Schools can play a role in improving parents’ digital know-how so they can help their children work through online class assignments at home. But they can’t do it alone, concludes a report released Jan. 14 by the State Educational Technology Directors Association.
Most parents wish they had greater digital savvy and stronger technological skills so that they could help their children with online class assignments, and in navigating the complex worlds of social media and misinformation online, the report notes.
In fact, 83 percent of families want their schools to provide more information on how to use digital tools to support their children’s learning, according to a survey by Project Tomorrow, a nonprofit organization focused on digital equity, that was cited in SETDA’s report.
A little more than half of parents—51 percent—said they felt “very comfortable” managing their children’s passwords and access to online learning sites. Half said the same of using digital textbooks and curriculum, the Project Tomorrow survey found.
Schools increasingly find themselves having to puzzle through challenges brought on by technology that affects students’ lives outside of school, said Ji Soo Song, the director of projects and initiatives at SETDA.
“Districts are facing a lot of demands when it comes to policy and practice and guidance with emerging issues like the cellphone ban [questions], digital citizenship, media literacy, and AI,” he said. “They’re facing those demands, but they don’t have the internal capacity to be able to handle them.”
Song added: “Schools, as stretched as they are, can’t just be the sole institution that teaches these skills. There needs to be a communitywide approach.”
That sentiment is echoed in the report, which recommends that “building K–12 digital skills must be a multi-sector, whole-ecosystem commitment so that the work is sustainable and not the sole responsibility of school systems.”
It suggests that family engagement be a key part of any community’s digital equity strategy and that parents be given the resources they need to support their children’s digital skill development at home.
Some states—including Delaware, Massachusetts, and New Mexico—are working to boost the digital citizenship skills of both parents and students by requiring schools to teach specific skills alongside academics to students.
Helping the parents who struggle the most with technology
Low-income parents, those with lower education levels, and those whose first language is not English are more likely to struggle in helping children use technology to complete school assignments at home, according to research conducted, in part, by Vikki Katz, a professor in the school of communication studies at Chapman University in Irvine, Calif.
That exacerbates existing inequities, Katz said.
But the gap in digital expertise between such families and those from more advantaged backgrounds began to close during the pandemic, as more parents were called on to help children navigate digital learning, her research found.
Still, Katz worries that “because we really haven’t capitalized on [that progress] where we could have absolutely, that those gaps are reopening again,” she said.
