After exploring the resources from Common Sense and KQED, I feel digital literacy and equity are a challenging pair for most communities. We are fortunate to live in a wealthy area where the school district has provided our students with either a chromebook or an ipad, along with a hotspot, if needed. That is not always the case. Let’s just speak about equity for a moment. Equity is defined as “the quality of being fair and impartial” (Google). It also means that different people have different needs of support and help. This means that each child should be treated exactly the same, no matter of race, gender, income status, knowledge, family or age. It also should not matter where you live, but it does. Certain counties within our state do not have the “funds” to provide their students with a device, let alone a hotspot. Also, several counties within our state are rural and do not have internet accessibility. I was born and raised in the Napa Valley but for a short time I lived in Red Bluff, CA. Red Bluff is a rural town just north of a town called Arbuckle. In Arbuckle, there is a 3rd grade teacher, Alena Anberg who personally delivered wifi hotspots, laptops and ipads to students. She realized that even before CoronaVirus the lack of cell service in the area was a problem. See, she lives in a rural area, like Red Bluff. In an article titled, “Closing California’s Digital Divide: One Rural Teacher’s Fight to Get Her Students Connected” she states, “In super rural places that don’t have any kind of cell towers, they’re really without a solution” (McEvoy, Julia, KQED). Not only does the town have a lack of cell towers but their kids did not know how to use the tools once they received them. Anberg states, “My third graders are 8 year olds and they’re being held back academically by not having access” (McEvoy, Julia, KQED). Anberg has gone on to map her town of who has the internet and who doesn’t. She is on a mission to receive donations of hotspots so her school district children can have wifi in their homes in order to attend school.
In another article by KQED, titled, “From Teaching to Tech Support: Helping Oakland Students Through IT Woes”, an OUSD Chief Systems and Services Officer Preston Thomas states, “Across Oakland Unified, of nearly 25,000 students surveyed, over 19,000 don’t have access to a computer without district help” (Rancano, Vanessa, KQED). Since the spring of 2020, Oakland Unified School District has loaned out 23,000 chromebooks and 5,000 hotspot devices that have wifi. Yet, we still have a problem. Just as with Arbuckle, OUSD has high school students who now have a device but don’t know how to use it. This is not equity. Therefore equity is two-fold in these situations. On one hand, we have an equity issue of getting the devices and wifi into our students’ hands. On the other hand, we have an equity issue because our students don’t know how to use the device. So, it comes down to the school district and the classroom teachers working together. I teach third grade at Snow Elementary School in Napa, CA. As I mentioned earlier, we are fortunate to live in a wealthy district. It is a district that has provided all of our students with a device and a wifi hotspot, if necessary. However, that does not solve the problem of whether or not a student knows how to use the device. Most of my current students used an ipad in the past (typically a K-2 device). At the 3rd grade level, we introduce chromebooks into their world. As we know they are two different pieces of technology. Therefore, the district has done its part to provide the equipment and now the classroom teacher is left to teaching the digital literacy component. Boy can it be a challenge, especially at the beginning of the year. And I don’t just mean challenging for the students. You have to remember that we teachers all come with a different level of comfort and expertise of the digital world. In an article by Common Sense, titled, “Social and Cultural Literacy Resources for Classrooms: A best-of-the-best collection of resources for social justice-and equity-focused educators”, it states, “Each of us -- teachers and students alike -- enter classrooms from different perspectives and points of view. We must learn to negotiate those differences to better understand each other and our worlds, and to advocate for a better, more equitable future” (1/10/20). You can only teach what you know. Therefore, if certain teachers are not open-minded to learn new things about the world of technology then students are not receiving the benefits that other students may be receiving. This too, is not equity! I have been teaching digital literacy with an equity focus by using our adopted curriculum and embedding documents, websites, applications, and slide decks. I am teaching all of the students how to access and use these resources. We are all learning as we go. I have started small, and I am gradually branching out by adding more options for my students. Just this week, we learned about Quill. Quill is a program to help teach grammar and sentence structure. Thankfully the kids love it. In addition, I am excited to announce that I have created my first Hyperdocs lesson to introduce our upcoming Language Arts book on Adaptations. The Hyperdocs lesson includes the catorgories: Engage, Explore, Explain, Apply, Share, Reflect. I didn't care for the fact that Explore was introduced before Explain, so I switched those two areas to be Explain and then Explore. I am excited to teach this lesson in the near future. Here is my lesson that I think my students will love: docs.google.com/document/d/1XFmDyaS2nKMhfHM27MEGNxGBRQR_7V9L5S2mefO_HLY/edit?usp=sharing That is the best thing about teaching online, the students love having the devices in their homes (when most likely they wouldn’t have them without the district's help and distant learning). They also love learning new things. All of a sudden, “school work” is not “school work” anymore. They enjoy it online. They love using the app’s and they can move along at their own pace. This is also an equity issue. So many times, we move along at an accelerated pace, through our worksheets and kids get lost in the busywork. An online structure is much more tailored to the individual. I have a feeling that there will always be equity concerns in all areas of our life. What we do about those concerns makes all the difference!
4 Comments
Abie
10/12/2020 04:45:26 pm
Love the connection back to hyperdocs, definitely something I want to go back to and explore in more detail than I did. I'd also love to hear more about quill and how your students have been using it in the next couple of weeks!
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Betsy Whitt
10/13/2020 08:05:50 pm
Kimberlee thank you for sharing about the rural digital divide. We do tend to think of it as a socioeconomic issue, but the reality is that people that live in very rural areas simply do not have access like people that live in the city limits. I have a freind that lives out off of Duhig Road here in Napa and she is still trying to figure out a way to get reliable internet access with out paying thousands od dollars a years for it. We tend to just assume everybody can get wifi if they can afford it but there are some real physical obstacles even beyond the financial one. And then as you stated so clearly, once they get wifi access they still need to be taught how to effectively and safely use these tools. I feel like troubleshooting computer issues is also an important topic. What do you do if your microphone stops working? What do you do if your camera won't turn on? What if it takes toolong to load the online curriculum your teacher is using? So many things to teach, so many students, and. so few minutes to do it all. I'm glad this class is giving me a chance to talk about these equity ideas so my school and begin to focus on finding solutions.
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Kelly W
10/13/2020 09:26:20 pm
Hi KJ,
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Scott Marsden
10/26/2020 05:23:48 pm
Kimberlee,
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