This artifact describes the author's efforts to address the digital divide and promote equitable access to technology resources for students. While the schools provided every student with a device, many students lacked reliable internet access at home. This was widening achievement gaps, as students with home internet access could take greater advantage of resources. The author worked with community partners to increase home internet access for families and trained teachers and students on effective strategies for accessing and organizing digital materials without internet, such as syncing work to cloud storage. This improved student learning and facilitated greater use of technology for instruction while addressing connectivity issues faced by some students.
This artifact describes the author's efforts to address the digital divide and promote equitable access to technology resources for students. While the schools provided every student with a device, many students lacked reliable internet access at home. This was widening achievement gaps, as students with home internet access could take greater advantage of resources. The author worked with community partners to increase home internet access for families and trained teachers and students on effective strategies for accessing and organizing digital materials without internet, such as syncing work to cloud storage. This improved student learning and facilitated greater use of technology for instruction while addressing connectivity issues faced by some students.
This artifact describes the author's efforts to address the digital divide and promote equitable access to technology resources for students. While the schools provided every student with a device, many students lacked reliable internet access at home. This was widening achievement gaps, as students with home internet access could take greater advantage of resources. The author worked with community partners to increase home internet access for families and trained teachers and students on effective strategies for accessing and organizing digital materials without internet, such as syncing work to cloud storage. This improved student learning and facilitated greater use of technology for instruction while addressing connectivity issues faced by some students.
This artifact describes the author's efforts to address the digital divide and promote equitable access to technology resources for students. While the schools provided every student with a device, many students lacked reliable internet access at home. This was widening achievement gaps, as students with home internet access could take greater advantage of resources. The author worked with community partners to increase home internet access for families and trained teachers and students on effective strategies for accessing and organizing digital materials without internet, such as syncing work to cloud storage. This improved student learning and facilitated greater use of technology for instruction while addressing connectivity issues faced by some students.
Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd
Download as docx, pdf, or txt
You are on page 1/ 2
4.
1 Digital Equity
Candidates model and promote strategies for achieving equitable access to digital tools and resources and technology-related best practices for all students and teachers.
This artifact, the digital divide blog post, was written as part of an assignment for ITEC 7430. Throughout this course, we were tasked with identifying areas of need in our buildings and teachers and students that we could support. Specifically, we were looking at how the devices and technologies in our building were narrowing, or in some cases, widening the achievement gap amongst students. This particular blog post describes the digital divide and the achievement gap that is evident in my building, but I am sure it mirrors similar situations throughout the nation.
This artifact describes my efforts to model and promote strategies that increase equitable access to digital tools and resources within the two schools that I serve. As noted in the post, both of the schools that I serve are Title I schools, meaning that a large percentage of the population qualifies for financial aid services. What made this course, and the opportunity to reflect on the digital divide so interesting is that the county has provided every student with access to a device through their Personalized Learning program. At the middle school each student is issued a Dell laptop that they maintain the duration of the school year. At the elementary school, students have access to devices in their classrooms through iPad, laptop, and Chromebook carts shared amongst the grade levels. While working through this course, it became clear that while every student was being provided with a device, not every student had the same resources and skills to utilize these devices. Many of our middle school students do not have a reliable internet connection at home, and many of our elementary students have little to no access to educational technology outside of the classroom. Working with local community members and network providers, we worked to provide equitable access for families outside of the classroom. This artifact also address the need to model and promote technology-related best practices for all students and teachers. It was important that teachers were aware of connectivity issues when providing digital instruction and resources for students. We also made changes to study hall hours for students to allow students additional time for downloading, uploading, and collaborating online with other teachers and students.
This artifact helped me to gain a new and more effective understanding of the term digital divide. Prior to this course I would have described the digital divide as the access that people or students either have or do not have to technology resources. It became very clear that the digital divide was actually increasing between students with resources outside of the classroom and students without any additional resources. While the district and schools introduced the devices to narrow the achievement gap and increased student learning, it was having an opposite effect. Students with additional resources were growing and increasing their understandings at a greater rate than those without additional resources. Additionally, both schools began to implement the use of Microsoft Teams into classroom instruction. This was a great tool to increase student collaboration and student engagement. However, for students with additional resources at home, they were able to take greater advantage of the district provided resources. Because we did not need to develop a plan to get a device in every students hands, we were able to focus on developing best practices and strategies for students and teachers so that the lack of connection outside of the building did not impact their learning. This artifact had an impact on student learning, faculty development, and community involvement. Working with local providers and business, we identified restaurants and business in the community that would allow students to access their Wi-Fi. The local internet provider also worked with school leaders to visit the schools during community nights to share information about cost-effective internet plans for homes. Students developed effective skills, such as the storing, saving, and organization of their work on their devices. While all students have access to their own personal Microsoft 365 account, many could not access that information at home without a connection. Students were instructed how to sync their work so that they could access their work without an internet connect. Students also developed their time management and organizational skills to develop the routines needed to arrive at school with enough time to submit, upload, or research when an internet connection was needed. Faculty worked to develop several “non-negotiable” steps to ensure that all students received equitable access to the information and resources provided in class. Overall, looking at the digital divide has helped everyone involved become more aware of how we use internet connections for instruction. Teachers and students have become more intentional in its use for learning.
