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. (PSC 4.1/ISTE 5a)
Artifact: Equitable Access Blog
Reflection:
During the spring of 2015, it was asked of us to blog about various assigned topics for the ITEC 7430- Internet Tools in the Classroom course. This artifact is a blog I posted in April 2015 to my Weebly portfolio for the KSU ITEC program regarding equitable access for all students. In the blog I discussed what equitable access is, why it is an issue in schools regarding technology availability, and what it happening in my school, district, and schools around the state to try and overcome this issue that is plaguing many students and schools. My contribution for this artifact was the research behind the concept of equitable access, the composition of the post, and the publishing to my public blog on Weebly.
In this artifact I detail my experiences at Dalton Middle School where I have worked to model and promote achieving an equitable access status for all of our students through the push for 1:1 devices. By having constant access to these devices provided by the school, the students also gain access to digital tools and resources that will help them succeed in the classroom. In addition to promoting 1:1 devices, I also outline a plan in the blog to provide Internet in our community to students who do not currently have it at home. While sending home the devices would be beneficial to the students, many of the technology-related best practices used by the teachers are only accessible through the Internet. By providing access to the Internet outside of school, the students will have more opportunities and the teachers can be more confident in what they assign for students to complete outside of class.
In reading through some educational articles for this blog post, I gained a more in-depth look at the idea of poverty and why some of our students and schools struggle to get out from behind this label. Everything I read seemed to focus on getting the community involved to help achieve equitable access. This idea makes a lot of sense to me because if the students grow up with equitable access it only benefits the community because these students will then be able to use what they learned on the job and be contributing members of the community. If I were to write this artifact again I would like to take the opportunity to speak directly with members of the community to gain insight into their opinions of the idea of equitable access and see what they would be willing to do to help the students in our local schools.
This blog post, and the work that went into creating it, impacts the school improvement for Dalton Middle School and the other schools in our school district. By increasing awareness of equitable access and sharing specific strategies of what can be done in our local community to help better achieve equitable access, the school as a whole is being improved. The thought of moving towards a 1:1 school is included in the School Improvement Plan I created and shared with the administration. The impact of this artifact can be assessed through the level of equitable access in our school and evaluating what is being done to improve this situation.
During the spring of 2015, it was asked of us to blog about various assigned topics for the ITEC 7430- Internet Tools in the Classroom course. This artifact is a blog I posted in April 2015 to my Weebly portfolio for the KSU ITEC program regarding equitable access for all students. In the blog I discussed what equitable access is, why it is an issue in schools regarding technology availability, and what it happening in my school, district, and schools around the state to try and overcome this issue that is plaguing many students and schools. My contribution for this artifact was the research behind the concept of equitable access, the composition of the post, and the publishing to my public blog on Weebly.
In this artifact I detail my experiences at Dalton Middle School where I have worked to model and promote achieving an equitable access status for all of our students through the push for 1:1 devices. By having constant access to these devices provided by the school, the students also gain access to digital tools and resources that will help them succeed in the classroom. In addition to promoting 1:1 devices, I also outline a plan in the blog to provide Internet in our community to students who do not currently have it at home. While sending home the devices would be beneficial to the students, many of the technology-related best practices used by the teachers are only accessible through the Internet. By providing access to the Internet outside of school, the students will have more opportunities and the teachers can be more confident in what they assign for students to complete outside of class.
In reading through some educational articles for this blog post, I gained a more in-depth look at the idea of poverty and why some of our students and schools struggle to get out from behind this label. Everything I read seemed to focus on getting the community involved to help achieve equitable access. This idea makes a lot of sense to me because if the students grow up with equitable access it only benefits the community because these students will then be able to use what they learned on the job and be contributing members of the community. If I were to write this artifact again I would like to take the opportunity to speak directly with members of the community to gain insight into their opinions of the idea of equitable access and see what they would be willing to do to help the students in our local schools.
This blog post, and the work that went into creating it, impacts the school improvement for Dalton Middle School and the other schools in our school district. By increasing awareness of equitable access and sharing specific strategies of what can be done in our local community to help better achieve equitable access, the school as a whole is being improved. The thought of moving towards a 1:1 school is included in the School Improvement Plan I created and shared with the administration. The impact of this artifact can be assessed through the level of equitable access in our school and evaluating what is being done to improve this situation.