EMFA: T3E2 - Telecommunications for Learning - Birenbaum

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Theme:  Networking Communities - Essay 2
Author: Helen Birenbaum, Executive Director CUNY Graduate School
        The Stanton/Heiskell Center for Public Policy in 
        Telecommunications and Information Systems
E-mail: hbirenba@broadway.gc.cuny.edu



PROJECT TELL (TELECOMMUNICATIONS FOR LEARNING)

Abstract

(The complete report is available at
http://web.gsuc.cuny.edu/shc/mainmenu.html)


        For seven years (1990-1997) the Stanton/Heiskell Center
studied the educational gains underserved inner-city children 
can make when given access to computers in their home.  Project 
TELL is one of the first demonstrations of after-school home use 
of networked computers to encourage learning among disadvantaged 
students and their families.        

        The project was created in response to the growing       
 information gap between low-income families and communities and 
their more affluent counterparts, who have far greater access to
telecommunication technologies.

        Bell Atlantic recognized this disparity and formed a
partnership with the City University of New York (CUNY) Graduate
School and University Center and the New York City Board of
Education (BOE) to provide technical, managerial and financial
resources.  The partnership is an example of how three
institutions successfully pooled the talent and resources
necessary to support a major socially strategic program of
research.

        The goal of Project TELL was to determine if students
reading at the 25-50% level in fifth grade could improve their 
school performance and succeed in gaining admission to college.  
We hypothesized that a significant proportion of underachieving
students could reverse educational failure through home access to
computers and telecommunication networks, supported by
educational back-up systems. Our emphasis was primarily on the
computer as an aid to the education process and only secondarily
as a skill for employment. The results are encouraging: 46% of
the students graduated from high school in four years, as
compared to the system-wide (BOE) average of 49%, which includes
high achieving students.  What is more significant, the systems
graduation rate for minority students, 41%, is 5% percent lower
than that for the participating TELL students, all of whom are
minority students.

          The project was initially funded for three years,
commencing with middle school grades 6-8. We found that time 
spent on tasks of reading and writing in computer-based 
telecommunications environment could be correlated with 
individual gains in motivation and school performance.  The 
challenge of the high school phase of the project, grades 9-12, 
required academic tutoring on-line (and off-line) to help 
students raise their achievement levels to meet college 
admission standards.

        Clearly, we found no quick "techno-fix" solutions to the
educational problems of the underserved. However, our major
findings acknowledge:

1. Continual personal participation by concerned adult(s) through
direct contact and over the electronic network was essential to
the students' progress.

2. Home computers and Internet access, along with training in
their use, and continued adult and student interactions in an
online learning environment can "turn around" a significant
number of underachieving inner-city students, and encourage
learning among siblings and family members in the home.

3. Parental (and/or guardian) involvement can significantly
influence student achievement; cooperation with the school,
administrators and teachers, can influence and enhance student
outcomes.

4. Information technology can compete with TV and the lure of the
streets, encouraging some students to seek refuge from the
streets.

5. The lack of educational software for underachieving middle and
high school students is problematic.  As the development of
educational software accelerates, moving away from "drill and
kill", and becoming more interactive and diagnostically
sophisticated, it appears to be only a matter of time before
applications and programs on the Internet will have more
qualitative educational impact.

6. The continual need to upgrade computers to keep up with the
developing  sophisticated software places low-income families at
a disadvantage.  Affordable access to the Internet, as well as to
the new software, must become more readily available.

        In conclusion, we recommend that (1) early family access
to information technology should be encouraged, (2) research to
address issues of technology's cost and software should continue
and (3) online learning opportunities should be incorporated in
plans for educational reform.


---

The Stanton/Heiskell Center studies the social and economic
impact of telecommunications, especially as these relate to the
need for increased and equitable access among low-income and
disadvantaged communities.

CUNY Graduate School
33 West 42nd Street
New York, NY 10036-8099




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