. Therefore, stemming from my team’s project on MOOCs and Barriers to Access, I look forward to diving into my individual project topic of: Online Learning and the Digital Divide in Canada.
The Covid-19 Crisis has amplified all of the socio-economic issues that manifest themselves in the digital divide, along with many other areas of inequity in Canada. Students who did not have a personal device at home, are now at a much greater disadvantage in terms of keeping up with online learning that has been pushed out by schools in a hurry. Homes that have not been able to afford the Internet are often in the same socio-economic group whose jobs have been put on hold or terminated recently. People who live in remote communities and have limited bandwidth access, who often did not get to school regularly, now have more limited access to school-directed learning and content. On April 16, 2020, the Ontario government announced a partnership with Apple and Rogers to distribute 21,000 iPads with wireless internet data packages, to go to disadvantaged students around the province (O’Rourke, 2019). One can only hope such initiatives will remain, post Covid-19, to start to dismantle some of the digital divide in Canada. Access to technology itself does not confront systemic inequities, but it is a beginning, whereupon people can then develop how they use ed tech to learn – to increase skills, and to address power and privilege in our society (Watters, 2015).
Right now, as we sit amidst the isolation and unprecedented times of the Covid-19 crisis, online learning is the basis of K-12 through to post-secondary and higher education. According to Bates’ (2020) most recent predictions, online learning is here to stay, albeit likely in a hybrid or blended learning approach. So, where does this leave the many learners around the country who have long experienced barriers to accessibility to online learning? In an effort to try to better understand the multitude of factors that have created and maintain a digital divide in Canada, and therefore access to online learning, I am gearing up to engage in a scoping review of the current literature on the topic. This endeavour may be as complicated as the Tokyo subway system, or as basic and slowly iterative as the Toronto subway system. In the end, I hope to be able to better understand the critical issues that continue to pose barriers to access to online learning in Canada. I would like to know what it will take for the provincial and federal governments of Canada to make policy changes that are long overdue, changes that will empower people throughout our country to engage in the learning and skill-building of their choice.
References
Bates, T. (April 16, 2020). Online enrollments after Covid-19: a predication, part 2 – policy implications. Online Learning and Distance Education Resources. Retrieved from https://www.tonybates.ca/2020/04/16/online-enrolments-after-covid-19-a-prediction-part-2-policy-implications/
Blackadder, D. (2013). The digital divide where we live. Our Times, 32, 9-10. Retrieved from https://ezproxy.royalroads.ca/login?url=https://search-proquest-com.ezproxy.royalroads.ca/docview/1419727682?accountid=8056
Geist, M. (2013, April 9). Why Canada’s digital divide persists: nation’s broadband failure lies in both access and adoption. Retrieved from https://thetyee.ca/Mediacheck/2013/04/09/Canada-Digital-Divide/
Lambert, S. R. (2018). Changing our (dis)course: A distinctive social justice aligned definition of open education. Journal of Learning for Development, 5(3), 225-244. Retrieved from https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/EJ1197463.pdf
O’Rourke, Patrick (2020, April 17). Ontario government, Apple, Rogers partner to give 21,000 iPads to students in low-income families. Retrieved from https://mobilesyrup.com/2020/04/17/ontario-government-partners-apple-rogers-21000-ipads-students-low-income-families/
Schmidt, F. A. (2017). Chapter 3: The design of crowdsourcing. In Crowd Design: From Tools for Empowerment to Platform Capitalism. Birkhäuser. Retrieved from http://web.a.ebscohost.com.ezproxy.royalroads.ca/ehost/detail/detail?vid=0&sid=cf966163-06d0-4e96-a4a4-60cd52ea5f0b%40sdc-v-sessmgr02&bdata=#AN=2103345&db=nlebk
Selwyn, N. (2010). Looking beyond learning: notes towards the critical study of educational technology. Journal of Computer Assisted Learning, 26(1), 65-73. doi:10.1111/j.1365-2729.2009.00338.x
Watters, Audrey (2015, April 8). Edtech’s inequalities [Blog comment]. Retrieved from http://hackeducation.com/2015/04/08/inequalities
Attribution
Photo by Daryan Shamkhali on Unsplash
April 20, 2020 at 3:11 pm
Leigh, you’re off to a strong start in your critical inquiry process. I’m glad to see that the Selwyn (2010) literature made an impact and that you’re uncovering more research and commentary in this vein. The current pandemic is bringing your questions into sharp relief and relevance. Obviously the questions you’re asking could become very big and so part of the goal may be to keep the study manageable as you delve into the literature. How that works will become clearer after your first pass on the literature search.
April 20, 2020 at 6:53 pm
Hi Irwin,
Thanks for the sound advice to make part of my goal “to keep the study manageable.” I agree, the current pandemic is indeed bringing my questions into “sharp relief and relevance”! This is interesting, and in some ways will make my research more complicated as new developments are seemingly addressing some of the digital divide in Canada. However, one must wonder if some of these developments (i.e., 21,000 iPads to underserved students in Ontario last week) will stay in place once we have overcome the brutal strains of this pandemic. I too, am hopeful that I will better see how to keep my study manageable after my first pass on the literature, gaining clearer insight into the critical issues that will be my focus.
Thanks,
Leigh