Key Concept 8:
Equity
8.1 Candidates will be able to model and promote strategies for achieving equitable access to digital tools and resources.
In ET 680, I had to work in a small group with two other classmates to write a funding paper. Within this paper, we had to describe a problem within our school and propose an idea on how to fix the problem with the use of money from grants. Our problem focused on the lack of technology within the school and wanting to close the gap between the large population of special education students and the general education students. The idea of closing this gap came from discussions with my group-mates as well as a few staff members at the identified school. Through the meeting with this team we were able to develop a plan of action to implement once the funds were provided to this school. We discussed that in order for all our students to have equitable opportunities to learning resources, they would need updated technology including projectors, screens, and headsets with headphones and microphones.
Because the school we focused on in this paper had a large population of special education students, we agreed that these students would benefit from the headsets so they can engage in text-to-speech and speech-to-text tools. This would promote equitable access to digital tools for all students. This paper identifies how we would work with stakeholders in the community to resolve issues of digital inequity within our identified school.