Guest Commentary: Why Low Performing Schools Need Digital Media

Craig Watkins is a University of Texas at Austin professor who studies the youth digital media culture. In this thought-provoking essay, Watkins challenges the conventional wisdom of the so-called digital divide.
"When the social and digital media revolution gained momentum at the dawn of the new millennium, no one would have predicted that less than a decade later black and Latino youth would be just as engaged as their white, Asian, and more affluent counterparts," Watkins writes.
"Across a number of measures -- use of mobile phones and gaming devices, social network sites, and the mobile web -- young blacks and Latinos are beginning to outpace their white counterparts. For years the dominant narrative related to race and technology in the U.S. pivoted around the question of access. Today, the most urgent questions pivot around participation and more specifically, the quality of digital media engagement among youth in diverse social and economic contexts," he continues.
What does this mean for schools?
"Technology alone will not change what is happening in low-performing schools. But effective insertion of technology into the classroom might help break the ice that chills the relationship between students and teachers. Rather than spending their time and energy policing mobile phones what if teachers asked their students to pull out their devices to execute a class assignment?" he adds.
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