How to reach students without internet access at home? Schools get creative
As the coronavirus crisis shines a harsh light on the digital divide, districts must rely on offline methods of communication and instruction to reach students without internet access at home
On the Friday before spring break at Meigs Middle School, special education teacher Matt Coe was busy preparing new lessons for his students now that schools were set to close due to the coronavirus crisis. But while many districts around the country have moved to remote learning platforms like Google Classroom, Coe was using the school’s copy machine to put together printed packets for his students to take home. In this rural Tennessee county of just 12,000 residents, online learning simply isn’t an option for most families.
“A lot of our kids don’t have internet access,” said Coe, who knows students who routinely head to the library or the town’s McDonald’s to get online.
The Federal Communications Commission estimates that about 21 million Americans lack broadband access, with an independent research group indicating the actual number is twice as high. As the coronavirus crisis forces schools across the country to grapple with the challenges of providing remote learning, many schools and districts have had to get creative with low-tech forms of instruction and delivery that don’t require internet connections or digital devices.
In Arkansas, where 23 percent of households lack internet service, and schools will be shut for the remainder of the school year, the local PBS affiliate is now providing daily television programming tied to the state’s distance learning curriculum. They got the idea from a similar arrangement that the Los Angeles Unified School District made with its CONTINUE READING: Low tech solutions for students without internet access at home
