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)
Reflection: In my Digital Tools for Learning course, I learned about digital divides and equitable access for all students. I was astounded to learn how many students in the state of Georgia do not have access to technology and that there is an extreme digital divide amongst various socioeconomic populations of students. After learning this, I began to examine what our school does to ensure that these divides do not exist amongst our students. During the COVID-19 pandemic, our school and district made great strides in addressing this issue for students by providing all students with Chromebooks, chargers, and Wi-Fi hotspots in parking lots to ensure that all students had the devices and resources that they needed to complete their assignments. This artifact supports standard 4.1 because my blog, “Dissecting the Digital Divide”, details how our school ensures equitable access for all students of all socioeconomic and gender classes. I also discussed many strategies I have implemented in my classes to ensure all of my students receive the same opportunities to develop twenty-first century thinking and learning skills. For example, as discussed in this blog posting, I started the first Girls Who Code charter at our school for upper grade female students to work toward closing the gender gap between male and female students. In this club, the members work through a curriculum created by Reshama Saujani, studying the history of women’s contributions in STEM fields. The members also work through coding skills utilizing various digital tools and platforms. They also create presentation videos of their projects to share on our school’s website and during monthly advisement lessons in all homerooms. They share their knowledge of the digital tools and how they learned to use them, exposing students and teachers at our school to new digital tools and resources, creating interests and possible opportunities to implement new tools into lessons and activities, possibly creating new best practices. Also, While writing this blog, I learned that digital divides are an extreme problem in education across both our state and nation. I also learned that our school district works above and beyond to bridge these divides and values all of student’s education, regardless of gender or socioeconomic status. I also developed a new appreciation for equal technological opportunities for all of my students, and going forward, I plan to make sure that equitable access is a priority in all of my classes. If I were to change anything to improve this blog post, I would further research how the COVID-19 pandemic affected other states, not just Georgia and what strategies these states have in place to address to the divide that was created during this time. I would use this information to create further steps and methodologies to consider and implement to prevent digital divides from becoming prevalent in my classes and school. By researching and creating this blog, I was able to assess steps our school and county are taking to address digital divides. I was also able to gain a deeper knowledge about student populations at our school, better preparing me to be an active participant in leadership decisions identifying digital divides amongst our students and devising strategies to ensure our students all have equitable opportunities and resources in their classrooms and are being provided premier learning opportunities through equal uses of technology. The technology skills the students both gained and refined through the implementations in my classroom and the Girls Who Code Members directly align to the technology improvement plan located within our school’s improvement plan. The impact can be assessed by the student’s products at the conclusion of the project. The impact can also be assessed by feedback from the teachers regarding the effectiveness of the tools or resources and the appropriateness of their implementations.